Me & Czech Republic

Five summers, five Christmases, and 1,304 photos from the vineyards of South Moravia, the place that slowly turned from somewhere new into somewhere I belong.

Photography · Travel · 12 min

Before I wrote this, I went back through every photo on my phone from the Czech Republic. All of them. There were blurry ones, there were fifty near-identical shots of me under the same tree, there were close-ups of moss and snails and berries that only made sense to me in that moment. Seen together, though, they tell a story I hadn't quite noticed while I was living it.

Most of that story happens in one corner of the country: **South Moravia**, the wine region between Brno, Hodonín and the Austrian border. It's a land of low rolling hills, endless vineyard rows, baroque châteaux, little painted wine cellars and villages where everyone knows everyone. Prague shows up only a couple of times. This blog is mostly about the quieter Czechia, the one you don't see on the postcards.

The summer I couldn't stop exploring

My Czech camera roll begins on 15 August 2020. More than half of all my photos are from those first two and a half weeks, which says everything about my state of mind: I wanted to see *all* of it.

The first photo is a very simple one. I'm sitting on the grass by a quiet little pond near the village where I stayed, between Kyjov and Hodonín, just looking at the water. Next to it stood an old blue railway wagon, rusting peacefully in the field. No sights, no tickets. Just a calm I hadn't felt in a long time.

Day one: a pond near the village. This is where it started.
A lone tree between the wheat fields. I took about thirty photos here. Every one of them felt necessary.

A baroque town and a colonnade on a hill

The next day I was in **Mikulov**, standing on the cobbles in front of the huge baroque façade of the Dietrichstein Tomb, then climbing up to look over a sea of orange roofs. In the evening I walked up the long gravel path to the **Reistna Colonnade** above Valtice, a triumphal arch standing alone on a hill, like something that wandered off from ancient Rome and decided to stay in Moravia.

Dietrichstein Tomb, Mikulov.
Mikulov from above: red roofs all the way to the horizon.
Under the arch of the Reistna Colonnade, Valtice.

Back to the roots of Moravia

At the open-air **Archeoskanzen Modrá** I walked through a reconstructed Great Moravian village: thatched huts dug half into the ground, palisade fences, goats wandering about, and tools from more than a thousand years ago. Just down the road is the **Basilica of Velehrad**, all white stucco and gold inside. Two very different ideas of the past, five minutes apart.

In **Znojmo** I ended up glued to a shop window packed with old cameras, folding bellows, Super 8s and dusty Soviet lenses. As someone who lives behind a lens, it felt like finding a museum built just for me.

A Great Moravian dugout at Archeoskanzen Modrá.
The golden pulpit of Velehrad Basilica.
A window full of old cameras in Znojmo. I could have stayed all day.

The best day

If I had to pick one day from all six years, it would be **20 August 2020**. I hiked the white limestone ridge of **Pálava** with a pair of binoculars around my neck, through oak forest and dry meadows full of purple asters, up to the ruins of the old castle above Pavlov. I sat inside a broken window in the brick wall with the whole of South Moravia beneath me: vineyards stitched into the hills, the red roofs of Pavlov, and the silver lakes of Nové Mlýny shining in the distance.

From the castle ruins above Pavlov: vineyards, villages and water as far as you can see.

My favourite seat in Moravia.
A brick arch, a big smile, binoculars always on.
Watching the Nové Mlýny reservoir from the slope.

Then the evening came. A Ferris wheel turning slowly above the vineyards, a lookout tower glowing orange, and finally a sunset that sank straight into the lake behind the Pálava hills. I took dozens of photos, and I'm smiling in every single one.

A Ferris wheel in the middle of wine country.
That smile wasn't for the camera.

Peacocks, hedges and a fairy-tale château

The **Milotice château** gardens became one of my favourite places: hedge tunnels you can walk through, a white gazebo at the end of a long path, and peacocks strolling around like they own the place (they do). There was even a photo board with traditional Moravian folk costumes, the *kroj*, so of course I put my face in it. My first kroj. It wouldn't be the last time I saw one.

A day later I rode a bike around **Lednice**, the neo-Gothic château that looks like it's made of lace, with its huge park, glasshouse and flower beds. I climbed onto an old tree stump by the lake and spread my arms wide. That photo is the whole summer in one picture.

