#7: [24-Dec-16]

#6: [12-Sep-14]

#5: [02-Feb-09]

#3: [24-Sep-06]

#4: [10-Aug-06]

#2: [28-Apr-06]

11-Feb-2001 -- It was Saturday afternoon and we were lazy. But it seemed a real waste to be indoors on such a sunny winter’s day, so we decided to find the confluence of N50 E16 -- our third in the Czech Republic.

We left the suburb of Holesovice at about 14h00 and it was to be a 113 kilometre ride to the east of Prague (through Kolin and Kutna Hora) to the confluence which was about 16 kilometres to the east of the old city of Pardubice. Some of this would be uncharted territory for us, so we were looking forward to the drive.

We had experienced heavy snowfalls on Thursday and Friday, so the countryside was really beautiful, and I was disappointed that we didn’t have the time to stop and shoot more photographs on the way to the confluence. But time was tight and we had to get to our target before the sun started dipping below the horizon at about 17h00.

After a few minor detours in Pardubice (i.e. getting around the pedestrian area in the centre) we headed for our two target villages -- Ceradice and Uhersko in the region that I believe is called Vychodocesky. With all the Czech accents added, this is pronounced something like this: "Vee-gho-dough-chess-key." We passed through Ceradice and found the confluence without too much difficulty. We were lucky again - N50 E16 lay in an open ploughed field 130 metres to our right. We had hoped for a thick snow layer of snow but the fall had obviously been lighter out the east of Kutna Hora.

Mud!! And more mud!! But we eventually found the magic spot at about 16h30 and I shot the necessary photographs. The village of Uhersko was visible from the field and, while we were shooting a few shots in that general direction, a family group of nine deer appeared from a thicket, and slowly made it’s way across the field. If you zoom in on the right of the attached panorama you can actually see five or six of the animals at the thicket. They crossed the road just behind our car and disappeared in the next field. It was -4°C out there and after half an hour in the open we were frozen! I shot a panorama from the confluence before we moved back to the car as fast as our frozen legs would carry us! After cleaning our shoes, we thawed our icy extremities in the soothing blast of the car’s heater.

With the sun dropping rapidly in the west, we drove into the village of Uhersko where I shot a few pictures of the church and some of the old buildings in the centre in the last rays of the afternoon sun.

We headed back home and the temperature dropped rapidly after sunset. At one stage we were reading -14°C on our car’s thermometer, and the narrow country lanes became treacherously icy. Nevertheless, it had been a great afternoon out, and we returned safely with out third confluence under our belt!

Picture #3 is seventeen shots exposed at a focal length of 108mm and stitched together to show a 270 degree panoramic view from the confluence of N50 and E16. That’s Mark Pautz on the left of the picture and you can see six deer in the thicket in front of the church spire to the right of the picture. The church is in the town of Uhersko.