Blog written by two Prague residents about life in the Czech Republic.
It’s that time of the year again. The time of flying spiders, spiders suspended in mid-air, spiders sitting in the center of their webs that are spread out from lamp post to lamp post along busy sidewalks. You need to look where you’re going if you don’t want to walk into a thick web and end up dragging a shread of it with you, screaming, cursing and flailing about.
Prague spiders have been discussed briefly in the spiders thread on our message boards.
The Vinohrady Theatre (Divadlo na Vinohradech), which is located in a magnificent Art Nouveau building on Náměstí Míru, is celebrating its 100th anniversary. You can find more information on the theatre’s website (mostly in Czech), which includes a page on its history (in English).
We went to Petřín on Sunday and as we were walking down the steps toward the Castle, we passed by a sign informing visitors that the Large Garden Tunnel (one of the underground passages beneath Petřín) was having a special open day. I thought the English translation on the sign was priceless!
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.