Prague to Budapest II



Hungarian Parliament, Budapest

Salzburg Castle

I apologize for the lateness of this post. We have been back from our Danube River trip since late last Tuesday. I came back with great memories, over 2600 images and a rageingly bad flu/bronchitis. The worst time to develop a respiratory infection is while slogging through ten hours of plane flights to get home. I'm only grateful that I wasn't hit until the trip was over. I will skip the drippy details, and only say that after several days of sleep, antibiotics and groaning, I now feel strong enough to lift my fingers to the keyboard and share a few more images from our fantastic trip. The Groaning, however, continues.

Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic

The river cruise portion of the trip was lovely although the weather was a bit spotty. I wish we had traveled the river more frequently during daylight, but it was very convenient to have our hotel follow along with us. the itinerary tended to focus on larger cities, Linz, Salzburg,


Melk Abby Library

Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest, but I particularly enjoyed our stops at smaller towns that were more effective at preserving the old world feel. Sadly even the small villages were contaminated with tourist traps, but by simply looking up a bit or finding winding back streets I was able to feel transported to medieval times. The cities had their own charm. It was interesting to see how enthusiastically former communist block countries have embraced capitalism. 


Vienna Opera House Entrance

For proof, you need only notice that the Communism Museum in Prague is located on the second floor above a MacDonalds Restaurant. Our favorite cities were Prague and Budapest. Both have carefully preserved their old world architecture . By Contrast, Vienna's monumental structures were more diffusely scattered though-out this modern city.  We did enjoy a tour 

Imperial Crown of Charlemagne

of the Vienna Opera House and the fabulously opulent Habsburg Treasury.  It was amazing to see the actual crown worn by Charlemagne over 1000 years ago. Sue and I broke away from the group to spend a relaxed afternoon exploring Schonbrunn Palace, the Habsburg's little 435 acre, 1400 room summer retreat. It was tempting to dwell on thoughts of the starving peasants who lived outside the walls of this glittering monument to criminal opulence, but it was hard not to be captured by the breath-taking beauty of the buildings and gardens which are 

Schonbrunn Palace Gardens

now freely open to all. Budapest was a fitting ending for the trip and I'm glad we broke away for a couple days of independent exploration. The city is especially beautiful at night, on the last evening of the cruise we traveled the river under the several bridges that connect the two halves of the city. With the Palace and Cathedral on the Buda side and the brilliantly illuminated Parliament on the Pest side, the city reflected in the Danube was Magical.

Imperial Palace at Dawn, Budapest Hungary

Charlemagne (ISO 6400)

A trip like this would necessarily lead to a few valuable photographic lessons . First I was freshly impressed with the low light capability of my Canon 5D Mark II. I had recently been using higher ISO more regularly, but in the inky darkness of many of the museums and cathedrals I was only able to capture images at the camera's maximum 6400 ISO. Flash was rarely permitted. I was surprised to discover how the noise reduction application in Camera 

Ornately Baroque Melk Cathedral
(Three hand helded images)

Raw produced very serviceable images. The only challenge was to remember to turn down the ISO when I went back out into the sun. The tip-off was when I found myself shooting at f19 and 1/5000th! I knew from the work of Trey Radcliff and others that cathedrals would offer a wonderful opportunity for HDR images. While touring with a group it was impractical to set up a shot with a tripod, but I was amazed to discover how well Photoshop CS5 managed three handheld bracketed images. It helped to have the shutter set on burst to capture all images with a single click and here again high ISO was a necessity. Finally, I found that my stripped-down kit seemed to work well. My new bag provided to be easy to carry and accessible.  I suspect I will be using it more often at home.

St Barbara's Cathedral and Jesuit Monastery
Kutna Hora, Czech Republic



Schonbrunn Palace from Fountain, Vienna Austria

Overall it was a great trip, but it is nice to be home getting ready for the foliage season. I am terribly behind on orders and other projects. Not to mention that the 2012 Calendar should be available for me to distribute in about one week. It will likely be some time before I can start seriously working on the European pictures. I will continue to send some to Flickr, but the more complete set will be building on my web site in the "Out-a-Town" section. This brief discussion can't begin to cover the number of wonderful experiences on this trip. For that you will simply need to come over and watch the entire show. You bring the wine.

For more images check out my "Out-a-Town" page or
My Danube Flickr Set

My first European Posting is Here