Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: Pardubicky Kraj

Zamek Letovice is of unknown origin, although the first written document confirming its existence dates to 1316. The current zamek was built in the late 17th Century. The building is currently unoccupied, and heavily vandalised, if the photos on the website are to be believed... http://www.letovice.eu/text/cz/zamek-letovice.aspx

Like Brandys, Brezova is another town name. The Czech Wikipedia lists 13 towns and villages with this name, so the "nad....." is important whenever you say the town's name. This is the train station in Brezova nad Svitavou, right on the Bohemian-Moravian border. I'm assuming it's in Moravia for the sake of simplicity.

This was a less blurred and distorted shot of a Pendolino passing us, but I still didn't get the number because the coupler cover was open, and this is normally where the number is.

One of the odd things about my Sony Ericsson Walkman W302 cameraphone is that when I take a shot of something passing by it quickly, not only does the subject blur, but it appears tilted diagonally, as here. I especially noticed this behaviour on the Brno trip, and I still haven't figured out exactly what causes it. This photo is of a ZSSK (Slovak Railways) Class 350 electric, which would have at one time been a CSD locomotive when the Czech Republic and Slovakia were united, along with their national railways. These locomotives were built by Skoda from 1974 until 1976, put out 4,000Kw (5,365 horsepower), and could operate (and still do) at speeds of up to 160Km/h (100 m.p.h.), meaning that they can be used on the fastest Eurocity and Intercity services in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Following on the existing theme of towns with the same name in the Czech Republic, here's Usti nad Orlici, as opposed to the better-known Usti nad Labem. This station building looks quintessentially Central European to me, perhaps even Austrian, which makes some sense given that Bohemia and Moravia used to be part of the Austrian Empire.

Here you can just see the tower of the radnice, or town hall, in Brandys nad Orlici (or at least I think that's the radnice).

There are actually several towns in the Czech Republic called Brandys. Yesterday I posted a photo of the town square in Brandys nad Labem, but this is the train station in Brandys nad Orlici, in Pardubicky Kraj.

I've increasingly been noticing PKP (Polish Railways) electric locomotives venturing into the Czech Republic lately, although I don't know very much about them. I saw this one sitting in a siding in Pardubice, an unlikely location for a foreign locomotive to be parked since few international services originate or terminate in Pardubice.

And....this was a Class 151 that I caught in one of the platforms. I didn't change trains here, though, so I had to get it from inside my own train.

This is Pardubice Hlavni Nadrazi, in Pardubice, regional capital (if that's the right word) for Pardubicky Kraj, on the border between Bohemia and Moravia.

This photo was meant to accompany a video I shot out the back of the train going something like 150-160 Km/h (90-100 m.p.h.), but unfortunately the camera malfunctioned (see my blog), so this is what I'm left with. Hopefully I'll have a chance to do another video soon.

Here's another shot of the horses coming in.

Here's another ancient-looking shot from my 2007 trip to Kladruby. We were lucky enough to be there when the horses were brought in for feeding, and one of them, really a foal, charged us seconds after I took this, with the shot regrettably not coming out. In actuality, though, all of the horses were very friendly, and the foal wanted food. He had no intention as far as I know of actually hurting anyone.

This very retro-looking photo, made more so by the spectacularly anachronistic dress of the woman in the shadow on the left, was actually taken during my travels with my UJOP class (as a student) in the summer of 2007, same as the Litomysl photos, and indeed this was the next day. The reason the photo looks so old is that I originally underexposed it (my light meter was wildly off again), and when I cleaned it up in Gimp this was the best that I could do. This complex of buildings is part of the Narodni Hrebcin, or National Stud, where race horses are bred.

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.