The first time I visited Prague I fell in love.

For years my friend Mark had been encouraging me to visit saying I would love the architecture which was virtually unaffected by WWII. It took some time, some planning, and a bit more convincing but as my brother and I were scheduling a three week trip across Europe we made sure Prague was one of our destinations. Perhaps another reason for wanting to visit was that a former colleague and friend, Suzanne, was living in Prague teaching English as a second language. When I emailed Suzanne saying that my brother and I were thinking of stopping by she insisted we do and offered to show us around. So upon our arrival and after settling in we met Suzanne who was gracious enough to spend an entire afternoon showing us the city, schooling us on Prague’s history, and generally just making us feel welcome. The next day and in true Gonzalez fashion my brother and I found a local bar. We were strolling the streets and overheard a ruckus emanating from a darkened door. We passed by, circled around and found ourselves back in front of that very same door. It was the sound of the Scotsmen hooting and hollering that drew us in. Like an invisible fishing line reeling us in towards an unknown yet familiar destination our stay in Che has become a tale of legends (I’ll save that story for another time).

What has always stayed with me about that first visit to Prague was the beauty of the architecture. The color that the sun radiated off of the buildings and something that remains undefinable. I fell in love with Prague and though have only returned once since that initial visit my compulsion to capture as much as I could with my camera still feels like a failing. Somehow the images fall short in their failure to radiate the essence of a city that I hope to return to many times in my future.