Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: Vysocina

This is the village centre of Nova Bystrice, which is far smaller than Jindrichuv Hradec. I tried to get better photos than this with both my Nikon and my cameraphone, but it was getting dark and I was running out of film anyway. Given the darkness, I've had to edit even this photo, as the darkness at dusk was actually worse than at night, as the streetlights hadn't been switched on yet.

This was my train, pulled by #T47.018.

When I've asked my Czech friends what a "Mestsky Urad," is, they've told me there's no such thing, but as you can see here, they're simply wrong. "Uřad" means "office" in Czech, but it means more specifically a government office or authority, such as a Financni Urad (finance or tax office), Zivnostinsky Urad (business office), Kadastralni Urad (Cadastral Office), and so on. Having visited more than one Mestsky Urad, my understanding is that these buildings are meant as support buildings to the city hall, or radnice, where additional offices can be located, including those mentioned above.

This passage leads off the town square in Jindrichuv Hradec, and eventually takes you to the zamek, or chateau or castle, if you follow the street beyond it.

This is the Zamek, or castle or chateau, of Jindrichuv Hradec. When I was there, it appeared to be undergoing a renovation. Oddly, this zamek is also classified as a hrad, the other class of Czech castle, possibly because of its age. Hrads are more combat-oriented, so they tend to be older, whereas zameks resemble chateaus or palaces, and are more administrative in nature, mostly dating from the renaissance period to the 19th Century. This zamek dates to 1220, and retains a medieval tower that you can see in the right of this picture, but was rebuilt in the 16th Century by the Lords of Hradec to roughly its present form, so this is probably the reason for the dual classification. Additional changes were made in 1678-1696 and 1709-1735, and in 1773 some of the renaissance interiors had to be rebuilt after a fire. In 1851, the zamek was restored again. Finally, it passed to full government control when it was seized following World War II, and in 1976-1993 it was restored as a tourist attraction. It is still open to the public, although as I said it was undergoing a further reconstruction when I was there. More information is available here: www.zamek-jindrichuvhradec.eu/history/

Here's another shot of the zamek. I've cropped the bottom to eliminate the mess caused by the reconstruction.

The zamek, due to its age, still has a moat, although now it's as much decorative as anything else. I'm not aware of whether it's used for something else now, but I noticed that it is as well maintained as a narrow canal.

After my walking tour of Jindrichuv Hradec, I took the JHMD to its opposite end at Nova Bystrice, over Linka 229, which is actually older than Linka 228, having been built in 1898 instead of 1906. This is the station at Nova Bystrice, which still retains its steam-era black and white CSD signage. Unlike Obratan, however, Nova Bystrice lacks a CD standard-gauge connection, so it is purely a JHMD station nowadays, and JHMD offers the only rail connection to Nova Bystrice.

I don't know very much about this church, but the clock tower is interesting. It's actually somewhat difficult to photograph because the cramped space that the church now sits in makes it hard to get back far enough. In spite of this problem, though, this photo is one of the only ones on this roll that I haven't had to edit very much.

This is a view pointing towards the passage, but from the opposite direction of the previous photo of the passage.

This is a scene of Jindricuv Hradec seen from the zamek.