Great pictures! Great city, I like Prague a lot. All the best! Raimo K Personal photography homepage at: http://www.uusikaupunki.fi/~raikorho
----- Original Message ----- From: "Gianfranco Irlanda" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, October 18, 2004 2:31 AM Subject: Prague PDML Meeting Pictures (very long) > Hi everybody! > > For those who don't want to read, see: > http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder.tcl?folder_id=439491 > > For the others, a little tale... > > After a couple of years of attempts, I was able to go to Prague > to meet our fellow Frantisek Vlcek, thanks to a period of > vacation of a friend of mine Dario Arenare who, quite > stubbornly, decided to go Prague with almost no advance. I > thought this was probably the right time, so I started to help > him looking for flights and hotel. > We were able to find several flights (and packages with hotels) > from Naples, just to see them become unavailable in few hours, > so at the end we found a possibility with the Student Tourist > Centre but we had to fly from Rome early in the morning, Dario > three days before me and our Roman friend Eleonora, who joined > us after several days of indecision. Too bad Veronica, my > girlfriend, couldn't take any day off from work during that > week. > :-( > The first day was quite long, I was coming by train from Naples > and had to reach Eleonora's flat, where I arrived at around 8 > p.m. Eleonora had to scan and send many documents to a notary > for an inheritance problem so she didn't sleep at all. I did, > but the alarm was set at 5 a.m. anyway - we had to take the > underground and then a train to the Fiumicino airport, and the > flight time was 8:50. > At our arrival in Prague, we had an unpleasant experience, sadly > familiar for a Neapolitan guy... A Italian man we met at the > airport with his wife had been almost victim of pickpocketing > while entering the underground train at the Dejvicka station. > Unpleasant, and quite scaring for them. I'm not saying that in > Naples you see something like that every day, but it's something > I would expect. > After this first contact with the city, we reached Dario at the > Oya Hotel and went immediately to the city centre (the pictures > from the Museum till the boat cruise are from the first day). > > The day after we went to Mala Strana, spending at least a hour > on the Karluv Most (Charles Bridge) watching the crowd and the > 30 statues... We arrived at the Castle a bit too late to see > everything, but luckily the ticket was valid for two days. In > the Cathedral (inside the castle), while I was taking the > picture of the nave, a girl asked me something in Czech. I > should have watched her as she was from another galaxy, then > tried to communicate in English. She didn't speak English quite > well, but I did understand that she was asking me how was that I > was taking pictures even if it was forbidden (it was in fact > mandatory to buy a permit to take pictures - without flash - in > the castle). I explained her the permit thing, and she said she > didn't have enough money. I should have watched her as she was > coming from a galaxy farther away... Then I said, ok, I'll buy > you the permit, it's not much money for me (what the heck, it is > 30kc, less than $1...). Since she had a K-mount camera (a Braun > branded Cosina) I showed her how to exchange the lens (she did > try my Tamron 28-75 for a couple of shots). Unfortunately no > picture recorded this encounter. > The other, main encounter, with Frantisek, took place at the > Stare Mesto end of the Karluv Most at around 6 p.m. of the > second day. I hadn't seen even a single picture of Frantisek > before, but I immediately recognized him. Is there a sort of a > PDML look or something? :-) > Frantisek did suggest a nice cafe in a narrow and quiet street > (still in Stare Mesto, I think) where we had a pleasant and > relaxing time. > We then headed for a place to have dinner, but after a couple of > failed attempts we ended in a bar with a very narrow choice of > food (not bad at all, though). Frantisek invited us to his place > for dinner on the following day, but the plans got modified in > progress when, the day after, we found that we were quite late > on our (theorical) schedule - think that we had lunch at 5 > p.m.... We even missed the chance to visit the Synagogue and the > Old Jewish Cemetery for it was day of cult... (especially Dario > was extremely angry, he had three days available to visit > everything but he waited for us to enter there, and the morning > after we had to return home). > Our second meeting with Frantisek was in this huge photo shop in > Vodickova, not far from Vaclavske Namesti. Here I was enabled > again, and bought an AF360FGZ - a minute before being thrown > away from the shop as they were closing. Never seen a shop with > a similarly wide selection of used gear (of any brand, they had > a lot of 645 and 67 gear too, also tempting - worth another > visit to Prague...) > Our last dinner together was at La Trappola (the trap), an > Italian restaurant in front of our hotel (really good food, if > only you avoid the typical Italian things...). > > Now, the pictures: after a bit of effort, I reduced the 950 > digital shots to an acceptable amount (44...) for public > display. > There were four rolls of slides and a couple of BW, but I had no > time to scan any of them. > Frantisek, I apologise for the imprecision in writing the names > of the places and streets, but I don't have the proper font > available. > Hope you'll enjoy the series. > > Ciao, > > Gianfranco > > > > ===== > _ > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. > http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail >
