Prague’s Charles University is preparing a list of possible security measures for its buildings following a mass shooting at the Faculty of Arts last month that left 14 dead.

Deans of individual faculties will receive a list of measures tailored to their faculties, the rector of the university, Milena Králíčková, said on Tuesday evening.

The crisis meeting also dealt with the coordination of activities taking place as part of the ‘Month for the Faculty’ event. These activities should return academic life to the building of the Faculty of Arts on Jan Palach Square in the centre of Prague, where 14 people were shot dead by a student before Christmas.

Kralickova said the meeting also dealt with plans for the summer semester at the Faculty of Arts.

“Classes will be held in alternative premises of other faculties or other institutions that have also offered the possibility of teaching, as well as online. We have already tested that we can also take exams or give credits, all online, so those options will be there as well,” she said.

The guarantors of each degree program will inform students about how their courses will be carried out, she added. The summer semester is expected to begin as usual.

Staff also discussed the possibilities of security measures that deans could introduce at individual faculties. One possible suggested measure is card access. Some buildings that were completed in the past year already have this measure, Kralickova said.

One of the main topics, according to Otomar Slama, head of the university’s crisis staff, was the design of the commemorative procession called the Transmission of Light.

Students would carry the light from the rector’s office to the faculty building on Jan Palach Square, a building they want to embrace symbolically, according to Kralickova.

The collection of candles covering both memorial sites is yet to be organised. “We want to do it very sensitively and we expect it to take place somehow on 4 January,” Kralickova said.

With the temperatures dropping and winter approaching, public ice rinks are gradually opening around Prague for people to enjoy the Advent season.

For example, a shopping center’s roof can be an atypical place for ice skating. “Every year, we aim to bring something original to visitors so they can experience skating in new, unusual locations. That’s why we opened an ice rink on the roof of the Nový Smíchov Shopping Centre or inside the fountain in Prague’s Střížkov district. This is unique in the whole country; you won’t find any other round ice rink like this in the Czech Republic,” says Vít Bouše, the organizer of the Prague Ice Skating Rink project.

Other ice rinks around Prague also offer refreshments and accompanying programs for children and adults, creating a pleasant Christmas atmosphere.

Most public ice rinks are already open or are awaiting the first Advent weekend (Saturday, 2 December, and Sunday, 3 December), such as the Letná Ice Rink or the Smichovské nábřeží Ice Rink.

Here’s the full list:

Ice Rink at Hořejší nábřeží

Address: Smíchovská náplavka – Hořejší nábřeží
Start of operation: 2 December 2023
Admission: Free of charge

Ice Skating Rink at the Ládví Swimming Pool

Address: Štíbrova 1776/17, Prague 8
Opening: 24 November 2023
Admission: 60 CZK

Skating Rink at KD Krakov

Address: Lodžská 850/6, 181 00 Prague 8
Opening: 22 November 2023
Admission: 90 CZK

Skating Rink at Löwit’s Mill

Address: U Českých loděnic 40, Prague 8
Opening: 24 November 2023
Admission: 90 CZK

Terrace Smíchov

Address: Plzeňská 8/ OC Nový Smíchov
Opening: 11 November 2023
Admission: Adults 120 CZK, Children 60 CZK

Skating Rink in Centrum Černý Most

Address: Chlumecká 765/6, 198 19 Prague 9
Opening: 10 November 2023
Admission: Adults 120 CZK, Children under 5 Free, Family Admission 360 CZK

Metropolis on Ice

Address: Prague 5, Metropole Zličín
Opening: 16 November 2023
Admission: Adults 120 CZK, Children 60 CZK

Skating Rink Vypich

Address: Na Vypichu 1a, 169 00 Praha 6
Start of Operation: 24 November 2023
Admission: Free of charge

Ice Skating under the Žižkov Tower

Address: Mahlerovy sady, 130 00 Prague 3
Opening: 1 December 2023
Admission: Adults 150 CZK, Children under 14 100 CZK, Children under 100 cm and accompanied by an adult Free of charge

Skating Rink Letná

Address: Letenská pláň, Praha 7 – Letná
Opening: 1 December 2023
Admission: Free of charge
Free of charge:

Skating on Grébovka in Havlíčkův Sady

Address: Behind the Pavilion in the Rose Garden, Havlíčkovy sady
Opening: 1 December 2023
Admission: Adults 80 CZK, Children 0 – 6 years Free

The Museum of Senses is a one-of-a-kind experience. Located in the heart of Prague, within walking distance from Wenceslas Square, offers over 50 exhibitions that are intriguing to all generations from 3 to 90 years old! 

