Brno, CZ

This was, oddly, one of my first good photos of Brno Cathedral, in spite of my having had a much longer visit previously, and at this point in my second trip I had only just got off the train. Officially known as the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, it was built gradually during the 14th and 15th Centuries.

Here's another view of the Cathedral down Josefska.

And...finally, another view from Zelny Trh.

This trip is becoming a bit of a legend with my friends, even though it wasn't anything special. Basically, I chose not to stay over in Brno because I had to work the next day and I needed to get back to Prague reasonably quickly, so I figured I'd take the famous EuroNight sleeper train the "Metropol," which runs from Budapest to Berlin. This train isn't always on time, though, and in this case it was spectacularly late. In fact, it was probably the latest train I had ever had to wait for other than in the United States or Britain. The trainboard says that as of the time I took the photo it was 120 minutes late, but by the time it departed I think it was even later. Long before that, the Czechs on the platform were swearing in English. If you think about it, who wants to spend over two hours standing on a station platform in the middle of the night? What if it had been winter?

This train, which was also late, actually arrived before the Metropol, and it was also headed to Prague. I ran over to Platform 1 (I think that's the station side one in Brno), and boarded it with another person who wanted to experiment....

....then the Metropol pulled in, and we didn't pull out. In the end, we opted for the Metropol since we figured it would get priority. In the end, we were right.

I've photographed Brno Hlavni Nadrazi before, but each time that I return I try again. It's a moderately interesting neo-classical building, built in 1839, making it even older than Masarykovo Nadrazi in Prague. However, photographing it well is difficult, both because of the lack of good vantage points, and the Communist-era frontage.

This is the frontage mentioned in my previous post. The original building is interesting, the frontage, less so.

Kino Art is a small independent cinema that also has regular art exhibitions, and a decent coffeeshop. Occassionally, it also hosts film festivals.

Not far from Kino art is this Communist-era (judging from the style) apartment block. The mosaic lacks a political theme, but it also has the "Communist" look, I think. Obviously, this doesn't necessarily have to do with the artist's taste, but rather what they were allowed to do.

Here's a closer look at the mosaic.

As this plaque explains, the Berglerova Vila was built in 1863, and designed by Heinrich Perst, with the addition of a coffeehouse in 1888 under the supervision of August Prokop. However, when I visited it didn't appear to be in use. However, prior to accidentally finding it on a walk, I had never heard of this building, and know little else about it.

Here's a view of Berglerova Vila, described in the last post.

This was the "Curry Bar," however bizarre that sounds, and however un-Indian it looks (actually, I've never been to India, so maybe I'm wrong), the food is good.

Here's an exterior view of the Curry Bar.

This is Brno Tram #1028, which is a tatra K2R. All of these units are rebuilds of the earlier K2 class built between 1967 and 1983. The original K2's were articulated trams based on the T3 (in spite of the number 2 in their model number). In turn the K2R's were based on the T3R, although the T3R's, it should be noted, were also built new. Both the T3R and the K2R (via rebuilds) were built from 1995-1998, with some additional K2R's being completed in 1999. Many of the tram classes used in Brno are not used in Prague, as most of Brno's trams are articulated, whereas only some of Prague's are, particularly those built recently.

Tram #1038 is a Tatra K2T. K2T trams were built originally as basic K2's (during the original 1967-1983 production run), but were partly modernized in 1999-2000.

Tram #1086 is a K2, but I've been unable to find out if it's been modernized, other than in the automated announcements, the ticket validators, and the digital destination boards. If one goes by the boards, it looks like it could be a P or a T.