Exploring Czechia

One of the great Czech artistic traditions - apart from making beer, obviously - is the production of high-grade glass works. Czech crystal is known the world over, hopefully intact by the time it gets there. One of the best places to see it being made is in the little village of Nižbor, conveniently on a train line Prague. The Rückl factory here - right by the station - still makes superb glass items in the traditional hand-blown way. The company's logo is a stork, and there are indeed two rehabilitated, injured storks pottering about the garden, plus more flying ones nesting on a pole above the visitor centre. Tour groups come here from all over Czechia. In winter it's nice to warm up in the main part of the works where the furnaces and puffing take place: the blokes who work here are in T-shirts and shorts all year round. Taking just the right amount of glass to make a piece and then blowing and spinning it just the right way takes years of practice. There ar...

A candidate for 'the Czech Republic's best castle beginning with K' is the one at Křivoklát, just over an hour by train west of Prague. It towers over the small village of that name nesting in the middle of hills that feel centuries away from the capital's bustle, hustle, scams, and people making YouTube videos about the hustle, bustle and scams. Křivoklát itself (pronounced something like 'ksheevo klart', though not much) consists of little more than a few pubs, hotels and guesthouses, train station, and general store. There are very nice flat walks and cycle rides - or hilly ones - to be had to nearby villages which, don't worry, have bars or pubs of their own. As always, the app mapy.com is your friend. The castle is the reason people come. Tours show you the stark medieval grandeur of some rooms, and the late-19th century opulence of some others (such as the magnificent library). There's an entertaining collection of traditional sleig...

Think Czech caves and you probably think Moravia's karst region, not far from Brno. But here in Bohemia, not far from Prague, is the underground world of Koněprusy. It's possible to cycle here (indeed I did) but it's hilly round these parts. A car is your best bet, or perhaps the irregular bus from Beroun (whose trains can whisk you the capital). Koněprusy's caves were accidentally discovered in 1950 by a blast the nearby quarry, whose vast terraces dominate the view outside. Down at the bottom amid some trees you can see some labyrinth-like artworks, and a message picked out in stones asking someone to marry them. We don't know if it worked. The quarry still is though. The caves opened in 1959 after investigation by astoundingly brave/mad explorers who didn't mind crawling through tight dark rock passages that might lead nowhere. A tour is much easier, just an hour of ambling along a flat concrete path through some astounding formations. Stalactite...

Big must-visit castles in the Czech Republic all seem to begin with K: Karlštejn, Křivoklát, Konopiště, Kačina . Karlštejn is the easiest and most popular, thanks to its proximity to Prague. Getting here from the capital is a simple and cheap twenty minutes of regular local train from Prague Smíchov station (just west of the river, a short tram ride from the centre or the Old Town). Karlštejn station already feels out in the country, a world away from Prague on the pleasant Beroun river. Follow the crowds - slightly smaller crowds since the Asian tour groups fell away during Covid, but still plenty in summer - for twenty minutes from the station, over the bridge, and up the notionally car-free lane lined by tourist shops and eateries towards the castle itself. You can't miss the cream towers rising up over the village, defying you not to use the word 'fairytale'. There are various tours available. You'll get plenty of history and Important Kings etc, but it...

Beroun is one of those likeable, indeed curious, little towns that bears a close look. Sort of literally. It's only half an hour by train west of Prague, but few stop off here. Known for its twice-yearly pottery fair that draws craftspeople from all round the country and well beyond each spring and autumn, it also has a resident bear. The main square is where most of the stuff happens. It's not too much of a car park, and has two grand old entrance gates flanking it. The helpful Tourist Info office is on one corner and has racks full of leaflets and brochures. That pottery museum first. It's down Beroun's most charming little cobbled street, just off the main square. Opened in 2015, it's quite the multi-tasker. It makes and sells jugs, mugs, pots and plates in a charming style fusing traditional local with a modern sense of dash. I'd be happy to have these in my kitchen instead of my Sports Direct mugs and budget-white supermarket crockery, but I...

Everyone knows about Czech beer, but it has a thriving wine culture too. Most of this is in Moravia, in the rolling hills south-east of Brno. The climate is ideal for grape varieties that ripen late. Grüner Veltliner, Müller Thurgau, Rheinriesling and Pinot Gris are among the most common here. There are countless wine villages and towns, from small places consisting of essentially one street of small wine producers, such as Hnanice... ...to large centres such as Mikulov and Valtice. Both have grand, very visitable chateaus. Mikulov 's has one of the biggest wine barrels in the world in the cellar - sadly, no longer in use. Perhaps it could make a unique Airbnb? In Valtice's equally fine chateau, you can sample 100 of the country's most prominent wines in the cellars' Salon vin . Perhaps best to get a taxi home. Znojmo's Enotéka [Wine Bar], in the historic centre, is another chance to sample local wines from a temptingly long range of dispensers....

A ten-minute bus ride east of Sedlec - home of the notorious ossuary - is something just as bleached-white but far more engaging. Kačina is the former stately home of the Chotek family (whose most familiar member is Sophie, assassinated along with her husband Franz Ferdinand in 1914). In a country where almost every palace and mansion is baroque, Kačina is uniquely neoclassical: an Empire chateau, dating from the early 1800s. It's a very pleasant visit, thanks to its proximity to Kutna Hora and Sedlec. (Buses run every hour from very near the ossuary to right outside the chateau, and you pay the small fare simply by tapping your credit or debit card on board.) The grand rooms give an idea of what upper-class life was like in the last century, period billiard table and all. (It doesn't have pockets. Like the nobility who came here, presumably - they didn't need pockets because their wealth was beyond mere cash in hand.) There's also a charming theatre that...