Prague Embankment Sunlit Facades Countdown Timer

This is the Prague embankment in the last hour of a low winter sun, when the light comes straight down the river and hits that long row of buildings at such an angle that they stop looking like buildings and start looking like something lit from within. Every facade is a different shade of cream and apricot and pale gold, and each one has its own ornaments, its own balconies, its own little carved heads above the windows, and the raking light picks out every one of them. A tram is down at street level, red, half-hidden behind the traffic. The stone wall of the embankment runs along the bottom in shadow, and the river beyond is a flat sheet of pale blue. I was walking along the opposite bank when the light did this and I stopped, because you do not walk past this. A man was fishing over the wall and did not look up once, which I found slightly insulting on behalf of the sun. Then a cloud came over and the whole wall went grey and ordinary, and I understood why he had not bothered.