A classic view of Prague’s Tyn Church taken from the top of the Old Town Hall.

I’m drawn to these ominous, shady scenes, especially in medieval European cities where they seem to stand outside of time.

I found this mysterious, brooding alley scene after wandering through a dark, narrow passage filled with dodgy tourists gathered around an slick-talking American who was peddling something illegal. I’m not sure what it was (but it’s not hard to guess).

I had no problems and never felt I was going to, but its a reminder to be vigilant when one is out in the evenings in foreign lands.

St. Nicholas’ Church in Prague’s Lesser Town.

One of my evening’s in Prague was spent watching the sun set from on high. As it sank below the horizon, it left a rainbow of colours in its wake that just so happened to have a magnificent cathedral in front of them. St. Vitus Cathedral got a background worthy of its splendour.

Columns inside the massive, gothic St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague.

Gravestones in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague.

A tourist boat navigates the Vlatava river with Prague Castle in the background.

The Our Lady before Tyn Church with St. Vitus Cathedral in the background.

On this trip to Prague, I was greeted with a disappointing sight when I reached the Charles Bridge: scaffolding. And lots of it.

The bridge is such a wondrous, romantic spot that I can’t blame the millions of tourists that flock there. To have half of it being restored was a big photographic bummer, but I did the best I could with what I had.

This pre-dawn image is what happens when you can only shoot down one side of the bridge, on one half of the bridge. I do quite like the silhouetted buildings in the background. That’s an effect you can’t get at night since so many of the towers are lit up. Here, instead, they have a more ominous feel. And since I didn’t get much of a sunrise that morning, this moody shot ended up being the winner.

The Charles Bridge at the centre of numerous other crossings of the Vlatava river in Prague.

A statue of an angel at Vysehrad in Prague.

Pigeons roost on the windowsill of Prague’s New Town Hall.

The lavish interior of the National Museum in Prague.

Crowds gather hourly below the old town hall to watch the Astronomical Clock and its automatons chime the time.

This is the magnificent Theological Hall at the Strahov Monatery in Prague. It’s one of two library hall sin the monastery, but, unfortunately for me, the larger of the two, the Philosophical Hall, was under restoration during my visit and it’s shelves were obscured by scaffolding.

The Theological Hall was still worth the trip. The precious tomes lining the walls and displayed on lecterns, the ancient-looking globes and the ornate ceiling fill the room with wonder.

I love libraries and it would be a dream come true to have a proper library as a room in my home. I won’t be so bold as to realistically hope of having a room this grand, but if I ever had more money than I could hope to spend, I might give this photo and a good collection of stories (some Borges, some Eco) to an architect and see what he or she could do.

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, one of the possible activities to engage in while in Prague is stair climbing. The effort is always rewarded as in this case where I climbed the steps of the Old Town Bridge Tower at dusk to be granted this view of Knights of the Cross Square.

up on those ramparts, this photo depicts the view to the East, but the view West is even more impressive. The tower watches over the Charles Bridge and its crossing of the Vlatava river. Rising steeply on the other side is the crag on which Prague Castle cuts into the sky with its jagged outline.

A photo or two of the castle will come later. For now, I’ve given you the shot to the East, where the dusk light seemed to bathe the buildings a warm glow as a blue night descended on the steeples.

This shot, obviously, involved the use of a tripod which wasn’t exactly a piece of cake to use in the narrow passage that surrounds the top of the tower. If you’re going to use one, make sure it’s relatively small and adaptable, but reasonably sturdy as well (I was lucky, but I imagine it can get a bit windy up on the tops of the towers).

The next big batch of photos of the day will be from a recent trip to one of my favourite cities, Prague. It’s often dubbed the city of a hundred spires for the huge number of gothic towers that rise above the red roofs to pierce the sky.

Visitors are constantly drawn up spiral stairways or surrounding hills to gaze down at the city and across the hundreds of spires shooting upwards.

Each new tower rewards the climb with a new vantage on Prague’s endless architectural wonders. In this shot, the principle spires on display include (clockwise, from top left) the Tyn Church, the Powder Tower, the Old Town Hall, and one of the Charles Bridge Guard Towers, most of which can be ascended by the public (all except the Tyn Church).