Insta Friday: Česko Saské Švýcarsko

Českosaské Švýcarsko is kind of funny geographical name of the area, meaning Czech/Bohemian (Česko) Saxon (Saské) Switzerland (Švýcarsko). Any idea where you can find it? Partially in the Czech Republic, partially in Germany (the Saxony part of the country, but check the wiki because “Saxony” can be pretty complicated even within Germany :-)).
You can visit both Switzerlands (Boheiman and Saxon) in my today’s Insta Friday post.

Travel theme: Bridges

In the half of this post you will find a quiz question and in case you send me the right answer, you can win a nice prize for it :-).

For travel theme Bridges I chose the oldest stone bridge in the Czech Republic. You already saw our second oldest bridge, which is in Prague, on my shots here.  Today’s bridge is even older, for about 100 years, and you can find it in South Bohemian town Písek about 110 km from Prague. It is called Stag’s bridge, as medievel municipality decided it will take name after the first “person” who would cross the bridge. But it was not a person but a brave big stag and therefore it’s named Stag’s bridge.

The bridge is long 110 m and wide 6 m, it has 7 arches and it is decorated with statues, the most traditional ones are St. John of Nepomuk and the Christ on the Cross. The bridge is the second oldest in middle Europe and the 8th oldest in the world.

Písek bridge and the view from it

Traditional bridge statues: St. John of Nepomuk and Cross with Christ

The second bridge is even older then the Stag’s bridge in Písek, it’s the oldest one in middle Europe. If you know the name of the town, where you can find this bridge, send me the answer to the email you find here till the Thursday (Feb 28) evening. From correct answers I will allot a winner, who will be asked to send me his or her address and will receive a nice gift from Prague.

Map of the medievel town with the old stone bridge

Bridge tower – entrance to the bridge

Old stone bridge

Travel theme: Shadows

Venice, San Marco Square, typical pidgeons there

When you travel alone or in pair, it is very difficult to get a picture with yourself or with the two of you, specially at deserted places as desert, hidden garden, private beach. Therefore we took pictures of our shadows and now I can show you these shots for Travel Theme: Shadows.

Next 3 shot-galleries are from our honeymoon in Djerba, Tunis. OMG we were so young :-).

At the hotel garden, Djerba

First one from aligator farm, the others from the travelling through the desert to see the Tunisian inland

Mediterranean Sea, clean and green, Djerba

Adriatic Sea, Italy

Trier, Germany, Kurfürstliches Palastgarten

Travel theme: Walls

For Travel Theme: Walls I want to show you three walls. The first one is a part of our history and you may have heard about it. The second one is extremely famous and played a big role in the history of Europe.  The third wall is nice, but nothing really important on it :-).

John Lennon’s Wall

During communistic regime rock music was under the ban, mostly played underground. But as you can’t keep people away from music, we all knew Beatles and other world famous musicians from the other side of the iron curtain. When John Lennon died, students from the art school painted one wall as a memory to him. From that day people quietly celebrated memoir of John Lennon at the anniversary of his death with lightning candles, singing his songs. They were always under the control of state’s police. The wall is still there, but it beacame more touristic place with a lot of graffiti more than memorial.
These three shots are not mine unfortunatelly. I was not able to find old shots of the wall in my archive, therefore I took them from here, here and here.

John Lennon’s wall at 1981, 1983 and 90s years

I managed to find some shots of nowaday wall, where John Lennon can be seen between other motifs.

John Lennon’s portraits and heart

Beatles covers

Berlin Wall

This wall separated two worlds for 28 years. The shots were taken at Potsdammer Square in Berlin, you can find there remains of the wall, now painted with colors.

History of Berlin’s wall

I love Berlin and frankly speeking Berlin is a magic city to me, I can still feel the strange atmosphere of “divided city” there.

Check the bottom right shot, the “wall” is still on the ground

The last pair is from our family album. The first shot is from our family visit to Berlin somewhere around 1979 (I am the only child on the BW shot). People were not allowed to go closer to Brandenburger Gate and you can see the wall down behind the gate. It’s also chilling to see the people on the left (not our family) looking to Western Germany. Maybe they had a family there? The next shot is two years old. Quite different, what you think?

History and today

Berlin ZOO Wall

The last shots are also from Berlin. But this is a new wall. Wall of Berlin’s ZOO garden. Walls are dividing, but also protecting us. We must handle with them sensibly.

ZOO wall