Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: Velvia 100F

This synagogue, constructed in 1888-1893, is one of the largest in the world, third largest according to the sources I could find. Designed by architect Emmanuel Klotz after an earlier architect named Fleichmann's design was declared too big by city interests (or possibly just bigots), its combination of architectural styles and its overall quality all contribute to making it one of the most desirable ones to visit, too. Those two towers are, incidentally, 65 meters high, and unlike on the cathedral the immense dimensions of this building are obvious. In addition to religious services (there were none from 1973-1998, but now it's supposedly open for religious purposes again), the synagogue also hosts concerts and exhibitions, and not always on religious subjects, either. It's actually quite a hard subject to photograph, as I've done it several times and getting the light right is quite challenging, as you can see that even here much of it is in shadow. I was only going to be in the city a few hours, so I couldn't wait for better light, unfortunately.

This is St. Bartholomew's Cathedral in Plzen, built roughly between the years 1295-1500. It's still in good shape, and has the highest spire in the Czech Republic, at 102.3 meters. The building overall is the third tallest in the Czech Republic, and until 1981 it was the very tallest. Now the tallest, if I'm not mistaken, is the Zizkov TV tower in Prague at 213 meters, but to put things in perspective, the observation tower on the TV tower is only 100 meters off the ground.....wow. This cathedral is therefore immense, far larger than it even looks!

This is the Renaissance Town Hall of Plzen, but I shot this as a closeup in this way, or at least a crop, to get some of the artwork on it, called, misleadingly, grafitti. Don't mess with this building, a---holes. In any case, I wish the photo looked better, but the scan was horrible, I think because the exposure was too dark....yet again.

In addition to the Lichtenburgs and the Luxembourgs, another famous person associated with Lipnice is Jaroslav Hasek, who completed (or failed to complete, actually) his most famous book THE GOOD SOLDIER SVEJK, while living here. His house buried somewhere in this block, as I couldn't get a better angle on it than this. Although he died in 1923 we attended a memorial service for him on this trip hosted by several of his fans, who wore Austrian-Czech army uniforms from World War I, as Hasek was a veteran both of World War I and the Russian Civil War, fighting on the Bolshevik side. More on this later....

And...here's another shot of the Hrad Lipnice courtyard.

Here's a shot of the courtyard of Hrad Lipnice, showing the chapel.

Dating to the 13th Century, Hrad Lipnice was built by the Lords of Lichtenburg as their family residence, as was the custom for medieval lords. Indeed, few castles were built for kings or princes, as the vast majority built were residences for lords to protect themselves from peasant revolts. Machievelli wrote a whole chapter of THE PRINCE explaining this, that a professional army could lay seige to you, and the castle would be of little use except to buy time, but against a peasants revolt it would work, as castles could indeed keep enemies out, even if they couldn't get supplies in. After the Lichtenburgs, Hrad Lipnice passed through the hands of numerous other aristocratic families, but also was eventually used by at least two kings, including King John of Luxembourg, and the famous Bohemian king and Roman Emperor Charles IV (Karluv IV) of Luxembourg.

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 was a lucky accident, really. my badly-worn light meter actually gave me a more impressive shot, as the underexposure made the colors richer. On another note, the names Jizdni Mesto and Haje are almost interchangeable. I'm not sure if they're even considered legally different places. I actually took this from the outskirts of town, though, standing in a field.

Dandelions are very common in Central New York, where I'm from, but they're common in Bohemia, too. You wouldn't think it, but this was taken in Prague, in the gardens in Strahov. Prague is actually quite green in places, as I think I've illustrated in some of my other photos. Look carefully, and I think you can spot a bee or two among these flowers.

Here's a shot of some of the trees blooming in the Strahov gardens. That wall behind the trees is the Hladova Zed, or "Hunger Wall," which dates to the reign of Karluv IV.

Strahovsky Klaster (Strahov Monastery) is one of the oldest complexes of buildings in Prague, although that tower to the left is the Petrin watchtower, which is much newer, dating to 1891. The Monastery wasn't built all at once, of course, but was constructed in stages from 1140-1798, at least from I can quickly ascertain from what's online. The most famous feature is the library, which although it has a collection stretching back hundreds and hundreds of years, was built in its current form as the Philosophical Hall as recently as 1782. If I've misinterpreted my sources, or if there's more to add, please comment and do so!! Thanks. :-)