Some time was spent in Prague as a guest of various Czech churches, Protestant and Orthodox, but most was in an Orthodox monastery in a village of eastern Moravia. Attached to the monastery is a conference centre, itself a study in contrasts.
Czech history is a story of valour and grace shining through dark times.
For centuries part of the Austrian empire, it became free after the First World War. Its time as Czechoslovakia was cut short by Nazi occupation, first partial, then complete. Its liberation was followed by the establishment of a regime which was part of the Soviet bloc for 40 years. Prague has been rediscovered by tourists with a vengeance, and now seems crowded and expensive. But an insight into the Soviet legacy came in a visit to the historic St Veit's Cathedral, part of the magnificent Hradcany complex of palaces and churches dominating the old city from across the river Vltava.