Archive for October, 2008

Rome, day 1

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

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Italian classic…

Some time ago me, Shama and Bobík went to an extended weekend trip to Rome. There are some pictures from the first day.

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Coloseum

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There are heaps of them.

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Some terrace on the roof

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Bobík taking picure of Rome’s wolf

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Forum Romanum

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Forum Romanum

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Drunkards! They drink while I take pictures…

Trip to Jizerky

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008

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Some time ago I went with some friends (Pavla, Jana and Robert) to a small trip to mountains Jizerské hory near Josefův důl. So there are some photos. Don’t forget the quiz at the end.

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Some links:

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A museum in the middle of nowhere. We silently ignored it…

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Old cementery in the middle of nowhere

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Turn left, cross the bridge

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Dead forest

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Wooden walkway

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Pavla was not doing anything but eating bilberries…

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Wooden walkway down

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Going to nowhere

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180 degrees

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Bellow clouds

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Flower pot

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Sledging is prohibited

A small quiz at the end. What is on this picture? The winner wins a shot of his/her choice with me. Please, do not use comments, but send me an email.

Villa Tugendhat

Sunday, October 19th, 2008

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When I was in Brno last time, we visited also villa Tugndhat, one of the finest pieces of modern architecture. It was build in 1930 by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It became the icon of the modern architecture style functionalism that was quite popular here between wars. Nowadays, the villa is a part of UNESCO World Heritage (since 2001).

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View to the windows of the main living area

Unfortunately, the villa is in very bad condition. The city wants it to be repaired, the project is finished, and was about to start in june, but as usually, they got wrong the process of doing the competition for the project, so the project ended at court, and they must do the competition for the project once again. F* lawyers, and f* city. They spent incredible 10 000 000 CZK (about €400 000) for project for reconstruction. This is not a normal price, and I don’t believe that there was not something in behind. And this money are lost now. I think that somebody in the town hall should be punished.

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The villa will be reconstructed, but nobody knows when.

The reconstruction will be, indeed very expensive. The materials are mostly expensive materials from all around the world. There are also some incredible jewels. The villa cost a few millions CZK which was incredible amount before WW2. A normal house could be build for a price of hundred thousand CZK.

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Dining area

We couldn’t take pictures inside the villa, so I have just some from outside. However, the inside is incredible. Clean space, everything made just for the villa. The space is huge, and the technology was the best at the time.

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View inside the villa. Taken thru the window.

The villa had three floors. The top floor which is in the same level as the road above the villa (the villa is in the hill) was used as private living area. It had some atypical stuff inside like furniture that is put inside the walls which was not known at the time. And so on. However, nowadays it is almost empty, no furniture was left.

However, I think the best was the second floor. There was one big common open space room divided just by partial walls. The whole room had full glass windows on two sides, and on one side, there was also a winter garden. Some of the windows could be put down by electrical mechanism. In this open space, there was a library, working room, resting area, and dining part. Everything divided by partial walls.

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Park

I also didn’t mention the garden, or I should tell a small park bellow the villa. It used to be twice or three times bigger extending to the bellow street, but during the time it was divided, and some houses were build in the bottom part.

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Also I should provide some links:

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Winter garden

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Lighting

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Garage

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The main staircase

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