A trip to Czech Republic was in my plan for quite some time. It was something I was really looking forward to. The reason was that I've been to Czechia before and consider it a beautiful country. My hosts were promising a lot. Did they deliver? You are soon going to find out.
The trip has led us past Brno and we couldn't resist and stop there for a few minutes that turned out to be a couple of hours. If you have never been to Brno then you might ask why, otherwise you know why. Brno was a beautiful stop, but we had to move on. We had another couple of hours' drive to reach our destination which was a town in the Central Bohemian Region of Czech Republic lying on the Elbe River. We have arrived earlier than we have planned as we expected more traffic. It turned out we were stuck in traffic just once and even that was for just 10 or 15 minutes. The first impression of Kolín was great. A town of roughly 30k inhabitants was pretty quite on Sunday afternoon so we had a chance of a short sightseeing tour minus the "crowd". We walked around the centre of the town and then called it a day. We needed some rest and of course real food.
During our stay in Kolín we have experienced a lot. We have had a guided sightseeing tour around Kolín with the St. Bartholomew Cathedral, the Synagogue and the Jewish cemetery.
There used to be a pretty big Jewish community before WW2 in Kolín hence the Synagogue and the cemetery. It was surprisingly interesting as I haven't seen a Synagogue or such a big Jewish cemetery before. Another thing worth mentioning was a visit to Kutná Hora which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There we entered into the silver mine that was a challenge for someone scared of confined space. However, I passed with a merit. How did silver miners find anything in that pitch darkness still baffles me. Next we did a tour of two famous churches one of St. Barbara and one of Our Lady. Churches like these always make me feel really small and humble. I suppose this is their intention in the first place. We did visit one more thing in Kutná Hora and that was an Ossuary. I have to admit I have heard this word for the first time in my life. Nevertheless, I have seen one before, but the English word for it was new to me.
With the "strange" english word came a strange place. Find the photo in the gallery and you'll see. As Czechs are the biggest consumers of beer per person we did visit one of their shrines, sorry breweries. Yes, a small and recently renewed brewery in Kutná Hora after Heineken bought and closed the original one with its history dating back to 1573. Owners of Kutná Hora brewery or Měšťanský pivovar Kutná Hora are working hard to establish their new beer and we played our part in it with buying some bottles, taking them home and spreading a good word about it.
Much anticipated was our trip to Prague as it is supposed to be something special, Prague I mean. If you take away the humongous crowds of relentless tourists from far away countries, Prague is special for sure. One needs way more than half a day to get the sense of the Czech capital.
Prague Castle, bridges, churches, museums, old streets and river channels. Way to much for a short day. Thank god our guide was reasonable and adaptive and she skipped things for the sake of our sanity and well being. If I have to pick out a Prague pearl it would probably be small hidden street and passages leading "nowhere". I will for sure return to Prague in the near future. That is a promise to myself.
We have had one more thing to see while we were temporary living in Bohemia. It was TPCA car factory near Kutná Hora or Kolín for that matter. I haven't got any photos from inside of the factory because of the security measures in there and me not trying to produce a Toyota Aygo, Citroen C1 or Peugeot 108 at home probably. No matter what, it was insane for a man with just a little technology streak in him. To see all that robots doing their thing, to see how a car is produced from a sheet of metal was fantastic experience.
The last afternoon was free time which I used for another attempt at long exposure photography of a town's water tower. You can see the results.
If you want to plan you trip to Czech Republic try and do it on the day Czechs celebrate an anniversary of their independence. It was Friday when they celebrated their 100th anniversary and on my way back from the water tower I have witnessed a fantastic market all over the town centre and a fashion show with baby, female and male models wearing fashions worn at the time of gaining their independence.
It was just amazing. So plan your trip to Czechia for the next big anniversary, let's say for their bicentennial anniversary which is going to happen in 2118. See you there.
A word about the camera and lenses: An X-Pro2 was my camera and I have taken with me way too many things photography wise. What I used most of the time were two of my favourite travel lenses that are the Samyang 12mm and Fujinon 55-200mm. Both of the lenses performed flawlessly, even with the slight rain there were no problems. For the casual street, architectural and group photos the Samyang is just perfect. It even performs great in cathedrals and other dark places due to its wide maximum aperture of F2.0. And I used the Fuji 55-200mm for anything in the distance or if I wanted some detailed shots. It again worked great and its image stabilisation works wonders. As I have taken almost a thousand of photos I was armed with a plethora of spare batteries that saved the day a couple of times. Sometimes I have missed my Fujinon 90mm but on the other hand I am happy I didn't take it with me, as it would have been just another thing to worry about. I also had a Fujifilm 35mm F1.4 with me and if my memory serves me correctly I used it just a couple of times. In this case and my style of shooting while travelling it just doesn't come in all that handy. However, when there is a lack of light or a need of shallow depth of field, it is just indispensable.