Prague: After the Fact
Taken March 19, 2024
from the Žižkov Television Tower, Prague 3, Czech Republic
I took this photo in March of 2024 when we visited the Žižkov Television Tower in the Žižkov neighborhood on the east side of Prague, from the observation room 93 meters above the ground. The structure itself is quite famous for being quite ugly … a tripod of big steel vertical tubes with several “pods” extending up from the top middle of the three huge legs. The architectural style, according to Wikipedia, is called “High-Tech Architecture, which I had never heard of before. Kind of an interesting history. Construction began in 1985, four years before the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, which brought about the fall of communism. It wasn't finished till 1995, by which town, again according to the entry in Wikipedia, the television broadcast technology for which it was designed was already in decline. So it was repurposed as a data center
Enough about the tower, though, because I'm pretty certain I'll have more and maybe better photos of the tower soon, since Mary and I are scheduled to go back to Prague again … to the same nice apartment right beside the tower and overlooking the little Jewish Cemetery where Franz Kafka was buried. And again, for the second half of March. Hopefully the weather will be a little chilly but very nice again. Everywhere cool in Europe is always crowded. But the worst of the crowds won't be there. And we won't hang around the super-touristy center too much. Nice apartment, great neighborhood, with lots of bars and restaurants. Very accessible to all parts of the city by tram lines … but I think you can say that about most of Prague. Wonderful city for a variety of reasons, including that public education, including buses and subways as well as trams, are free for people of a certain advanced age.
This photo is taken from the west pod of the 3-pod observation deck, and on a clear day with my 200mm zoom you can get a good view of the historic Staroměstské náměstí, or Old Town Square, famous for its famous astonomical clock and monuments to a number of people who were executed here, including the memorable Catholic reformist, Jan Hus, who was burned at the stake here a little over 600 years ago.
Beyond the plaza are the massize ramparts of the Prague Castle … I think I remember that it's the largest such structure in Europe, or the world, maybe. Or maybe I don't remember that correctly. But anyway, it's a small city within the walls. Very impressive digs. It's hard to tell from the compressed landscape created by the telephoto, but there's a big river crossable by some very famous bridges, notably the St. Charles bridge, between Old Town Plaza and the Palace.
And here's me, in the tower's observation deck, with Prague in the background and a model of the tower in a fiberglass box next to me.