Travel Guidebook & Czech Movies

Hi Everybody,

For those of you coming to join us (or for those who want to learn about Slovakia and the Czech Republic in general) Kat and I found a really good tourguide last year. It's a DK Eyewitness Travel book about Czech and Slovak Republics, and it was the first time we'd seen a tourbook just for those two countries--usually, we find "Eastern Europe" where Slovakia gets two pages, and one of those pages focuses on Bratislava. But this is such a good book, we've given it as a gift to friends:

Czech & Slovak Republics (EYEWITNESS TRAVEL GUIDE)
ISBN: 0756615380
http://tinyurl.com/4mpxdx

That link will take you to Amazon.

One book I read last year that I really liked about travel is Honeymoon with My Brother: A Memoir by Franz Wisner. (ISBN 0312340842) The narrator/memoirist gets dumped at the altar (don’t read anything into that, we're already married, so no worries there) and his brother makes him take the "honeymoon" trip, to start healing and dealing with his life. They have such a great time, they keep going, all over the world. Definitely a good read.

And for those who would like to learn even more about Slovakia and the Czech republic, there are a few movies I would recommend:

Kolya (or Kolja, depending on who you ask)
http://imdb.com/title/tt0116790/
This film won the Oscar for best foreign film of 1996.

Franta Louka is a concert cellist in Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia, a confirmed bachelor and a lady's man. Having lost his place in the state orchestra, he must make ends meet by playing at funerals and painting tombstones. But he has run up a large debt, and when his friend, the grave-digger Mr. Broz, suggests a scheme for making a lot of money by marrying a Russian woman so that she can get her Czech papers, he reluctantly agrees. She takes advantage of the situation to emigrate to West Germany, to her lover; and leaves her five-year-old son with his grandmother; when the grandmother dies, Kolya must come and live with his stepfather - Louka.

It's touching and entertaining, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Highly recommended.

The second, and my current favorite for absolutely beautiful film about mid-20th century Czechoslovakia is Želary (the little hat on the Z makes a zhhh sound, like the 'g' in "rouge")

Želary
http://imdb.com/title/tt0288330/

A nurse and her surgeon-lover are part of a resistance movement in 1940s Czechoslovakia. When they are discovered, her lover flees and she must find a place to hide. A patient whose life she saved, a man from a remote mountain village where time seems to have stopped 100 years ago agrees to hide her as his wife.

For anyone who wants to know more about what rural Czechoslovakia was like, even up to the middle part of the 20th century, this is invaluable. There are still villages like Želary in both Czech and Slovak republics, but they are few and far between. Some can be seen today as UNESCO World Heritage Sites and tourist villages.

If you get a chance, please check out either movie (both are available on Netflix). And if anyone has suggestions for other Czech and/or Slovak movies, I'm all ears. (hint hint you lovely Slovaks reading this blog! Add your suggestions to the comments!)

More later,
Matthew