Pilsen in morning light

Pilsen with its about 170 thousand inhabitants is the fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic and it is mostly known for Pilsner beer and former Škoda works. In Czech, the city is called Plzeň. I was born there, grew up there and have been watching its transformation throughout the years. Times, they are changing… and the city has changed as well, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

The other day my hubby and I went to Pilsen to try and take a few interesting photos. We went in the morning to catch some early light and were lucky to get it. We also got a surprise but about that later.

Here are some of the scenes that I captured in my photos, all of them were taken in or near by the centre of the city:

The synagogue is a beautiful building. I don’t know how it looks inside these days but it was restored wonderfully from the outside. I captured it first plainly from the front, that was that obvious shot, but then we moved further and when I looked back, I saw a perspective that caught my attention and that you can see in the photo above. The wall on the left belongs to a theatre.

“Dragons & Peonies – Chinese textile of the Čching dynasty”, that was the title of the exhibition the billboard was inviting to. It took place in the West Bohemian Museum which is the building on the left side of the photo. The exhibition might have been interesting and I quite regret that I hadn’t known about it before.

There is a nice park near the museum and I was pleased to find views that looked interesting even in winter when there are no colourful flowers. Like this one, for example:

The path leading through the park continues along a wall and this time some artistic images were hanging on the wall. Together with the blue sky and decorative shadows, the scene looked wonderful. And I particularly loved the detail, it felt like an invitation to another dimension.

The light made even quite a simple scene prominent… and look at the leafless trees that add so much texture to the images…

The following fountain is placed in the main square. Water gushes out of it from late spring to early autumn, it is closed during winter because frozen water would damage it. The fountain is covered with gold leaves. There are three fountains in three corners of the square, each a bit different but of similar design. They are supposed to represent figures from the city’s coat of arms, e.g. this is said to symbolise an angel. Hard to tell, isn’t it, but if you know what to search for, you can find it there.

The fountains were installed in 2010 and were not accepted well by public. They stand in stark contrast to the cathedral in the middle of the square, they are way too symbolic and they were quite expensive. Personally, I didn’t like them either but I got used to them and accepted their challenging presence. I would miss them if they were removed.

And now to the surprise I mentioned at the beginning. When we were returning to our car, we were passing by the synagogue again and found out that probably a movie was being shot there at the moment.

Back at home I learnt that those were scenes from shooting the new 10-part series Genius describing Albert Einstein’s life and featuring Geoffrey Rush. The series have been shot in many places in the Czech Republic! I watched a trailer and long for watching more.

Photographing in the soft and yet prominent morning light resulted in a wonderful walk. I hope you enjoyed it with me.