Distant mine, pervasive sounds, astonishing view

This is one of the most spectacular views in existence. You stand in amongst trees and autumn colours; there are churring tits and woodpeckers. Immediately below is the historic, but run down, Castle Jeziri looking beautiful with yellow stone and dark red tiles, which in turn overlooks the broad North Bohemian plane stretching to green volcanic peaks in the far distance. The plane itself is surreal. The view is dominated by a vast open cast mine where deep pits expose brown coal seams and huge machines squeal and groan as they tear into the earth. Conveyor belt systems roar constantly carrying coal, soil and rocks kilometers across the mines to distant destinations. Elsewhere power stations with smoking, red-banded chimneys dot the landscape and the Unipetrol chemical works at Litvinov with many miles of pipes, cooling towers, storage tanks and flares gleams. The sound is constant, night and day, decade after decade. It is not loud here, but totally pervasive, unchanging and profound; for so long part of the local psyche. To grow up here is to know this sound and its impact, for life. No one forgets.