Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: Litomysl

Even the more recent buildings in the Czech Republic can look spectacularly, exotically, dated. This supermarket may be less than 100 years old, maybe even less than 50 (I don't know the exact date), but the idea of such a building being built today is completely inconcievable.

Here's a larger view looking away from the Smetana statue, although I'm unaware if this whole square is counted as Smetanovo Namesti. That building with the tower is the Radnice, or town hall. The spectacular cloud formation is partly an accident resulting from the heavy editing I had to do in Gimp to compensate for the terrible scan.

This is a related building to Statni Zamek Litomysl, only this one is adjacent the garden.

A major feature of Statni Zamek Litomysl, as shown ealier, is its sgrafitti art, sometimes called grafitti in spite of its negative modern connotation. This is a shot taken of the courtyard.

The original Zamek, or chateau (also classified as a castle by Czechs) in Litomysl is thought to have dated back to 981 A.D., but this one was built starting in 1581, with a theatre added in 1775.

This was a side street in Litomysl which I found while walking around looking for lunch.

This building was at the end of the street with the patterned wall, if that's a clue for the identity of either. At the moment I'm still tracking down the info.

This was a pattern I found on a wall on a walking tour of Litomysl. I originally thought that it was on a side street, but more careful examination of the othe other photos I shot reveals it to be part of the chateau, Statni Zamek Litomysl.

Here's another shot of the colorful buildings of Litomysl.

I really liked the colors of the different buildings in Litomysl, or at least I found them to be a noticable part of my visit there. With the fall of communism in 1989, Czechs got back to their old habits of painting their buildings in various pastel colors, and in many cases even the communist-era buildings have been renovated and modernized in this style.

Here's another shot of Smetanovo Namesti. I took this for no particular reason but that I really liked the light and the shadows.

Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884) is probably the best known of all Czech composers, unless you count Mozart, who was Austrian-born, but lived in what is now Bohemia and Moravia for a number of years, most notably in Prague and Olomouc, respectively. In any event, Litomysl is known as the birthplace of Smetana, and this square is named Smetanovo Namesti in his honor, complete with an appropriate statue.