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We've just arrived, with about 25 fellow passengers, by coach from Plzeň in the Czech Republic, and we are now in the tiny German village of Friedrichshäng. It lies just on the Czech border, deep in the Bavarian Forest – or Bayerischer Wald – with Český les forest on the Czech side. We’re going to an annual event organised by locals as well as the Centrum Bavaria Bohemia, which is based in a town called Schönsee just a couple of kilometres west of here. The transportation is provided by the Centre as part of its “Cesta za kulturou” programme, or

Kramářova vila is the official residence of the Czech prime minister, currently Bohuslav Sobotka. I’m at a reception at the villa in honour of Miroslav Kusý, one of the few Slovak signatories of Charter 77. He is receiving the Karel Kramář Award from the prime minister for his contributions towards Czech and Slovak understanding. The event is attended by several notable figures, including historians, fellow Charter 77 signatories such as Vilém Prečan and Senator Petr Pithart, and the Slovak ambassador Peter Weiss.

In 2015 the government launched a two year project to help fight hate crime directed against Romanies and other minorities in the Czech Republic. With the migrant crisis, the project acquired a broader scope and greater urgency. In Iustitia, an NGO that helps victims of hate crime was involved in the undertaking. I spoke to its founder, lawyer Klára Kalibová, to find out more.

The Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs is located in the majestic Baroque Černín Palace just above Prague Castle. The majestic building, as well as the nearby Loreta Church, plays a major part in a recently published novel titled “Chvála oportunismu” or “In praise of opportunism”. Its author, Czech diplomat Marek Toman, a guest in Radio Prague’s Czech Books programme earlier this year, works at the ministry and knows the building inside out. I began by asking him how he came up with the idea to make the actual palace the narrator of his latest

The arrest of two young Czechs who have been charged with terrorist activities in Turkey has shocked the nation. Marketa Všelichová (24) and Miroslav Farkas (30) were detained by the Turkish authorities earlier this month and have been charged with gun-running and membership in the Kurdish Peoples Protection Unit YPG which the Turkish authorities consider a terrorist organization. To find out more about the couple’s activities in Syria and why they tried to cross the Turkish border I spoke to one of their friends in the Czech Republic Janusz Konieczny.

In the world of advanced information technology there are still remnants of an era when all human knowledge was painstakingly collected in libraries that reflected the social status of their owners. Deep in the bowels of Kinski Palace, on Prague’s Old Town Square, the Kinski family library is preserved as it served the family for generations. Its administrator for the National Museum Richard Sipek took me around one of the two remaining palace libraries in the city.

The Czech branch of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has just marked its tenth anniversary. Today it has a team of 125 doctors, nurses and logistics experts active in crisis regions the world over. To find out more about what they do, the challenges they face and their role in the migrant crisis I spoke to the head of the Czech branch Pavel Gruber and Nurse Jitka Kosíková, who is just back from an MSF search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean.

Every October 28th, marking the founding of the former Czechoslovakia, the president presents state honours to chosen recipients which recognise their life’s work, sacrifice and outstanding contribution. Awards range from the country’s highest honours – the Order of the White Lion or the Order of T.G. Masaryk – to Medals of Merit.

The history of Nový Bor in North Bohemia- is indelibly linked with the art of glass-making. The tradition of glass making in the region goes back more than seven hundred years. Thanks to abundant stocks of wood –used as both fuel and raw material -and crushed quartz used in the melting of glass, the region provided ideal conditions for the craft. Glassworks in different areas date back to medieval times and have been traced due to various archaeological finds –such as small pieces of melted glass and fragments of moulds -in places where old glassworks

A team of explorers recently found the world’s deepest underwater cave located in the eastern part of the Czech Republic. A Czech-Polish expedition, led by the legendary Polish diver Krzysztof Starnawski, descended deep into the flooded limestone cave called Hranice Abyss and found it to be far deeper than previously thought. According to their measurements, the cave is 404 meters deep, 12 meters deeper than the previous record holder, 392-meter-deep Pozzo del Merro in Italy.