Drunk thought from a biergarten in Austria

Central European banchan should be a thing: I don't want an entire bowl of potato salad and one of sauerkraut, but I could take 8 single-bite portions of various potato salads

#centralEurope #cuisine #travel #foodie #austria #hungary #czechia

Despite strong global demand for Japanese culture, especially in Central Europe, Japan's state-backed Cool Japan Fund has failed to invest effectively in the regions where that demand is growing fastest. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2026/06/22/japan/japan-soft-power-secret/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #commentary #japan #centraleurope #softpower #anime #manga #kendo #japaneselanguage #hungary
Is Cool Japan really the secret to soft-power success?

The part of Europe where Japanese culture is growing fastest is also where Japan has invested least.

The Japan Times

Oak forests to steppe lakes: Central Europe’s best summer destinations.

A new hottest summer is coming, as the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) forecasts.

Bored of the crowded seasides, the heat island big cities?

Visit Central Europe’s lakes, zoos and other exciting places that can unite all generations.

https://mediafaro.org/article/20260619-oak-forests-to-steppe-lakes-central-europes-best-summer-destinations?mf_channel=mastodon&action=forward

#Travel #CentralEurope #Hungary #Austria #Holidays #Slovakia

Oak forests to steppe lakes: Central Europe’s best summer destinations.

A new hottest summer is coming, as the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) forecasts. Bored of the crowded seasides, the heat island big cities? Visit Central Europe’s lakes, zoos and other …

Euronews

Prague, 2016.
My Czech classmates, the ones studying economics, told me they envied Slovakia.

The reforms of the 2000s had made it one of the fastest-growing economies in the EU, around 6% a year between 2004 and 2007.

I assumed we would overtake them.

Then it reversed. In 2025 Slovakia had the slowest growth in the Visegrad Four.

#economy #Slovakia #CzechRepublic #EU #Visegrad #CentralEurope

@alexwild The impressive flower #crabspider #Misumena #vatia is a master of visual #camouflage (#mimesis) suited to its preferred #habitats on #blossoms, particularly those of the #Asteraceae and #Apiaceae. This fascinating #species is distributed across the Holarctic and is common in #CentralEurope.
© Text: Stefan F. Wirth, June 2026

Photo
Author: Luc Viatour, 2007, licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

"I'm not sure the Irish understand the damage the recent story of their pumping economic support into Putin's war machine is doing to their reputation in Central/East Europe. The idea of Ireland standing on the side of the oppressed against imperialists is gone, probably forever."
- Phillips OBrien‬

#Irland #Ukraine #CentralEurope #EastEurope #PutinsWar #RussiaUkraineWar
Glad to see that my theses on Central Eastern European Art are discussed and appreciated in Piotr Słodkowski's book "Polish Modernism and Jewish Identity. The Art of Henryk Streng, 1924-1960". #Transculturality #Poland #EasternEurope #CentralEurope #Globalization www.bloomsbury.com/uk/polish-mo...

@zvrt The great #reedwarbler is a #migratory bird that has become rare in #CentralEurope. One notable #behavior is #infanticide committed by females of the same #species. B. Hansson et al. (1997) describe how, in this #polygamous species, #secondaryfemales destroy the eggs of primary females in the hope that the male will subsequently invest more support in there own #brood.
©this text Stefan F. Wirth

Reference

B. Hansson et al. (1997)
https://doi.org/10.1006/anbe.1996.0484

Illustration
©S.F.Wirth, AI work

The beetle #Valgus #hemipterus is a not very rare inhabitant of Southern Europe and #CentralEurope. The #specimen shown here flew onto my windowsill in #Berlin. It harbored unidentified #mites of the #Uropodina and of #Laelapidae with the latter having conspicuous strongly developed chelicerae. The Uropodinae are #phoretic and Laelapidae either phoretic or facultatively #parasitic#StefanFWirth

Please support my work,I depend on donations:
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#Photos
©S.F.Wirth