Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: old

Someone sharper on the history of art (or the history of this building, which is now occupied by the Alchemist Bar, on the corner of Na Mustku and Provaznicka), would know the century of this ceiling. I'm guessing it's pre-18th Century, probably pre-17th Century, but beyond that I'm just guessing. I was happy to see that it was preserved, though, even in a chain restaurant like Costa Coffee. This is actually on the 1st (or in American terms, the 2nd) floor, although Costa Coffee used both floors. Today, the ground floor is used by the Twenty4Seven Wine & Food Store, one of many similar businesses that emerged in the wake of Covid-19, and the partial rollback of tourist-oriented businesses in the older neighborhoods of Prague.

This appears to be the "Old Post Office," although it looks much newer due to a 2007 restoration as retail space by Stenham Property. The original building dates to 1845-1847, having been designed by Alexis de Chateauneuf (1799-1853), who also designed the Berliner Bahnhof railway station, which in spite of its name was in Hamburg, serving in two incarnations from 1844 until 1903 (I have been unable to find a demolition date for the second station). However, de Chateauneuf only designed the first station, which was used from 1844 to 1857.

This was the only photo that I took on the way to Zurich, as far as I know, as we were leaving Chur. There seems to be a train made up of various mismatched heritage equipment on the other side of the platform. Unfortunately, I don't know very much about it.

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 the Hasicsky Dum, or literally the firehouse, or old firehouse, as it's now an art gallery.

When I did my second walking tour of Stara Linka 011, I decided to go as far as hikers are currently allowed (the line isn't fully converted yet, I found out). I took some photos, and did a video (I can't decide whether to post it yet), but some of my most interesting shots were of buildings. I shot this one because of the old Redua Cokolada (Chocolate) ad. I've never seen Redua in stores, so I'm assuming the company is out of business. In addition, because the Communists placed substantial restrictions on advertising (with many exceptions like Skoda, Bata, and so on), I was wondering if the company predated 1948.

These were blocks of flats on the final curve as Stara Linka 011 heads into Hlavni Nadrazi. The yellowish coloring is from the setting sunlight.

This is a highly-unusual shot (for me) that I took in Brandys nad Labem, a town so close to Prague that you can get there in a few minutes by bus from Cerny Most.

This is another heavily-edited shot, that I've marked as such. The original wasn't particularly well exposed, since getting an ideal balance was very difficult. I've brightened it, raised the contrast, and raised the saturation in Gimp. In any case, notice the crescent moon by the tower of the Stare Radnice? That's what I was trying to get.

This was another thing that I forgot to upload earlier, of what looks like a substation of sorts, or maybe it's too small to qualify as such. I'm not an electrician. The tower on the left is what until recently always served the purpose of converting and distributing power in a rural community or neighborhood, but this was the first time I saw one taken out of use and replaced by the simpler-looking arrangement on the right. It's not as pretty, though.

I think that compositionally, even though you can see that this pump is wet and functioning, this shot is more pleasing to the eye.

This shot also works quite well in black and white, so I converted it even though it's a cheesy third-rate cameraphone image.

Handpumps like this, dating to the days before central plumbing in all buildings, often still work, as you can see from the wetness on this one. These can be found everywhere in the city centre of Prague, and recommending any particular neighborhood wouldn't make sense, as there are a few of them almost everywhere.

Folk crafts of various kinds can be found in many city centres in the Czech Republic, and even Prague is no exception. This was a blacksmith, most visibly making swords, but also making a full range of other iron souvenirs.

In addition to the reasonably modern factory on the premises for making goat cheese, the farm also had this small exhibit of the tools used to make butter and cheese in the pre-industrial era.

Here's a rear shot of the historic tram, showing the trailer car, a feature that modern Prague trams don't have.

This was another lucky spotting of historic tram #349, which looked to be running a charter on this particular day, rather than service #91.

This is the builder plate of the old Russian Metro train. While the Krylice may be hard to read if you don't know Russian, note that the date of construction was 1976, meaning that while this train is much older than what's running now, it wouldn't have been one of the original ones from 1974.