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Holiday itinerary
Ten days through the softer, wine-scented half of Czechia. From Brno and the caves of the Moravian Karst the road runs south into the Lednice–Valtice landscape, a whole princely garden of follies and ponds, then over the white limestone of the Pálava to Mikulov and Znojmo, where vineyards drop to the Thaya. North of there lie the painted Renaissance square of Telč, Santini’s star-shaped church on Zelená hora, the baroque gardens of Kroměříž, the wooden villages of the Beskydy and finally Olomouc under its Holy Trinity Column. Fast chargers sit in every district town; the wine villages are hotel-socket country.
Season: Best from May to mid-October. September is the vintage month: burčák, the cloudy half-fermented new wine, is poured in every village, and Mikulov and Znojmo hold their harvest festivals. Most chateaux, including Lednice, Valtice and Vranov, close or open only at weekends from November to March, and the Punkva Caves and Villa Tugendhat sell out weeks ahead in summer, so book online. The Pustevny ridge road is closed to private cars; the chairlift from Trojanovice runs all year. Hot July days on the plain are easy on the battery; winter frost on the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands is not.
Landmarks
Telč, the square of Zachariáš of HradecPhoto: Harold / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Villa Tugendhat, BrnoPhoto: Thomas Ledl / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
The Macocha AbyssPhoto: 7oanna / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Lednice ChateauPhoto: P. Hughes / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
The Reistna colonnade above ValticePhoto: Pudelek (Marcin Szala) / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Mikulov from the Holy HillPhoto: VitVit / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The Pálava hills from DěvičkyPhoto: Tadeáš Bednarz / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Rotunda of Saint Catherine, ZnojmoPhoto: Pudelek (Marcin Szala) / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Šobes vineyard on the ThayaPhoto: Palickap / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Vranov nad Dyjí ChateauPhoto: Jerzy Strzelecki / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Třebíč and the Basilica of Saint ProcopiusPhoto: Jiří Sedláček / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Santini’s church on Zelená horaPhoto: Wolkenkratzer / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The Flower Garden, KroměřížPhoto: Txllxt TxllxT / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Štramberk and the Trúba towerPhoto: Kankovaa / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Jurkovič’s lodges at PustevnyPhoto: Helcapas / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Olomouc, the Upper SquarePhoto: Pudelek / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Holiday itinerary
- Day 1 · Brno
Brno is a student city that wears its history lightly. Start on Petrov hill, where the needle spires of the cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul ring noon at eleven, a habit kept since the Swedish siege of 1645, then walk down to the Cabbage Market, where stalls still sell vegetables around the baroque Parnas fountain. Under the Capuchin church the crypt keeps its monks dry and in rows. The afternoon belongs to Villa Tugendhat, Mies van der Rohe’s glass house of 1930 with its onyx wall that glows at sunset. Charge at the Teplárny Brno fast hub by Galerie Vaňkovka.
- Day 2 · Brno
A day under the ground and above it. North of Brno the road climbs through beech woods to Křtiny, where Santini’s pilgrimage church rises out of a small village like a ship, and on into the Moravian Karst. At Skalní mlýn leave the car for the little road train to the Punkva Caves: a walk through dripstone halls ends at the bottom of the Macocha Abyss, 138 metres of sheer rock with a disc of sky at the top, and the return is by boat along the underground river. The cable car lifts you to the upper bridge, where you look straight down into the same hole. Top up at the ČEZ charger in Blansko on the way back.
- Day 3 · Lednice
South-east of Brno the land flattens into the fields where Napoleon won at Austerlitz. Stop at the baroque chateau of Slavkov, where the armistice was signed, and drive up to the Peace Cairn on Pracký kopec, a stone memorial with a view over the whole battlefield. Then the road runs on to Lednice and into the strangest garden in Central Europe: the Liechtensteins turned some two hundred square kilometres between their two chateaux into a park of temples, ponds and avenues. At Lednice the neo-Gothic chateau stands beside a cast-iron palm house, and a boat glides along the canals to a sixty-metre minaret. Charge at the Ionity by Břeclav, ten minutes away.
