Letter from Prague | All stories

After I left the quiet and pleasantly cold interiors of Prague Castle where I had an interview that morning, I found myself on the courtyard, already warm from the first rays of sun. The tired faces of school kids traipsing round the castle brought back memories. They were sitting on benches suffering from an obvious lack of sleep, while the tourist guide was so uninspiring that even the teacher was beginning to doze off.

This week's Letter from Prague actually comes from a bit further afield: the Chalkidiki peninsula in northern Greece to be precise. And no, I haven't resorted to reading my holiday postcards on the radio: I recently got back from the Greek holiday resort of Porto Karras, where 25 heads of state and government gathered last weekend for the EU Summit.

Recently I came across a list of the goofiest thefts in the Czech Republic. At a time when thieves siphon away millions from bank accounts without even coming close to the building it was amusing to read about "old-school" thievery and the unbelievable things that people could actually steal. Undisputedly the heaviest loot which a thief ever made off with were three steam locomotives. You think that stealing a locomotive would arouse suspicion?

There's a football theme to this Letter from Prague. I'm neither a great fan nor an expert on the game, but a story popped up this week which caught my eye. It concerns a prison football team - the only prison team in the Czech Republic.

You may know the sensation. When you get off a plane in a foreign country, first of all you notice that the air smells different. It is heavy, humid, permeated with tropical fragrances; dry and crisp from mountain winds; moist and salty from a nearby sea, or thick and pungent with fumes from low-quality petrol. Inside the airport another combination of smells welcomes you - scents of foreign air fresheners in toilets, linoleums or paints, perfume with heavier or lighter notes depending on what people prefer in that country.

I recently read a most disturbing fact: the murder rate in my home country, Ireland, has tripled in the last decade, which some have partly attributed to an increase in binge-drinking. And I thought Irish people already drank and fought a lot. To be honest the high level of street violence is one reason I am glad to be out of the place. Conversely, the fact that Prague is as safe a capital city as you could hope to find is one of the things I really appreciate about living here. It's something most foreigners, men and women, comment on. Obviously

A beautiful stretch of forest, a sublime morning mist, softly rounded hills, and here and the twists and turns and occasionally roiling water of the Vltava river - that is what awaited several of us last week on a trip to a friend's cottage in southern Bohemia. A chance to get away from the city, away from radio news and queues and streets filled with tourists and the cars and trams ringing their bells and rolling their way outside the window at all hours of the night. A chance to get away. It began with a bottle of Fernet bitter...

Thursday May 8th was a national holiday, here in the Czech Republic celebrating the 58th anniversary of the liberation from the Nazis in 1945. All supermarkets and shops were closed in my neighbourhood apart from one small grocery store that always seems to be open.

Food is one of life's pleasures. People like talking about it, they like watching it prepared on TV and more than anything they love eating it. Some people I know read cook books the way others read a novel or detective story. And one of the most passionate TV debates I ever saw was not about the war on Iraq or the monthly salaries of Czech politicians. It was an argument between a farmer and a vegetarian.

It's been warm and sunny for a few days, with spring in full swing here in this country. Last Monday was Easter Monday but Prague seemed sleepy and uninterested. On my way to wish my mother a happy Easter, I was surprised how few people seemed to care about the holiday. No, I'm not talking about Easter fairs where you can buy all sorts of things, from traditional dyed eggs called "kraslice", to items related to Easter only in the vaguest sense of the word.