HDR Photography
The city streets of Prague’s Old Town may be fairly narrow, but a Mini still looks small. Perhaps the enormous-looking man behind the wheel adds to the effect. Whatever the case, the connection to the original Italian Job makes me happy any time I see a Mini in a European city.
So many of our days in Prague were gray and overcast; the rooftops were the main source of color.
On the second-to-last day of our week, however, blue skies and sunshine finally revealed a city of far more vibrant hues.
St. Vitus Cathedral is at the heart of Prague Castle and just as grand as words like “cathedral” and “castle” imply.
Inside was thoroughly saturated with visitors.
By comparison, much of the rest of the castle seemed empty. Given that this was the winter “refresh and repair” season, we weren’t surprised.
Strolling down the stairs from Prague Castle at dinner time sure feels a lot easier than making the reverse trip earlier in the day.
Prague Castle stretches the length of a long, narrow hilltop above the city that has (archaeology shows) has basically been a fortress since prehistoric times.
We were visiting Prague in the off-season—that’s what we heard from every cab driver and waiter. Though gentle spring breezes had been replaced with nascent winter gusts, there were numerous benefits; the relative sparsity of fellow tourists in Old Town made for easy access to the city’s sights. Two of the subtler benefits are captured in this image: (1) the bare branches opened new views of the skyline, and (2) the Smetana hotel (just across the river) where we stayed had a spectacular room overlooking the Vltava open for us.
Visiting Prague’s Jewish Quarter reveals a sobering history of limitations placed upon its residents.
The graves and their stones rise high above the pathways; no additional cemetery space was available, so generations of graves stacked upon each other slowly raised the ground level above its surroundings.
With the trees free of leaves, the orderly arrays of lights along Petřín reveal its nature as a lovely park space in the city.
I associate the Bohemian architecture of Prague so closely with spy movies that I immediately imagine an agent rappelling down the side of every facade I photographed.
The Vltava River turns every cityscape of Prague Castle into a dramatic set of reflections.
Looking onto the scene from the Charles Bridge, those reflections seem to be all around.
In Prague’s Old Town, streets weave together with buildings in a pattern that looks a bit like a malcoded simulation.
Crisp late autumn nights are the perfect time to sit between a warm heater and a cold canal for some early supper.
The hilltop above Prague, now the site of Prague Castle, has been continuously inhabited since prehistoric times. Events of enormous historic importance (like the Defenestrations of Prague) happened via windows looking out on a very similar view.
After we spent an entire day exploring Prague Castle, strolling gently down the sunset-lit cobblestone streets to dinner felt exceptionally satisfying.
Every driver told us that this was the “off season” and that winter was when the infrastructure of Prague was repaired before the next summer. I can’t imagine the traffic in May…
Decaseconds 