Today is All Souls’ Day. If you look at a Czech calendar, November 2nd will say Památka zesnulých (a remembrance of those who have passed), but everyone calls the day dušičky (little souls). People sometimes compare this old tradition to Halloween, but the two don’t have much in common. Dušičky is a quiet time in the Czech Republic. People visit the graves of family members and relatives to light candles, lay flowers and wreaths and spend a few moments. If All Souls’ Day falls on a work day, trips to the cemetery are often taken during the preceding weekend.
The flickering glow of hundreds of freshly lit candles makes the atmosphere at cemeteries during dušičky time quite beautiful. Needless to say, the weather is often cold or rainy, but it doesn’t stop people from observing the tradition.
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.
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:
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.
October has been wonderful this year. We’ve had a lot of sun and blue skies and very little rain. It has also been much warmer overall than you would expect at this time of year. You still see people walking around in short sleeves. Just two days ago, a 165-year old temperature record was broken in Prague where the temperature was measured at 20.6°C (69°F).