2008

The first few container flats were unloaded, but further back in the train there were plenty of containers to be seen.

Once the freight train was through, I walked further out onto the bridge to get some more photos of the city. The sun was starting to set, so I had some hopes that these shots would be at least decent. Unfortunately, they came out really grey, so I had to work on them in Gimp to get them looking halfway decent. This is my second attempt at a "realistic" edit of the first shot.

Not satisfied completely with my realistic edit of Picture 1, I decided to also post an earlier attempt where I set the contrast and saturation too high, as I think it is at least attractive.

Working on the accidental high saturation version of Picture 1, I decided to crank the saturation even more, and the result was this super saturated version, which I think resembles a painting.

Here's my edit of Picture 4, which was taken with more cloud cover, and with the camera turned more to the left. It's still unfortunately a bit grey, but with some work....

....I was able to get the sunset to come out in Gimp. In general, of course, this version is high saturation and painting-like, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily bad, I don't think.

Here was another shot that I got from the river, more of the city this time, without the reddish colors of the sunset. It's a bit grey, but much of the weather was that day, actually.

This was a late-in-the-day shot that I got of the staromestske namesti, or old town square, with the setting sun on the buildings. Many of the smaller Czech cities have names for their old town squares, though, so if anyone knows if this one has a specific name, I'll update the title and captions.

Here's yet another view of the Radnice...

.....and a better shot of the clock tower on the Cathedral.

I also took this parting shot of the Cathedral, which was one of the most complete that I got.

Then, I tried a different angle on the old town square before heading home.

Lately I've been seeing a Kodacolor variant sold in Prague called "Color Plus," but whenever I get the box open I find one of these ancient original Kodacolor cassettes, without even the VR name, so it makes me wonder if it's the real thing, or just a very basic Kodacolor cartridge without any hype. Color Plus is definitely an economy film, and isn't really "plus" anything, and it therefore wouldn't be nonsensical for Kodak to try selling something really basic right now, given that the film market is increasingly people trying to save money and/or people running around with Lomos looking for the cheapest color film possible.

The Letna beer garden (actually a misnomer, as there are several) is a well-liked hangout for most kinds of people in Prague, particularly foreigners, and so I found myself at a party of old friends there during the summer. This beer garden has a good view of most of Prague since Letna is at a pretty high elevation compared to the rest of the city, and in some ways the views are even better than on Petrin. In any case, in this photo you can clearly see both the Stefanikuv Most and the Zizkovske Televizni Vez.

If you swing your camera over to the right of the last photo, you also can get a good view of the Stare Mesto, or old town, with the male and female towers of Tynsky Chram on the left, and the clock tower of the Stare Radnice (Old Town Hall) to the right of it.

Here's a better zoomed-in shot of the Stefanikuv Most, with one of the new Skoda 14T trams on it.

This is one of the more impressive government buildings in Prague, even if it's far from the oldest. I've been having trouble getting info on it, though, as its age distracts from older buildings in the city. It's situated, as you can see, right next to the Stefanikuv Most.

In 2008, and I think in 2007 also, this very old-fashioned-looking gas balloon could be seen giving tourists a spectacular (and possibly terrifying) view of the city from that little seat underneath. Strangely, it didn't have a basket. I'm not aware of whether it will be used again this summer, but its appearance certainly adds to the retro feel of old Prague.