Taste the Difference – How Branded Products Vary in Quality If you bought a jar of Nutella in London and you bought the same branded jar of Nutella in Prague you would think that they would be the same right? Wrong. A topic that first raised it’s head in Czech in 2015 is in the … Read More
Prague Markets – Pay By Weight What You Need To Know In any of the Prague markets both internal or external there’ll be food stalls. People are used to things like fruit and vegetables being sold by the kilo but they don’t often associate it with food stalls. In Prague we divide these into “Fixed” … Read More
Prague Markets and Street Food to Keep you Warm You’ll see all the options below at the Prague Christmas Markets and to a lesser extent at craft markets and fixed food concession stalls during the year. Everything below is explained along with many other tips on my Prague Christmas Markets Walking Tour. Where I mention … Read More
Operation Anthropoid In October 1941 after three years of occupation the exiled Czechoslovak government in England decided that a show of strength was required. Operation Anthropoid was a World War 2 military operation with a specific assignment for two young allied paratroopers namely the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. By the end of June 1942, Heydrich … Read More
The Story of Jan Palach – Always Remembered Every January 16th thoughts will turn to an event which happened on this day in 1969. The story must begin in the January of 1968 with the election of Alexander Dubcek (pronounced “doobcheck”) as Communist Party leader. He was a reformer who set about introducing reforms and … Read More
Velvet Revolution The Path Less Travelled You’ll have read that the Velvet Revolution started on International Students Day i.e. November 17th 1989 but, it started well before that. Actually you have to go back 50 years to understand that the students were protesting on an anniversary and go back another 20 years to explain why … Read More
Vaclav Havel A Life in Brief When I came to Prague in June 1996, the Czech Republic had only been in existence for three and a half years and Vaclav Havel was still in his first term as Czech President. I was not really up on politics and central European History at that time but … Read More
Klement Gottwald, First Communist Czech President Unlike the first three Presidents Tomas Masaryk, Edvard Benes and Emil Hacha who trained as philosophers and lawyers, Klement Gottwald was considered a man of the people as his first trade was being a cabinet maker. In the first world war he had originally fought on the Austro-Hungarian side … Read More
The Czechoslovakia Velvet Divorce It’s one of those historical quirks that the Velvet Revolution was associated with a smooth transition from Communism to Democracy but not so many people heard about the Velvet Divorce. January 1st 2018 marked the 25th Anniversary of the separation of Czechoslovakia into the sovereign nation states of Slovakia and the … Read More
Tomas Masaryk – First Czech President What an amazing life this guy had and it can be divided into three very distinct parts. Firstly, his fight to raise himself from the poor land he was born into. Secondly, the development of that intellect into a political tool. Lastly, as founder of a new country. In … Read More