Prague and Vienna

A Winter's Vacation

By Robin Leabman

May 13^th, 2018

Prague

I love traveling to cities where every turn you take around every corner reveals a wonderful street scene backdropped by old-world buildings peppered with new-world life.

In Winter 2015 my wife and I traveled to Prague with two side-trips; one to Dublin to see family, and one to Vienna…to see Mozart (an old family friend). Upon our arrival into Prague, we were greeted by the Baroque architecture that wouldn’t surprise me if Walt Disney found his inspiration for the castle from Sleeping Beauty.

I dragged poor Karen around the frozen city to shoot every scene that caught our eyes. She was following me up winding staircases to the tops of churches and castles, across freezing bridges over frozen water in the bitter cold post-midnight hours so I could capture long exposures of the city.

We were pleasantly pleased to find out how far we could stretch our dollar while dining and shopping. Most of our dinners involved entrees, main courses, and a bottle of wine, all of which would maybe cost us $50 at the end of the evening.

During our wandering we found ourselves at the Communism Museum, which was run by a very funny man from old mother-Russia.

One of my favorite shots was this self portrait of the two of us kissing on the crowded Charles Bridge. With the exception of one or two artifacts, I made all the people disappear with a 30 second exposure triggered by infrared followed by two seconds to hide the remote and hold the pose.

On our last morning in Prague, I was up before the sunrise to try and capture a shot I was dying to get: Prague rooftops backdropped by Prague Castle. I moved some furniture and crawled out our room‘s skylight to the hotel rooftop. I found myself in the clouds with views of only the streets below, and an approaching snow storm! No rooftop scene today, so instead I put my camera into miniature mode and shot the streets below.

Vienna

Vienna is very modern compared to Prague. There was very little old-world architecture except for the palaces and castles. In fact, if I was blindfolded and dropped into Vienna without being told where I was, I would have sworn I was in Paris!