Czech Republic: birds and music This tour will next run in May 2010
The Czech Republic is a delightfully rural country in which to wander in search of birds, with many flower-filled meadows and miles of attractive woodland. Cost: £TBA Single room supplement: £TBA Price includes good tickets for all operas and concerts. Maximum group size: 10 with 1 leader; 16 with 2 leaders. The second named leader will only join the tour if there are more than 10 participants. |
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Prague is arguably the most beautiful city in the world, a city which has miraculously escaped development and where every building, not just an isolated few, is photogenic. Little wonder that it was chosen as the location for the filming of Amadeus. Every May in this breathtaking setting there is a feast of music – the Prague Spring Festival – with hundreds of events at over 30 venues. In addition, the three magnificent opera houses offer a selection of the world’s greatest operas in the most sumptuous settings imaginable. We’ll combine the wonders of Prague with three other delightful areas in the Czech Republic. Two of these are in Bohemia: Trebon – a beautiful walled town of pastel-coloured baroque houses lost in a countryside of large lakes, oakwoods, and buttercup meadows – and the Sumava mountains and primeval forest, a border area which was closed for forty years to all but wildlife. Our third out-of-Prague location is Lednice in Moravia, an area still possessing twelve old castles (one of them will be our home for three nights), miles of unspoilt parkland, impressive monuments and bird reserves. In these areas we’ll be entertained by pipes, pianos and folk ensembles rather than grand opera, but hopefully the most memorable music to our ears will be the calls and songs of Pygmy and Tengmalm’s Owls, Common Rosefinch, Nightingale, Golden Oriole, and River and Marsh Warblers.
Day 2: The Trebon basin is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and an internationally important wetland of 500 ancient fishponds with an interconnecting network of canals and avenues of old oaks. Our pre-breakfast walk here should provide us with White Stork, Syrian, Grey-headed and Middle Spotted Woodpeckers and Icterine Warbler – plus a range of associated wildlife from Roe Deer to Camberwell Beauty. After breakfast we’ll walk around two of the best lakes to look for grebes, ducks, waders, crakes, Bluethroat, Penduline Tit, and River and Savi’s Warblers. In the afternoon we’ll drive to a series of sites for Black Kite, Black Stork, and various woodpeckers. In the evening we’ll enjoy a private concert, if possible in the castle, by the Pipers of Trebon, whose very varied programme will include Czech and European gothic, renaissance and baroque music; South Bohemian folk songs; pop-evergreens and jazz standards. Night in Trebon. Day 3: After more birding around Trebon, where we can encounter anything from Red-crested Pochard and White-tailed Eagle to Eurasian Eagle-Owl and and Black Woodpecker we’ll drive to the amazing fairy-tale town and castle of Cesky Krumlov, a place that settled down to sleep somewhere around the Renaissance and then forgot to wake up. Here we’ll enjoy a specially-commissioned piano recital by Vlastimil and Vera Lejsek. This will include Dvorák’s ‘From Sumava’ Suite (op. 68, also known as ‘From the Bohemian Forest’) – pieces he composed while walking in the very areas awaiting us. Night near Volary. Day 4: The whole day will be spent birding in the Sumava mountains and primeval forest, undisturbed for forty years. Specialities include Black Grouse and Corncrake, while other highlights in previous years have included Lesser Spotted Eagle, Ural Owl, Three-toed Woodpecker, and Common Rosefinch. Night near Volary.
Day 5: We’ll continue birding locally where Hazel Grouse, Red-breasted Flycatcher, Firecrest, and Crested Tit, are all possible, before heading for Prague and a change of emphasis, with orchestral concerts, ballet, or grand opera the order of the day (or rather, evening – today being no exception). Night by the beautiful and bird-rich Pruhonice Park near Prague. Day 6: There will be time for pre-breakfast birding in Pruhonice Park, but to experience fully the wonders of Prague we’ll spend most of the day on a private guided tour of the city, leaving time in the afternoon for rest and refreshment before we go to another of the three stunningly elegant opera houses. Night in Pruhonice, Prague. Day 7: In the morning there will be more birding or more sightseeing and some free time, before maybe an afternoon concert in the Klementinum Palace or at the House of the Stone Bell (possibly with works by Mozart, Vivaldi, Purcell, Dvorák and Janácek) and another breathtaking evening at the opera or in the concert hall. Night in Pruhonice, Prague. Day 8: After more pre-breakfast birding in Pruhonice Park, we’ll set off for the spectacularly photogenic town of Telc where we’ll have lunch. We’ll then continue on to Brno where we’ll have a private visit to Janácek’s home (and, if they are in the country, a recital by the Janácek Quartet in the very room where he composed his greatest works) before continuing to our hotel near Lednice, where we should awake to the songs of Golden Orioles and Nightingales. Day 9: Lednické Rybnicky is an area of large fishponds in an extensive castle park with many old trees. A walk here should produce a range of birds from Wryneck and Black Woodpecker to Great Reed Warbler. We’ll probably picnic at the nearby Pastvisko reserve, where in past years we have seen Little Bittern, Honey-Buzzard, Penduline Tit, and Grasshopper Warbler, before looking for Bee-eater, Barred Warbler, and Corn Bunting at Pouzdrany or maybe even Hoopoe in the Milovice Forest. Night near Lednice. Day 10: The celebrated Ride of the Kings at Vlcnov takes place every year on the last Sunday in May. A feast for the eye and for the ear alike, this living folk tradition includes children in national costume, gaily decorated horses, and numerous folk ensembles. In the evening we’ll enjoy a meal and wine-tasting in the atmospheric Mikulov cellars to the exciting sounds of authentic Czech folk music from a group which we have commissioned for several years now, including wonderful cymbalon playing and a quite brilliant violinist. Night near Lednice. Day 11: After a final morning of birdwatching – hopefully in the Soutok flood plain looking at Red Kite, Saker, and Imperial Eagle – and a picnic lunch in Southern Moravia, we’ll cross the border and return to Vienna airport, where we’ll catch a flight back to London.
E-mail or phone +44 (0)1767 262522 for availability.
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Photos by Patty Briggs, Bryan Bland and Allan Kotin and Killian Mullarney
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Some 500 mediaeval fishponds offer unlimited opportunities for relaxed birding. 
