Exploring Czechia

Having a folding bike with me in this research trip for the upcoming Bradt Guide to the Czech Rep has been a revelation. A train can get you anywhere major. A bus from there can you get you anywhere minor. And a bike from there can get you anywhere at all. Even places so small they don’t have a pub. Up in ‘Czech Switzerland’ – the rocking and rolling lands aside the Elbe in the far north, on the German border – I’ve been exploring Swiss-ish looking villages, and making my way via train, bus and bike to or at least near to a Czech speciality found all over the country: lookout towers. If there’s a hilltop or mountain summit with a half-decent view, there’ll probably be a tower of some kind that you can climb for a splendid panorama. There’ll usually be a small charge – if it’s open, which it may or may not be depending on day and time – and a lot of steps. But as they say, no pain, no Instagram pic. Anyway, The last couple of days have been delightful, up in this scenic, q...

There’s more to the Czechs than beer and castles. But that said, beer is pretty important. And to celebrate the country’s most globally-appreciated cultural contribution, there are few better ways than to do the Pilsner Experience in Prague. Lager – proper lager, not your terrible North American imitation – may have been perfected in Plzeň. Pilsner do excellent tours there, of course: I’ve blogged about that . But if you’re in Prague, this is a zippier and even livelier alternative. As you’d expect from the Czechs, the audiovisuals are just superb. You wander through the first exhibition at your own pace with headphones, and the commentary tracks you. (I say your own pace, but a gong chivvies you along if you dawdle. Fair enough: there’s some sampling to be done, and we don’t mean music.) The historical stuff (Egyptians! Zulus! Vikings! They all brewed very enthusiastically!) is all done with great humour and verve. The tale of how Plzen came to devise what we now call lage...

An hour by train north of Prague – and quicker by bus – is the all-walkable castle’n’wine town of Mělník. It sits on the confluence of the Elbe and Vltava rivers, on a fine smooth riverside cycle path. You can cycle pretty much flat south from here almost to the country’s border with Austria, and north to Germany and ultimately the North Sea. You can see the view of that confluence from the castle’s viewpoint. Or can you? The ‘obvious’ junction is actually that of the Elbe and the snappily named Vraňansko-hořinský plavební kanal . Obviously that’s Czech, so we don’t understand it, but it is, in fact, a canal. The actual river nexus is slightly upstream (the left of the picture above, invisibly). Curiously, the Vltava looks bigger than the Elbe, but it’s the Elbe that keeps the name. Women achievers of the past who married a deadbeat man but had to take his name might know the feeling. Further along are more views, to the north of the zippily-named Řip Mountain. The castle...

The small town of Mníšek, a mere half an hour’s bus ride southwest from Prague’s Smíchov station, is a hidden gem of the Brdy Hills. Its delightful and quirky hilltop chapel, Skalka , was once firmly on the pilgrimage circuit (and, inevitably, on a path that leads you to the Way of St James). It's being restored and makes a fine little half-day trip – or more – from the capital. Mníšek itself is a pleasant little place with a pleasant main square and some pleasant places to eat – about which more later. Once off the bus, you have a 2km walk or 3km bike ride up the hillside to Skalka, your hilltop destination. At the top, magnificently overlooking the plains and the town below, is the church of St Mary Magdalene, designed by Kryštof Dientzenhofer and built in the 1690s. It’s a cracking place. Literally: mining subsidence left over from the 1970s has sheared the building, which has some eye-popping misalignments now patched over. The interior is still being refurbished, ...

Thirty kilometres southwest of Prague, just in the up and coming Brdy Highlands region, is the town of Dobříš. The must-see here is the splendid castle , and what makes it stands out is how it’s been carefully refurbished and restored to appeal to all the family. The rococo-style manor house, built in the mid-1700s, is still owned by the Austrian Colloredo-Mannsfeld dynasty. They run it as a family business, and take a keen interest in the place. It shows, in a welcoming way. Yes, there’s plenty of history in the displays and exhibits, plenty of cases with interesting things for grown-ups to ponder on and well-thought-out interactive displays. There’s a superb orangery, absorbing films about the history of the building, and a French terraced garden that was stepped to work around the brewery cellars. (This is the Czech Republic, after all.) And there’s period furnished rooms with costumes, portraits and antiques; even a concert hall. But it’s not just for adults. A strong poi...