Czech Jottings

Austro-Hungarian Apartment Block in Central Brno

So I've been here for a week now in the Czech Republic, and it is high time I updated this blog.

The weather has been bakingly hot here, as I believe it has been in the UK. So I now have a thoroughgoing suntan to go along with the great time that I've had here. In the last seven days, from my base in Brno, I've been to Prague and Ostrava, the little town of Moravsky Krumlov, as well as to the excellent Tatra Museum in Koprivnice.


Ancient Skoda 1000 in Ostrava

In contrast to Estonia, the Czech Republic is still an absolute goldmine for fans of old COMECON cars. The much derided Skoda Estelle, for sale at rock bottom prices in the UK in the 1980s, can still be seen here in great numbers- the trusty old Estelle is the third most driven car in the Czech Republic, behind the newer Fabia and Octavia. Some of them are still in pretty good nick, so they can't possibly have been as bad as the music hall jokes of the 80s suggested. How many of the supposedly "better" 1980s Escorts, Cortinas and Cavaliers does one still see on the UK's roads today?


Very tatty Wartburg "Tourist" with ludicrous seat covers, in Prague

There are also plenty of "plastic darts" and a smaller number of Wartburgs in evidence. UK ex-pats that I've met suggest that there are increasingly fewer numbers of them here compared with ten years ago, but there must be around 250-500 still on the road here in this medium sized city. On my way in here today, I was startled as a Trabi, coloured the same as a 1970s olive bathroom suite, hurtled past me down a steep hill, pop-popping away as the driver freewheeled in fourth gear.

The darts I've seen have been in varied condition. One or two are "pimped" with nonsensical tiger stripe seat covers, and go-faster spoilers and alloy wheels. Others have had a hard life, evidently, and are looking very tatty and run-down.


Prague Trabi in very decent nick

Casual visitors to this site may be thinking "What a sad bastard, goes on holiday and spends his time taking photos of clapped out old motors" Far from it!


Archaic sundial outside the Alphonse Mucha Museum in Moravsky Krumlov

In the few days that I've been here I have managed to get to to the tremendous National Gallery in Prague, five floors of Czech art and a tremendous representation of modernist painting and sculpture from Austria, Germany and France. On Saturday last, I went to Ostrava, an interesting old industrial city in Czech Silesia, which these days functions in part as a kind of Central European Ibiza. Saturday evening was spent in a Pilsner-Urquell haze, on Stodolni Street, the still point at the centre of the Silesian bacchanal vortex. We ended up in a nightclub stuffed with Czech supermodels and featuring a revolving dancefloor, which alas was experiencing a "Trabant moment" and was out of commission. The music, a kind of bass-y rumbling with eurodisco and techno mixed in, was absolutely great. The supermodels? Nice, too, but I only looked.

The night before had been spent in an excellent club night in Brno featuring the magnificent French hard techno duo dDamage, sort of like a speeded up Underworld on crack, and jumping around to Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division next door.


Poor "Edge" struggling with a brutal time-traveller in Koprivnice

On Saturday, en route to Ostrava, "the Edge" and I stopped off amidst the strictly Communist-era towerblocks and heavy industry of Koprivnice. I'm not usually one for car museums, and the Edge was in even less good shape, trailing smoke and flames after too many Starobrnos and a vat of red wine at the aforementioned Brno club night.

However, this was a fascinating place. The Tatra must be simultaneously one of the most beautiful and weird cars ever produced. The iconic Tatra 603 is a strange visual cross between a 1950s imagining of a spaceship, an old fashioned dodgem deluxe, and a shapely wedge of pungent Czech cheese.


Tatra 603 racer....


...and 603 saloon prototype

Apparently driving one is like piloting an ocean liner. Amongst the cars on show was a 1951 Tatraplan convertible made for Stalin's 70th birthday (the paranoid dictator never travelled in it) and a quite absurd snowmobile on skis, powered by a giant pusher-propellor. If you ever make it over here you should definitely pay a visit. I'd love to own a Tatra one day, and I know of one other member of the UK Trabi club who is a Tatra fanatic, but they do seem to be becoming increasingly rare, alas. I didn't see any of these strange four-wheeled biomorphic sculptures on the road in the Czech republic- only in this museum.


Tatra snowplough: a passenger carrying duckbilled platypus

The only slight disappointment overall has been Prague. Undoubtedly the Czech capital is a beautiful place, but even in midweek, after the easter weekend, it was absolutely choked with tourists, and the city centre has turned into a giant globalised tourist orientated theme park. Maybe the majority do want to be able to visit Marks & Sparks or Tesco eveywhere from Kirkcaldy to Kuala Lumpur, but it was kind of sad to see these giant British stores in prominent positions in a foreign capital. That's only Prague though. Places such as Brno and Ostrava have much more of a Czech feel to them. What is interesting is that every Czech town still has strong architectural echoes of it's history as part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Beautiful apartment blocks and public buildings from that era are everywhere, many still with the Hapsburg double headed eagle visible on them.


Ghostly Hapsburg Monarchy eagle, opposite Charles Bridge

So, things have gone well here; tomorrow marks a long train journey to Berlin, the third stage of my Grand European tour. But, I'll definitely be back to the Czech Republic in the future, it's been really great. I'm also planning a visit to neighbouring Slovakia later in the summer, to see Bratislava and maybe have more luck with a sighting of the Lesser Spotted Tatra.


Sculpture on Prague's Charles Bridge, over the River Voltava, with
Hradcany Castle in the distance

Trabant