The hedge tunnels of Milotice.
The real owners of Milotice.
My first kroj (cardboard edition).
Lednice. Arms open to everything.

Lednice château, the jewel of the Lednice–Valtice Area (UNESCO).

Vineyard stairs and cucumbers

In **Bzenec** I climbed the stone staircase that cuts straight up through the vineyard to the little chapel on the hill, and stayed until the sun set behind the town. Back home there was simpler happiness: grating a big bowl of fresh cucumbers in the garden, a soft-serve ice cream on a hot street in **Kyjov**, and the odd curving wooden lookout above **Kobylí**, where we parked our bikes in the grass.

The vineyard stairs in Bzenec.
Golden hour over the town.
Home life: cucumbers for the salad.
Kyjov, 30°C, one ice cream.

The curving wooden lookout near Kobylí, the last stop of that first summer.

Learning to love the grey

Moravia in winter is a different country. The vineyards turn brown and bare, the sky goes low and grey, and the wind on the hilltops cuts through any jacket. So I bought a proper one, with a fur hood, and kept walking.

I went back to **Mikulov** and up the Holy Hill. I found a giant wooden wine barrel standing in the middle of a vineyard, and a little round stone chapel all alone on a hilltop. In **Brno** I stood under an umbrella at the brick gate of **Špilberk Castle**. And one February evening the first real snow fell, and the sunset over the white fields looked like fire.

Holy Hill, Mikulov, in January.
Only in wine country: a barrel the size of a house.
A stone chapel on top of the world.
Špilberk Castle, Brno. Rain, but happy.

First snow, near home, February 2021.

From visitor to local

Somewhere in 2021 the photos change. There are fewer monuments and more *life*. A weekend in **Prague**, of course: ice cream in the old streets, the city glowing at dusk, a long dinner with white wine. But mostly the photos are of work and friends.

Prague, June 2021.
Dinner in the capital. One of the rare trips away from Moravia.

I worked in the vineyard with gloves on and dirt on my shoes. I spent long evenings in a film studio with lights, a gimbal and a cinema camera, doing what I love most. I sat at outdoor tables late into the night with a big group of new friends, made friends with a fluffy white dog at a local pub, and posed proudly next to a hand-painted sign that said **"Vítejte na Moravě"**, Welcome to Moravia. By then it already felt like it was talking to me.

Vineyard work. Moravian wine doesn't make itself.
In the studio: setting up the rig. This is my world.
Summer nights in the garden with a table full of people.
A new friend at the pub.
"Vítejte na Moravě": Welcome to Moravia.
At the fishponds near Lednice.

That Christmas I spent days in a workshop, cutting tiny floorboards, building little stairs and plastering walls for a miniature room model. Slow, patient, handmade. Very Czech, I think. People here love making things with their hands.

Christmas 2021: building a miniature room, one tiny floorboard at a time.

The year of friends

2022 is full of faces. I sat behind the wheel of a fire truck in full firefighter gear. In Czech villages the volunteer fire brigade is the heart of the community. I carried a chocolate cake with a big **"55"** on it across the garden for a birthday at home. I stood under umbrellas at a music festival in the pouring rain, and smiled for a crew photo afterwards.

And there are so many selfies with the boys: squeezed into one frame in a café, around a table in a lounge in **Hodonín**, in the sun with coffee and sunglasses. At Christmas I posed inside a giant glowing angel made of lights, and a tiny chihuahua decided my lap was his.

Firefighter for a day.
Fifty-five candles' worth of love.
Festival season, Czech weather edition.
The boys.
Christmas lights in Hodonín.
He chose me. I didn't argue.

Family, and the traditions that make it

If I'm honest, the most important photos in this whole collection aren't of castles. They're of people.

In May 2023 there was a gift basket and a bottle of Moravian wine on the coffee table, and me in the middle of it all, grinning. A few days later we celebrated the grandfather of the family with a cake shaped like a crossword puzzle, with a little figure of him sitting on top. Everyone gathered on the terrace, and I'm right there in the family photo, leaning in behind them like I've always been there.

May 2023: a celebration at home.
A crossword cake for the man who loves crosswords.
Chess on the terrace. I'm not saying who won.

