Above Libíň by Sedlčany
The country close to middle Vltava river and to east from has some strange simplicity and austerity in it. The sky lies just above the land, granite bedrock appears on many places through a thin layer of soil. The land is a mosaic of fields, villages, towns and ponds dispersed around minor brooks heading for great rivers. Forest edges, lookouts and field pathways remind of neglected pictures made by classic Czech landscape painters represented by their dusty copies hanging in classrooms of our childhood. They also may remind of Antonín Sova, a poet of modest impressionism. It is hard to find genius loci of this land. Sázava, Vltava and Lužnice ("Leana") rivers are a phenomenon themselves and can tell us just about some aspects, few univesal tales about the past on river, life of rafters, stonemasons and minor farmers. Rivers, however, represented important routes since prehistoric times, there was always something important happening around them. But the country above them is much more medieval, connected to minor gentry and it's struggles and marriages. One can easily imagine the waylaying gentryman Kozlík ("Goat") from Marketa Lazarová book watching here, who is comming around. Important places stand by themselves here, one uses to go to Blaník hill, Slapy dam, Borotín castle and to Tábor, but part of this land called Česká Sibiř ("Czech Siberia", because of the weather) is not so often the goal. Maybe because one understands it's simple but homely spirit only when growing old.
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