2011

Here's the radnice, or town hall, of Nachod. This is the "Nove Radnice," or "New Town Hall." Annoyingly, like the church I can't get much information on it beyond the fact that it's the new one, and that it's a registered historic site.

This is a generic photo taken from the old town square, but the center point is the zamek. As with the other landmarks mentioned earlier, I wouldn't mind knowing what building that is on the right, with the clock tower.

Here's a shot of the zamek that perfectly captures the gloomy weather on the day of my visit. This one is unedited.

Here's a courtyard shot of the zamek, although I don't count it as a true interior shot. The courtyard is accessible in the winter, even if the interiors of the buildings are not.

This is my favorite Nachod shot. I hope that you agree.

This was one of several shots that I took of the sunset over the Rybnik, or pond. I've been unable to find a name for this pond other than the generic one.

This was one of a series of photos that I took in Petrinske Sady in February, taking advantage of the gloomy weather for some artistic effect. The disadvantage to this, of course, is that the colors actually came out duller than I wanted them to, so this photo has had both the contrast and the saturation bumped up a bit in Gimp. I haven't tried any black and white conversions yet, other than some for friends.

Here's a high-saturation edit of the previous shot, and as with my other high-saturation edits it's meant to be artistic, rather than realistic. I might do it a third time, though, as it looks too digital to me.

I was with a group of friends on this trip and we were speculating about the origins of this building. Someone said they had heard it was a new build, even if the style is sort of Czech Baroque, with the onion domes and all. I still haven't been able to find out what it is exactly. Does anybody know?

Here's an original, more-or-less unedited shot of St. Vitus Cathedral taken through the trees in Petrinske Sady in the gloom of February.

Here's an edit of the previous shot. I'm not sure which is more realistic, but in this one it's easier to see the detail.

This is a special sneak preview of my next NRHS show, and as such it's very much excerpted and low-resolution. The final show will be a roughly 70-minute video. In any case the cameraphone shots that I took on this day aren't too impressive, and I wanted something to mark the spot in my iPernity collection. This was a steam special on the JHMD, covering the usual summer steam route to Nova Bystrice (although only fragments are on this video). In the wintertime, the steam locomotives normally don't run. This locomotive is an ex-PKP (Polish Railways) Px48 (Some sources say Lxd2, I don't know which is right) Class 0-8-0, currently numbered #T48.001 (original works number 3073, original PKP #1916), built by Fabryka Lokomotyw im.F.Dzierzynskiego Chrzanow in 1953.

This was from March 25th, making it one of the earlier mainline videos I got after New Year's Break. I don't expect this to make it into the NRHS show (I don't think), so it's ideal for iPernity. The locomotive is a Class 162 electric, with 4667 horsepower (3480Kw) and a maximum speed of 140Km/h (86 m.p.h.), although it's going far slower here.

This was the first serious video (of more than a few seconds) that I shot of the CD system after New Year's. This was on April 29th, and the weather was already improving, although overall the summer was mild until late August, when it finally started getting hot. This video includes a Class 451 "Pantograph" EMU, and a Class 130 electric locomotive working as a pusher on a freight. Class 130's used to be a little bit rare in Prague, but I've been seeing a lot of them on freight trains lately. They look like 1950's locomotives, but they were actually all built in 1977 by Skoda. They each have 2736 horsepower (2040Kw), and a maximum speed of 100Km/h, which may explain why they aren't used much on passenger trains anymore.

This is one of the fermentation vats at the Novomestsky Pivovar, a brewpub on Vodickova in Prague. Most of the brewpub is located underground in medieval cellars thought to have long been connected to brewing, although the current business only dates to 1993. These vats are unusual for places like this in that they're fully modern, as in stainless steel, while most brewpubs pride themselves on using very old fashioned methods in order to improve quality. To be fair, though, these vats are open, which is old fashioned, although they're protected behind glass.

This is the end product of the Novomestsky Pivovar, which although a brewpub literally translates to "New Town Brewery." This beer, while light (in the Czech sense), is nevertheless cloudy due to its being unfiltered. It's rich in taste as well, which is typical of its also being unpasteurized. Pasteurization of beer is more to increase shelf life than to improve food safety, so although its generally safe to drink, it isn't economical to bottle it usually, so a brewpub or brewery is usually the only place you can drink it.

Although Prague has had some human occupants for 250,000 years, and has been a city since about 880 C.E., the Nove Mesto, or New Town, only dates to the 14th Century. Nevertheless, even the New Town has layers of ruins under the streets, as you can see in this construction site on Spalena, behind Tesco's.

This was a lucky shot with my cameraphone while I was waiting for a show behind the Meet Factory, a club closely connected to the alternative sculptor David Cerny. The tram is a Tatra T6A5 built around 1996, although the number is too blurred to read.