Mach 29-April 6, 2025.
I attended a conference and co-presented a paper at DFRWS-EU
in Brno, Czech Republic (or Czechia). The trip out was not
exactly direct—I drove an hour to the Elmira airport,
flew to Detroit (west of New York State), had a layover, then
flew to the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, had another
layover, then flew to Vienna. Then I had a 3 hour layover
and took a bus to Brno. I left on Saturday, March 29, 2025,
got in around 11:30pm on Sunday night March 30.
I had Monday March 31 as a day to get some errands done, and then
the conference ran from Tuesday through Friday. I chaired a
session the 1st Annual Digital Forensics Doctoral Symposium (DFDS).
On Thursday morning, we presented our paper. Saturday was a free
day in Brno, them Sunday morning April 6, I took a bus back to
Vienna had 2.5 days free in Vienna before flying home on April 9, 2025.
The photos below are mostly from Monday and Saturday, the free days,
while I was in Brno. Highlights include walking to and around the
Špilberk park, which is on a hill right next to my hotel, and Špilberk
Castle, which is at the top of the hill. Then visiting the town hall
and walking up to the tower with a nice view of the area, as well
as a bit of exploring the central "old town" area.
110 photos.
Click here for photos of
Vienna from the same trip.
The earliest mention of the castle was in 1277 and it has a long
history.
Around the castle grounds was an art exhibition of various
sculptures by artist Martin Skalický of Brno, called
Sculptures in the Castle II. The sculptures were
there from Jun 19, 2024 to April 13, 2025 (which means as I
write this, they are no longer there, and were removed 4 days
after I left Brno).
I didn't really go inside the castle other than to cut through
from one side to the other because the way around the outside was blocked
the southeast side by construction work (they had removed the stones on
the road on the south side, and were (presumably) renovating it. I
did use one of the public restrooms and there was a restaurant.
More or less, everything else required a ticket, and I didn't want to
spend hours and hours there, as just walking around the outside,
exploring, and taking pictures was going to take enough time. Plus
I wanted to be outside and moving, to try to help sync up to the local
time.
Here's some more information on
Špilberk Castle and Fortress.
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They were working on the service road at the castle. Big piles of stones behind...(more)
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Inside the castle (but not the real part, just where the restaurant and public...(more)
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The castle with the flag of Brno flying (the Austrian flag has no white stripe...(more)
Špilberk Park is a large park that surrounds Špilberk castle and the hill it is on. There are paths and stairs that wind around it. Just below the castle is a small pond. There are some sculptures, one of which has its own section below. It's a pretty place and the view of central Brno at the top of the hill is great.
Jan Skácel Memorial – “Face open to space and time”
The statue is in the park, but is cool enough to merit its own
section here. It's made of long hollow metal tubes of varying
length to produce the front of the head of a famous poet from Brno
(similar to a pinscreen toy, just way bigger, and created
manually by an artist cutting the pipes to length, rather than a
physical impression).
Depending where you stand and how the light and shadows are cast,
different features and textures are visible. The back side is
hollow and the shadowing forms a sort of reverse image of the face.
Plus standing behind the head allows you to see the landscape
in front of the sculpture for those tubes you are directly in
line with. The effect makes it look like there's a transparent
area. Standing further back, it becomes bigger.
The eyes are at person's height, so people can "see"
Old Brno through Skácel's eyes.
A word is carved into each side of the base that represents a
common theme of Skácel's poetry, specifically dětství (childhood),
ticho (silence), krajina (landscape) and smrt (death). Each word
has different typography to "play" with the word's theme.
And yes, when I saw it, my first thought was of Homer Simpson
dancing and singing, "I am so smart. I am so smart.
S…M…R…T. I meant S-M-A-R-T…"
Here is some information on the
sculpture, and
Jiří Sobotka's web page on the memorial (it's in Czech, if your
browser can't translate it, then try
this via Google Translate).
For some reason the lyrics "No one knows what it's like to be
the sad man, to be the bad man, behind blue eyes." from The Who
jump to mind.
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A statue of the head of the Brno poet Jan Skácel by Jiří Sobotka. The word...(more)
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A side view of Jan Skácel's head with the Czech word ticho (silence) on the...(more)
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Seeing Brno through Skácel's eyes (or right eye). The word on the pedestal is...(more)
I sort of wound up on the west side of the hill when I left, when my hotel was directly east of the hill, so I wandered around the area a little. At points I was a little annoyed but then I saw a cool church with its gold dome illuminated by the sun. And the shadows across some of the buildings coupled with the blue sky made for some sharp contrasts. So it wound up working out well. I have two pictures the hotel room, which faced east. One of Old Brno with St. Jacob's Church and another of dawn.
The Old Town Hall was built in 1240 and has been modified over the centuries. The lookout tower is 63 meters (206 feet) high and you get there by climbing 173 steps. It has a great view of the area. The building was used for city administration until 1919 when the government moved to a more modern building. It is the oldest building in Brno that is not a church.
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Downtown and the St. Peter and Paul Cathedral from the Old Town Hall. The...(more)
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Looking eastward, the courtyard in front of the Old Town Hall is in the...(more)
Staré Brno (Old Bruno) is in the center of the city, founded around the year 1000 and a proper town by the 14th Century. There are a lot of twisty streets, interesting shops, good restaurants, and bars that are open surprisingly late. It feels very safe, even in the wee hours. Almost every day I walked around a little bit because of the location of my hotel at the edge of it and where events where. There's a lot of cool stuff there like old buildings, historical statues and monuments, and events going on like a farmer's market (the vegetable market).
I met up with Daryl by the Big Horse statue. After taking a look at a little art gallery right by there, we went to the Dobrá Karma - Bleší trhy, which is the Dobrá Karma Flea Market. And Dobrá means good, so it's the Good Karma flea market. This was the first time it was open this year. It ran along the length of the street tř. Kpt. Jaroše. People were selling stuff they had like clothing and shoes, books, toys, kitchenware, and assorted junk. There were also artists who had made stuff like pictures, clothing, and jewelry. It was neat to see a very "everyday life" sort of thing.
I stopped by the Tyršův sad (City Park) that was across from where Daryl was staying and explored that for a few minutes. It looks like the street that it's on has the same name and other parks have other names, so I think that it is a proper name, not just a generic term.
Click here for photos of Vienna from the same trip.