The idea of the museum is to awaken and play with your senses. Some of the exhibitions are illusion-based, but technology is not always required as the expertise in setting exhibitions is the main factor in providing such unique experiences.

There are exhibitions for every sense: sight, smell, hearing, balance, and touch.

Each exhibition has a different intention: stimulate or relax your senses.

The Museum of Senses can also be seen in Bucharest, Romania, and soon in Valencia, Spain. Because there are three locations, each location has special features as an omen to the home country.

The museum in Prague has one exhibition that is dedicated to sounds. A video of Golem plays on a big screen while you are required to make the sounds that animate the video. Several, non-technological features create the sounds of wind, thunder, horse hoofs, a fly buzzing, and
many more.

The idea is to not only animate the video but also to have fun. It is an interesting take on the arcade game Whack-a-mole that is exhilarating for small and large groups alike.

In the smell exhibitions, the smells are dedicated to random yet common Czech commodities such as the inside of a Škoda, Tomáš Bata shoes, and ancient Czech cedar trees.

Incorporating these infamous Czech characteristics makes the museum original and stand apart from its other locations.

 

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There are several rooms that make for amazing photo opportunities as well. The Blue-Red-Green room has lights of those colors blasted against a white wall. It turns your shadows into purple, red, blue, and green and is great lighting for photos.

Another exhibition is the Vortex spinning tunnel. This is another room great for photos with color-changing lights and mirrors on eight sides that make a thousand reflections appear.

Mirrors are one illusion this museum loves to play with. In addition to the Vortex spinning tunnel, there is a face-swap mirror illusion. With one person standing on each side of a paneled mirror, your eyes and mouth reflect, yet it’s the person on the other side’s nose, chin, and forehead that you are looking at. I have never seen a real-life face-swap before this so it was easy to enjoy and have a laugh with.

The first exhibition you will enter is a 9D VR experience with over 150 videos to play for kids and adults. After having an amazing technology experience, visitors will enter through a mirror maze —just to begin the experience with confused and heightened senses.

 

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The museum offers to host birthday parties and events alike. It has a cute gift shop with different souvenirs such as pencils you can plant that grow into plants, brain teaser games, handmade jewelry with different smells, and a kaleidoscope photo booth with fun photos of yourself that you can purchase.

The versatility of the exhibitions makes for a lovely place for a family activity, a date, or even just to take fun photos with your friends. The staff are all also incredibly kind and informative.

Next Friday, Jun 10, the Night of Churches will be taking place. In Prague alone, more than 15o sacred places will be open to the public where visitors can take guided tours and attend concerts and lectures.

It is also a unique opportunity to see otherwise inaccessible places such as crypts or church towers. When the Church Night was established in 2009, only 25 churches throughout the Czech Republic took part in it. 14 years later, 154 of them will open in Prague alone, and 1678 throughout the entire Czech Republic.

Varied program

There are two main topics of this year’s program: glass and a reminder of Jan Amos Comenius. “The UN has declared 2022, among other things, the Year of Glass, and the sacral architecture of our country provides many interesting artifacts made of glass. Whether in the form of stained glass or liturgical dishes. In the Archdiocese of Prague, we can find stained glass windows from the Gothic period to the most modern period. The second topic will be a reminder of Jan Amos Komenský, 430 years after his birth this year,” said Michal Němeček, director of the pastoral center of the Prague Archbishopric.

