In springtime, love is carried on the breeze. Watch out for flying passion or kisses whizzing by your head. ~Terri Guillemets
May Day, May 1st, holds a special significance in the Czech Republic....the first of May traditionally marks Labour Day, a national holiday(BUT too bad its Saturday! :-(
...but more importantly, May Day is celebrated here as a symbol of Spring and Love, as most famously marked in the great Czech romantic poem, Maj(May), by Karel Hyněk Machá.
On this day couples tend to flock to Petřín Hill - a place where lovers have walked for centuries. People who seek love - or those who are lucky enough to have found it - often lay a spring flower at the statue of the 19th century poet Karel Machá, who has become a patron "saint" of lovers and whose famous love poem every Czech can recite by heart:
Late evening, on the first of May-
The twilit May-the time of love.
Meltingly called the turtledove,
Where rich and sweet pinewoods lay.
Whispered of love the mosses frail,
The flowering tree as sweetly lied,
The rose's fragrant sigh replied
To love-songs of the nightingale.
These are just the first few lines of his poem, "Maj", a poem that is based on a real story it is said. This tragic and exceptionally musical poem(as per the website), was set in the romantic landscape around a lake, which now bears Machá's name, which lays at the foot of Bězdez castle(which I hiked to last Fall) north of Prague near the small town of Doksy. The Poem and the author's statue in Petřín has become a symbol of love for Czechs and has turned a "Labour Day" into a Love Day.
...and this is why most Czechs do NOT like "our" Valentines Day, because they have their own day. ...a day with much less fanfare, no commercialism, more personal, quiet and tranquil.
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