In love with Czechia

In 2023 and 2024, on occasions of residing in Wisła, but not only, I have visited Czech Republic a few times year. The Poland south-western neighbour is a country to be either loved or disliked. With each next venture there, I belong more to the former group and with each next trip I see more reasons to fall in love with the country.

I am fond of the country's residents, straightforward, cheerful and laid back. As many Poles, I find their language hilarious, yet with time it gets intuitive, hence despite many false friends, I find it easy to communicate with a Czech, when each of us uses their mother tongue.

Unlike Poland, Czechia is not a flat lowland. Its landscapes and undulating and much better looked after than in Poland. While outside towns the nature beckons, in towns public and private spaces are clean and tidy.

The country can boast of infrastructure friendly to anyone. Elderly, disabled, parents with prams, cyclists, pedestrians - they all have it easy to move about in the public space, whereas motorists are none the worse off it.

Czechs are more keen to take moderate physical exercise as a pastime activity. Stats show 55% of Czechs do regularly at least one sport, in line with the EU average and 20 percentage points more than in Poland. Sadly, my compatriots are third from the bottom in the ranking of most physically active EU nations.

The friendliness of the country spurs fertility. Atheist Czech Republic, where abortion on demand is allowed, has fertility rate between 1.70 and 1.80, while in catholic Poland it recently declined to 1.16.

Czechs tend to spend more time outdoors, including eating, drinking and socialising. Prices at eateries and bars are much more affordable than in Poland. A half-litre beer or a glass of wine for less than the equivalent of 7 Polish zlotys, or a decent lunch with a beverage for less than the equivalent 40 zlotys are easy to find.

We took a trip to the southern neighbour again, for the long weekend. We both had an intense time at work, which prevented us from extending it, so we drove out of Wisła on Thursday morning and returned on Sunday.

Our first stopover was in Pustevny, some 100 kilometres from the Polish border. We hiked through the forests and had a lunch at a beautifully preserved former mountain hostel.

The next stop was a town of Roznov, with a nice market square and a viewing tower overlooking the town. From there we headed for our lodgings in Luhacovice (a sanatory resort).

The region is not as full of vineyards and cellars as the southern Moravia, but still you can find plenty of them. Here, we pass some windowless wine storage huts, on our cycling trip (75 kilometres covered on two wheels on Friday in heat reaching up to +34C).

Given the strain, the heat and distance of over 30 kilometres from our accommo- dation, we resolved to return to Luhacovice by train (our bikes hung on racks similar to those in Koleje Mazowieckie trains). Another thing I adore in Czech Republic is that the country does not leave its citizens car-dependent. Each and every village has a few buses a day running, while the train we boarded connected Luhacovice and Prague, the service runs every two hours on weekdays!

The very spa town of Luhacovice dates back to the nineteenth century and is a heritage of Austro-hungarian realms, with superbly preserved pieces of architecture erected before WW1.

On the second day we took a round trip from Bzenec which is a centre of wine-growing industry in Zlinsky kraj. A three-kilometre ascent to the winery proved rewarding.

The next trip to Czechia is quite unlikely in 2024, yet looking forward to the next voyages in 2025.

The hottest July ever in Warsaw?

Though worldwide July 2024 could have broken all records, in Warsaw, despite the prolonged heat wave, it was not the warmest since records began, just the second-warmest. Despite being more than 2 Celsius degrees warmer than 1991-2020 average, with mean temperature of +22.1C it ranked beyond July 2006 (+23.5C), but ahead of Julies in: 1994 (+22.0C), 2021 (+21.9C), 2010 (+21.9C), 2018 (+21.4C) and 2014 (+21.4C).

Some stats typical for winter timelines:
- month-time high: +35.3C on 10 July 2024,
- month-time low: +12.0C on 31 July 2024,
- the warmest day: 10 July 2024 - mean temperature of +28.0C, vs. all-time record of +29.2C set on 8 August 2015,
- the coldest day: 3 July 2024 - mean temperature of +17.2C, mere 2.5 Celsius degrees below long-term average for the entire month,
- number of days with maximum temperature above +30C: 9 (in the second half of the 20th century number of such days over an entire summer stood at 5),
- number of days with maximum temperature above +25C: 25.

The only record broken in the capital of Poland was of the highest night-time low ever. On 11 July temperature did not decline below +23.4C, vs. previous record of +22.2C set on 9 August 2015. While in Wisła, on 28 July I experienced another tropical night, with a low of +25C. Had an awfully shallow sleep then...

Frequency and duration of heat waves and accompanying violent thunderstorms clearly signals the anthropogenic global warming is accelerating. Idiots will tell you heat record for Poland was set in 1921 (behind all doubt it will be beaten within a decade). I will remind the recent cooler-than-average summer in Poland was in 1993.

Mankind's activity makes things worse, not only by dint of general CO2 emissions. The very methods of combating the heat only intensify it. Air conditioning is becoming prevalent. The reason why A/C efficiently cools air down is that it blows out warm air outside an interior. City centres full of office buildings are hotter not just because paved areas and edifices absorb heat. They also get large portion of hot air blown out by air conditioners.

If you wish to find out more about the mechanics of this viscious circle, I recommend reading an excellent article on oko.press website (no paywall).

The article mentions a solution considered by Vienna authorities to pump cooled water from Danube river into the city's heating system pipes. I lack knowledge to evaluate energy efficiency of such solution, but it impresses me as an alternative to energy-consuming A/C.

It seems solar panels are the best fix for the heat, as their output is the highest when sun shines intensely and the need for cooling interiors is the highest. Though the electricity is green (if you leave out the entire life cycle of a PV installation), air-conditioning fuelled by sun energy still pushes heat outside (meaning you are better off at the expense of those not so fortunate).

Despite being aware of negative side effects of using air-conditioning, I blissfully take shelter from the heat in the cool office (where A/C would have been turned on anyway, so my contribution to heat blow-out is marginal). To get there I ride the underground and grumble about mayor Trzaskowski not ordering air-conditioned rolling stock.

While I will withstand the heat as long as it is not deadly, I fear of my parents' (mum aged 74, dad just turned 75) health. Heatwaves will be taking some burden off pension systems. In Poland mortality seasonality so far reached its low in summers (between 6,000 and 7,000 deaths weekly) and highs in winter (around 8,000 deaths weekly). Albeit spikes caused by heat waves were visible, they did not reshape the overall picture. As summer gets hotter, this is sadly likely to change.

Air-conditiong will become prevalent in our homes in near future if we are to avoid partial withdrawal from normal functioning in summer months. In spite of being familiar with its negative side effects, I will not shun it when furnishing my next dwelling, yet will do my best to minimise the environmental impact of keeping my place cool.

Off to Wisła again on Friday. The next post in three weeks.