Proton International

Prague castle

With over 2000 castles and chateaux, the Czech Republic has more castles than any other country in Europe. The Prague Castle, situated in (surprise surprise) Prague, is actually the largest ancient castle in the whole world, measuring 570 m long and 128 m wide. It was originally built in the 9th century, and is currently the official office of the President of the Czech Republic.

Prague castle

Festival of Lights

Prague is home to one of the biggest light festivals of the world. This so-called 'Signal Festival' draws crowds from over the whole world to see the spectacular shows. The four day show is held annually in October and includes 3D projections on the city's iconic monuments, interactive live performances and light art galleries. This festival not only includes light shows, but also music and theater performances. The diverse offer has made sure that the Signal Festival has become the biggest cultural event in the Czech Republic, even though it has only been around for 10 years. The Festival was established for the 600th anniversary of the astronomical clock when a light video map was made of the city. Its success created the idea for the large-scale performance in the field of light art.

The (haunted) Charles Bridge

Prague is of course known for the beautiful Charles Bridge. However, this bridge also has a dark side. Local legend has it that this bridge is haunted… in the middle of the night ghosts supposedly emerge. Spooky sightings of ghosts jumping out of the river, disembodied voices whispering and status moving have been reported.
This might have something to do with the history of this bridge. The heads of execution victims, after they had been executed on the Old Town Square, were put on sticks on this bridge as a warning.
Even the building of this bridge was peculiar. Charles IV, who was deeply suspicious, reportedly built the bridge at exactly 5:31 on July the 9th 1357, so that the year, day, month, time would officially read 1357-9-7-5-31.

So be aware when visiting this beautiful bridge ;).

The word 'robot'

Nowadays, everyone knows what a robot is. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, robot means: a machine controlled by a computer and used to do work automatically. However, the word ‘robot’ is not English-based. The word robot comes from robota, which is Czech for 'serf labor' or more generally 'work' or 'labour' in Slavic languages. The word is introduced in a play called "Rossum's Universal Robots" or just ‘R.U.M.’, written by the Czech writer Karel Čapek in 1920. The story goes that the writer first wanted to use 'laboři', coming from the Latin ‘labor’, for the human-made, emotionless but efficient working people in the play, but did not want to use the word as he thought it might make his story sound 'bookish'. His younger brother Josef came up with the word ‘roboti’ for the humanoids. A decade later, the Americans adopted the word into their language, and the final pronunciation as we know it today appeared in dictionaries in the 1970s. Not only are robots impressive, but the etymology of robot is an interesting story.