Like every year, this is the central point of the entire program to make available to the public otherwise closed places that normally serve as worship areas. At the same time, the individual organizers this year also offer a number of concerts of classical, organ, gospel and folk music with songs from Ukraine and Syria.

According to Němeček, many Ukrainians will also be involved. “Ukrainian songs will be heard in several places all over the country, a children’s choir will perform or there will be talk about Ukraine as a country and help for its hard-tested inhabitants,” said Němeček. “For example, in our church on Korunní we have prepared a program in which students from Kharkiv will present Ukrainian poetry,” added the parish priest Zdeněk Šorm.

The biggest attractions

The biggest news this year is that the Chapel of the Virgin Mary at Prague’s Old Town Hall will be offering individual tours with a text guide. Visitors will be able to see a projection of images and videos focusing on the description of the interior. A creative workshop will be prepared for children as well.

The Senate Chapel, where Wallenstein sat

This year, the Senate will take part in the Church Night for the first time. The press secretary of the Senate Chancellery, Lada Faldynová, informed ČTK that they will open the chapel of St. Wenceslas next Friday evening.

People will be able to see the chapel together with the historic premises of the palace from 18:00 to 22:00. Three oratories lead to the chapel with an entrance from the individual floors of the palace.

In the first oratory sat the duke and military leader of the Thirty Years’ War Albrecht of Wallenstein, in the second his wife and daughter, and in the third servants. The chapel was completed in 1623 when it was painted by the Florentine painted Baccio di Banco.

Mobile app

Unlike in previous years, the organizers will not publish printed brochures with the program. Instead, they bet on the mobile application which allows not only the ability two find a specific church, including the program, but also to choose your own route or download data to your phone. The Church Night application is now available to users of the Apple operating system.

The RunCzech annual Volkswagen Marathon in Prague is back on May 8 in full swing and brings with it a new agenda.

After two years of continuous uncertainty and anxiety, RunCzech is proud to be bringing positivity and enthusiasm back into the heart of Europe.

RunCzech founder Carlo Capalbo created the infamous Prague marathon in 1995 and its popularity has since spread worldwide. Just in 2019, RunCzech had participants coming from 131 different countries. The idea of this marathon has always been to have a world-class international marathon hosted here in the beautiful, historic city of Prague.

The international inclusiveness has brought boundless joy and pride to participants and bystanders alike.

This year especially, the message is at its strongest. Keeping in mind the last two years of bundling in quarantine and the current political uncertainty spreading throughout the world, Carlo Capalbo has decided that it is time to “reintroduce a sense of normalcy” through a set schedule of events and create an energy of excitement towards the future.

Having the assurance that the upcoming RunCzech races are scheduled and will always happen according to schedule is the most important message Carlo wants to be communicated.

The certainty of fresh air, physical activity, social interaction and freedom of spirit is the best way they can build an environment of mental and intellectual stability that has been missing in recent times. Everything from work to school to activities has, over the past two years, been unreliable in its operations.

“Offering to the entire world the certainty of a set of races on set dates not only gives the participants a reason to train and set and achieve a personal goal, but it also encourages excitement and brightness towards the future,” said Capalbo.

The heart of Carlo and the entire RunCzech team has been put into making all participants and bystanders feel a sense of community and belonging that can be filled with positive energy and conversation.

“In contribution to this subject, this year’s marathon has been turned into an entirely new sport that the world has never seen before: a Battle of the Teams. There will be six teams led by six team leaders of Czech professional athletes hailing from a variety of sports,” he adds.

There will also be four professional athletes on each team. The remaining spots are filled with everyone from veteran-marathon runners to amateur runners. Everyone is welcome and everyone has the opportunity to contribute to the success of their team.

Each team supports a specific charity, so the contributions will be going to several great causes and programs.

“Not only is the new, innovative way of running a marathon intriguing for its premiere, but it is also just another way of bringing together participants from all over the world to create a joyous, team-building community in the name of the great sport,” continues Capalbo.

The radiant inclusivity of this year’s marathon is represented by the slogan “Run for all. All for run.” Whether you will be
participating in the marathon or watching from the side, we look forward to supporting this message together!