Seated upon the picturesque meander of the Vltava NW of Prague, the town of 6,600 population unites the neighbouring settlements of Roztoky and Zalov since 1968. Its coatof-arms dates back to that year, too. Roztoky is a relatively young garden town while Žalov and Levý Hradec retained the looks of traditional Czech province. The historical core is the former water fortress, now a château and seat of the Central Bohemian Museum. This monument, originally in Gothic, locates the first mention of the place in the stream of time into 1233, the time of Petr of Roztoky. The late l9th century and beginning of the 20th century saw Roztoky's bloom. The place became a favourite holiday destination for the Prague better-offs some of whom built their summer mansions here. One of them was the outstanding politician Prantišek Brauner, father of the painter and graphic artist Zdena Braunerová, who had an old mill restored here. His daughter owned a nearby studio often visited by many celebrities at her time. The traveller Joe Hloucha had two Japanese-style buildings, called the Little Sakura and the Big Sakura, built in Roztoky's romantic Silent Valley. Žalov has been a settlement since the Stone Age, many archaeological finds prove. The most important monument of the national history is the vast Premyslide settlement of Levý Hradec with the early l5thcentury St Clement's Church. In 1939, foundations of a pre-Romanesque rotunda, probably the first Christian building in Bohemia, were found here. under the floor.