Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: shopping centre

Getting back to Pragerstrasse, where I met my friends for lunch, this is another example of a Communist European building (if I'm not mistaken), that resembles something from the Middle East, possibly Iran (if that counts). However, Germany is definitely not Iran. :-) Centrum Galerie is now an urban shopping center, but I'm not aware of what it was previously. An art gallery, perhaps?

I randomly shot this on the food court (for practical purposes the top level) of Novy Smichov, an urban shopping centre that's actually closer to the Andel Metro than Nadrazi Praha-Smichov. I noticed the Czech flags were up on the other side of the court (which is open in the middle to give natural light to the other levels), which are actually a bit unusual in the Czech Republic. Indeed, in most countries other than the U.S., flying the national flag on home territory isn't the norm except for at government facilities and institutions. In this case, the reason for the exception seemed to be that the restaurant in question was a traditional Czech restaurant, something increasingly rare within the Czech Republic itself.

After I arrived in Berlin, there wasn't much to do for a few hours, so I walked around taking photos before getting the next train #NZ242 for Bruxelles-Midi, at 2146. Berlin Hbf was recently restored and rebuilt massively, and bears little resemblence at this point to the steam-era station. It's as much mall as station, like Washington Union, Cleveland Union Terminal (but with more trains), London Liverpool Street, or London Waterloo in this respect. The food isn't too bad, and the shopping is so-so. I didn't find anything worth buying.

Here's another mostly-ugly photo of Grantham, with yet another ugly shopping centre in the foreground, with the nicer, older buildings in the distance.

This was when we got to Grantham, a nice town but like Peterborough blighted by ugly car-oriented buildings. On the plus side, you can see the steeple of St. Wulfram's Church in the background.