- Day 4 · Mikulov
Valtice is the other half of the princely garden. The baroque chateau hides the National Wine Salon in its cellars, where you can taste the hundred best Czech wines of the year; whoever drives keeps to the sniffing. Above the town the Reistna colonnade stands on its ridge like a stage set, and the climb to its terrace opens the vineyards all the way to Austria. Between the two chateaux, by car or better by hired bike, look for the follies: the Border Chateau on the old Moravian–Austrian line, the triumphal arch of the Rendez-vous in the woods, the Temple of Apollo above a pond. In the evening the road reaches Mikulov, white houses under a chateau on a rock.
- Day 5 · Mikulov
Climb the Holy Hill early, before the heat, past the stations of the cross to the white chapel of Saint Sebastian: below lie the roofs and the chateau, the Nové Mlýny lakes and the long line of the Pálava. Walk through the old Jewish quarter and its hillside cemetery, then drive the few kilometres to Pavlov, a wine village tucked under the limestone. A path climbs to the ruin of Děvičky, the Maidens’ Castle, the best viewpoint on the hills. In Dolní Věstonice the Archeopark tells the story of the Venus of Věstonice, a clay figure fired some 29,000 years ago. End the day in a cellar lane with a glass of Pálava. The ČEZ fast charger is on the edge of Mikulov.
- Day 6 · Znojmo
The road west follows the Austrian border through vines and poppy fields to Znojmo, a town built on a cliff above the Thaya. In the chateau grounds the little Rotunda of Saint Catherine keeps twelfth-century frescoes of the Přemyslid princes, and below the streets runs a maze of medieval cellars you can tour by lamp. In the afternoon drive into Podyjí National Park: from the village of Podmolí a path drops to Šobes, one of the oldest vineyards in Central Europe, hanging on a sunny meander of the river with forest on every side. Nearby the Hardegg viewpoint looks down on a whole Austrian town and its castle across the water. Charge at the E.ON fast station in Znojmo.
- Day 7 · Telč
Follow the Thaya upstream to Vranov nad Dyjí, where a baroque chateau sits on a rock seventy metres above the river; inside, Fischer von Erlach’s oval Hall of Ancestors is painted to the top of its dome. A few bends further, Bítov castle stands over the long, fjord-like Vranov reservoir, and the lay-bys on the dam road are worth a stop. Then north across the hills to Třebíč, where the Jewish quarter climbs a slope above the river in narrow lanes and the Basilica of Saint Procopius shows its Romanesque portal; both are on the UNESCO list. Arrive in Telč at dusk, when the ponds go silver. Charge at the E.ON station in Třebíč; Telč has ČEZ points by the old town.
- Day 8 · Kroměříž
Walk Telč before breakfast, when the long square of Zachariáš of Hradec is empty and every gable, scalloped, stepped or painted, has the light to itself; the Renaissance chateau and the two ponds that wrap the town finish the picture. Then cross the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands, a quiet country of fish ponds and spruce, to Žďár nad Sázavou. On Zelená hora Santini built a pilgrimage church to Saint John of Nepomuk on a five-pointed star, with cloisters drawn in the same geometry. Charge at the E.ON hub in Žďár and drive on to Kroměříž, the archbishops’ town, for the evening walk through the Flower Garden and its long colonnade of statues.
- Day 9 · Rožnov pod Radhoštěm
Morning in the archbishop’s palace at Kroměříž, where Titian’s late, dark Flaying of Marsyas hangs among the state rooms, then east as the hills begin to rise. Štramberk is a village of wooden houses packed under a round castle tower called the Trúba; climb it for the view over the Beskydy, and buy a bag of Štramberk ears, the spiced gingerbread rolled like a cone. In the Beskydy leave the car at the lower chairlift station in Trojanovice and ride up to Pustevny, where Dušan Jurkovič’s carved wooden lodges look like something from a fairy tale and a treetop walkway runs along the ridge; on foot, Radhošť and its chapel are an hour away. Sleep in Rožnov, below the open-air museum of Wallachian villages.
- Day 10 · Olomouc
Give the Wallachian Open-Air Museum the first hours, wooden cottages, a timber church and smoke from real chimneys, then drive west out of the hills onto the wide Haná plain. Olomouc is Prague without the crowds. On the Upper Square the Holy Trinity Column rises thirty-five metres in gilded baroque sculpture, and the astronomical clock on the town hall was rebuilt in the 1950s with workers and athletes in place of saints. Six baroque fountains are scattered through the squares; find Caesar and Hercules. Before dark, drive up to the basilica on Svatý Kopeček for the last long view over the plain, and order tvarůžky, the fierce local cheese, with a dark beer. Charge at the fast station on the edge of the centre.