I hear that the ski season began in the Krkonoše Mountains today. It has been snowing there for a few days and there is now enough snow to allow skiing. Winter is starting early this year. Who knows, maybe the ski resorts are going to make up for last year’s terrible ski season.
I think it is safe to say that mushroom picking is a Czech national leisure activity. The mushroom season usually lasts from June/July through October. Last year’s harvests were especially generous thanks to the rains and cool temperatures. On our weekend trips from Prague, we would see people returning from forests with baskets full of gorgeous suchohřiby, křemenáče, bedly and other mouthwatering varieties. As we sat in our train compartment, we went by people’s yards and caught glimpses of piles of fresh mushrooms being cleaned in preparation for dinner or to be sliced up and dried. From the bus windows, we watched rows of colorful holubinky line the road.
We haven’t been taking very many trips this summer but I hear that this is another good year for mushrooming. Even rare kinds of mushrooms, ones that can be seen just a few times in a lifetime, can supposedly be found in the Vysočina (Bohemian-Moravian Highlands) region where the weather has been just right.
When we were in Italy last fall, we marvelled at the abundance of fresh forest mushrooms that were sold at outdoor produce markets. I was jealous and wondered why forest mushrooms aren’t sold anywhere in the Czech Republic, a country that is so devoted to mushrooming. Is it because people are expected to pick their own mushrooms?
There’s a good article on mushrooming on the Radio Praha website.
The skiing season officially started on December 30 at one of the most popular Czech skiing resorts, Špindlerův Mlýn in the Krkonoše Mountains. The season started very late this year due to the warm temperatures and almost no snowfall before the end of December. Some new snow fell after Christmas when temperatures finally dropped below zero, which also enabled the resort to cover the slopes with artificial snow.
Many other Czech skiing resorts are still closed or are open only partially. The skiing season in Czech mountains typically starts around the end of November.
More on the topic:
Prague Post: A white Christmas just a dream?
If you’ve ever taken a hike or even just an out-of-town walk to a particular sight in the Czech Republic, chances are you found yourself on a marked trail. You probably know what the markers look like. Two short horizontal white strips with a strip of color in between. In nature, the markers are usually painted on trees. If they are needed in a town, you’ll find them on whatever surface works - walls, fence posts, etc.
It is easy to run into these markers in the Czech Republic. They are used on tens of thousands of kilometers of trails that form a dense network, which not only makes the Czech Republic a hiking heaven, but a world trail marking superpower.
The very first trail marker appeared 117 years ago, on May 11, 1889. It was a red marker that marked the trail through the Štěchovice Valley to St. John’s Rapids on the Vltava River. This was then a major hiking route through one of the most beautiful natural areas in the country. A part of Smetana’s symphonic poem Vltava is devoted to St. John’s Rapids. Neither the marker nor the rapids exist today. They both disappeared under the Štěchovice Dam that was built during the Second World War.
Unlike trail marking systems in other countries, the Czech system was unified from the very beginning and hasn’t really changed since. Only red markers were used at first (red and white were the colors of the Czech flag at that time) but three more colors were added soon after. The use of the colors is not random but follows clear rules, each color signifying a different trail level:
Red - long distance and summit trails; you can pretty much walk through the whole country following the red markers
Blue - significant trails
Green - local trails
Yellow - short or connecting trails, shortcuts
Jít po červené/žluté, etc. means “to follow the red/yellow marker”, literally “to walk the red/yellow trail”.
By 1938, Czechoslovakia had the longest and best trail marking system in the world with 40,000 km of marked trails. Today’s 39,742 km no longer constitute the longest marked trail network, but it is still the densest in the world. All trails are perfectly inconnected and the clear and frequent markers enable a hiker to hike without the need of a map. And when a marker starts rubbing off or gets damaged, it is simply painted over with a hand brush and looks like new in a matter of minutes.
The simplicity, clarity and ease of maintenance of the Czech trail marking system has inspired other countries. “Czech markers” are now used in Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary and some trails are marked with them in Romania and Croatia. The Canary Islands are considering switching to the Czech trail marking system as well.
Happy hiking!
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Magazín Víkend that was aired on TV Nova on October 30, 2006 was used as a source.
The World Cup in footbal (soccer) is underway. The home team Germany won the opening match yesterday against Costa Rica 4-2. The Czech Republic has their first match on Monday against the United States. In the Czech Republic, it is showing on ČT2 in the U.S. it is on ESPN2.
It seems like all the pubs and bars in Prague will be showing the games. Some of them have had their signs out for weeks, inviting people to come and watch on their large screen TVs.
Of course, the offical FIFA World Cup website run by Yahoo! is a good source of information.
If you can read Czech, here are a couple sites to stay on top of the excitement:
ČTK - Sportovní noviny
Česká Televize - ms fotbal ‘06
