Vlatva River

Late Autumn View from Vysehrad - Prague.

Winter feels close as a bleak afternoon light appears.

Across the water stands an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower atop Petrin Hill built to scale. With the hill, this one meets the real tower in the sky as a crow flies to Paris.

Vysehrad is where the original city of Praha began.

In the Czech language, Prague = Praha, which means "threshold".

The legend, now many centuries old, describes a queen and her people looking for a place to build a castle, and around it, a great city.

Soon Royal knights on horseback were dispatched by the court and queen to find a man, the queen had dreamed of. He was to be carving a threshold beside a river with his hands, proclaiming, "that is where our kingdom will lie".

The knights, after much riding, found him and that is where Praha was built.

(photo note: two figures on the cliff in the foreground for scale)****

The princess, whose busy subjects loved their queen, after a time, began also to desire a king. A man equal, yet complimentary to their kingdom. So, from her now beautiful castle the beloved queen sent her best knights into the forest seeking a man behind a plow pulled by one white horse whom she would marry to please her loyal subjects.

After several nights of search the black forests of Bohemia and Moravia the brave knights came upon such a horse and man. Tearing herself loose from the plow, the white horse galloped away leading the knights on a chase all the way back to the queens stables, the handsome king-to-be in tow.

Indeed, a smart Queen.

A group of strangers gathered together on the sidewalk near the bridge one day, talking excitedly with one another. All eyes fixed on a beautiful beam of light. Prague 1998.