A Czech Christmas, properly

December 2023 was my crash course in Czech Christmas. First a concert in Hodonín: a violinist and a folk orchestra with a cimbalom playing under paper flowers. Then the strangest and most wonderful tradition of all: buying the **Christmas carp**. Here, people buy a live carp from big tanks set up in the street before Christmas, carry it home in a bucket, and on Christmas Eve it becomes fried carp with potato salad. I stood there in my coat holding the blue bucket, and it felt like an initiation.

Then snow on 23 December, the tree lit up on the 24th, and a selfie in a snowflake sweater with grandpa, both of us laughing. On New Year's Eve the whole village came out: a crowd in hats and scarves, a medal around my neck, and roasting *špekáčky* (Czech sausages) over an open fire under a sign that said, more or less, *"For your darling, we'll grill a sausage."*

Christmas concert in Hodonín.
The carp tank. A true Czech rite of passage.
Christmas Eve with grandpa.
New Year's Eve: fire, sausages and a medal.

Fully at home

By 2024 I wasn't discovering Moravia any more. I was living in it. The year opened with a visit to a small **distillery**, where shiny copper stills turn Moravian fruit into *slivovice* and other pálenka, and we raised a glass with the distiller.

In June, on the way somewhere, we drove slowly behind a village **hody** procession, with young people in full kroj walking down the street. Then came a lavender field near Hustopeče under a dramatic sky, where I mostly tried to kick the camera.

Among the copper stills of a local distillery.
Lavender field, attempt #12 at the perfect action shot.
Purple rows, as far as you can see.

Work grew too. There were workshops in a big hall in Hodonín, with projectors and a full room. I sat next to kids in a classroom and helped them with their projects. I got an autograph at a night event in Dubňany, proudly held up a fresh certificate (look at that smile), and was handed a hand-embroidered folk blouse as a gift.

Workshop day in Hodonín.
Teaching the next generation.
A night to remember in Dubňany.
A gift with Moravian embroidery.

And July was pure summer: a wooden platform over a calm pond, chopping firewood in the garden with the old man of the house, a quick trip over the border to the thermal pools in Laa an der Thaya, a concert at a craft micro-brewery that ended with a giant group photo of new friends, and a go-kart race where I took it far too seriously.

Quiet afternoon by the pond.
Chopping wood for winter, in July. That's planning.
Thermal pools just across the Austrian border.
Concert night at the micro-brewery.
Go-karting. No comment on the lap times.
October: pumpkin season.

At Christmas 2024 the square in **Kyjov** sparkled under a giant tree, and on the church steps people in kroj and carollers performed a live nativity. A week later a freezing fog covered the fields, and every dry stalk of grass turned into white lace. I walked out into it alone and photographed the silence.

Live nativity on the church steps, Kyjov.
The Christmas tree on Kyjov's main square.

Hoarfrost, 30 December 2024.
Into the fog.

A rainbow over Strážnice

The last photos in the folder are from August 2025. A storm had just passed over **Strážnice**, and a double rainbow came down over a yellow house and the cornfields, with the hills of the White Carpathians behind. I ran outside and took nine photos of it.

It seems like the right ending, or rather the right place to pause. Because this story isn't over.

What the Czech Republic taught me

**Slow down.** Some of my best days had no plan, just a bike, a field and a sunset.
**Look closer.** Moss on a castle wall, a snail on a stone, frost on a blade of grass. I have hundreds of close-ups. Moravia made me notice small things.
**Traditions are glue.** Carp in a bucket, kroj at the hody, sausages on New Year's Eve. These rituals are how people hold each other close.
**Home is people.** The castles were beautiful. But the photos I'd save from a fire are the ones around the family table.

Czech words I live by

**Na zdraví!** — Cheers! Literally "to health". Essential in wine country.
**Vítejte na Moravě** — Welcome to Moravia.
**Kroj** — The traditional folk costume, embroidered and proud.
**Hody** — The village feast, with music, kroj and dancing.
**Špekáček** — A Czech sausage, best roasted on a stick over a fire.
**Vánoční kapr** — The Christmas carp. Yes, really.

Děkuju, Česko.

Thank you, Czech Republic, for the vineyards and the castles, but mostly for the people.

*— Ahmed Younes*