CZ Trip – Day 5 Fri– Prague: The Castle

With our major day trips behind us, we could relax a bit and do some sight seeing around Prague. We did take the cameras with us and occasionally filmed some scenes for B-roll footage and to simply document the vacation aspect of the trip. Ava volunteered to drop us off at the castle in the rental car while she returned it to the airport. She would take the subway back and stop in visit the Czech National Museum while we took mom on a leisurely tour of the castle grounds and then a slow walk down the hill and back to the Old Town Square in Prague. Ava and I went out at night after dinner for some night photography of the Charles Bridge, Castle, and Old Town Square. I've got lots of photos from this day of sight seeing that I'll post over the next couple of days. For now, here are some photos from the Castle with it's fairy tale like Cathedral that dominates the Prague skyline. Enjoy.

CZ Trip – Day 4 Thur– Cseke Budejovich

We were tired this morning from two long days of shooting and did not get started as early as we would have liked. We experience some bumper to bumper traffic in the Prague morning rush-hour as we tried to get out of town going south this time to Cseke Budejovich, home of Budweiser Beer. The morning traffic delays made the trip take nearly two hours. We found a good parking place near the town square and had lunch and then started a great day of filming. Cseke Budejovich has a beautiful town square. Here are some photos.

As we were wrapping up the day we noticed a police escorted motorcade pull into the town square where were. The big black limousine had American flags on the front. So Ava and I followed by Sandra and mom walked over to say hello. It was the US Ambassador to CZ! The embassy is of course in Prague so it was quite a coincidence that he would in the same town at the same time as us.

CZ Trip – Day 3 Wed.– Klatovy and Pilzen

Being able to park the rental car right outside the apartment was very convenient. Back-packing all of our gear on the subway was not fun. There was some concern about parking downtown in Prague. Our apartment was in the old city a short walk from the river and the Charles Bridge. Apparently, only permanent residents who have special permits are allowed to park on the streets in that area of town. Others will be towed at least during the business day, when parking is scarce. But we got in so late and left so early each morning it was not a problem. On Day 3, we were up early and loaded and on the road ahead of the morning traffic.

We headed west for an hour to the outskirts of Pilzen and then turned south to the town of Klatovy. I should mention that my sister Ava did the driving each morning and through out the day. She did an awesome job. Sandra and I would read the maps and road signs to help navigate. Sandra would also talk us through the shot sequence for the day. Here are some photos of Klatovy.



Pretty much every where Sandra went with her big camera she drew a crowd. Here are some photos of us setting up in a park to shoot a scene in Klatovy. The school must have dismissed for lunch because soon there was a crowd of middle schoolers watching us film.



We got the shots we needed in Klatovy and headed back to Pilzen. As you have seen in some of the videos, I occasionally, would get out the little Panasonic camera and use the mono-pod to film us driving from the passenger seat. The Czech country side is really beautiful and the best way to show you is these little driving videos. I hope you like them. This one was filmed on the drive from Klatovy to Pilzen.


CZ Driving from Klatovy to Pilzen from Jim Walker on Vimeo.


Some of you may not know that Pilzen is home to Pilsner Beer. Once we got into Pilzen, we got the video shots we needed and found a small little restaurant for some dinner. I drove us home at the end of a long day of shooting. Here are some photos of Pilzen.

CZ Trip – Day 2 Tues. – Usti nad Labem and Lovosice

This would be a good time to mention, that I am under strict orders from my producer (Sandra) not to spoil any of the story details from the “Jonne Project.” Fortunately there are plenty of other interesting stories from the travel, sightseeing, and vacation aspect that I can tell you. I should also mention that we chose to stay in Prague because it was in a central location to our 3 main filming destinations. Each destination was just over an hour away from Prague. So the first order of business was to rent a car. Driving in Europe is not recommended for most Americans. While all of Europe does drive on the right side of the road (except England) the signs are very different and some of the customs are different. But, I lived in Italy three years, and Ava has been to Europe frequently, so driving in CZ was not going to be a problem.


Now that we were unpacked, our batteries charged, cupboard and fridge stocked we were ready for our first day of filming. The breakfast cereal with buttermilk was quite a rude awakening. We ended up eating the cereal dry. We left our apartments, with our bulging backpacks loaded with equipment and walked down the streets to the nearest subway. From there we went to the end of the green line and caught a shuttle bus out to the airport and rented a car. This took nearly two hours, but soon we had loaded up our little black Skoda sedan and we were on our way north to Usti nad Labem.



The first location that we needed to find was on the outskirts of town, down some rather small country roads. Sandra had turn-by-turn directions and we did a good job finding all the streets until we got to the last road called “unnamed road”. We went by it twice, but finally found what turned out to be a little dirt field-road, which explains the unnamed part. We bravely inched the little Skoda over the ruts in the road praying we would not meet anyone, because it was definitely a one lane road. But since there were no signs of civilization, we figured the odds were pretty good we were the only people around. We found our first location and got our shot. We packed up and headed back into town to see if any other locations looked familiar to mom. But so much has changed she didn’t recognize anything. The Elbe River passes through the town and there is new modern bridge which we managed to drive across.



Driving in Usti nad Labem from Jim Walker on Vimeo.


We then moved onto the small town of Lovosice for more filming and a good dinner. Then it was back to apartment in Prague.