Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Travelling to Czech in April, need some pointers

Hi there , I need some advise on the areas to visit in Czech as there are alot of places to visit which are the MUST see attractions and getting to know the life of the people living there . I%26#39;m a backpacker and probaly going alone so budget is the way for me . I probaly be going for one month plus or so





I also intend to go to other nearby counties such as Germany France and Romania thus like to check from the Czech Republic is there any train going to the different countries of europe . Many thks for your advice , I really appreciate it.




|||



Definitely go to Prague and definitely go to Cesky Krumlov. Prague is an amazing city - it gets overrun by tourists, but probably not as much in April.





Cesky Krumlov is a couple hours south of Prague and is a gorgeous town with an incredible castle overlooking it.




|||



I wrote this in response to another question, I did most of this trip in 8 days with a car. If you stop at Cesky Krumlov, Kutna Hora and Telc and use public transport it will easily take 2 weeks:





Drive to Karlovy Vary, spent 2 nights there, 1 day looking round KV and the other day I went to the village of Loket and then on to Marianske Lazne where I went to the spa in the Nove Lazne hotel which I strongly recommend. (It costs about 250CZK to go into the baths and sauna at Nove Lazne)







We then drove through some less picturesque landscape to Terezin to see the Holocaust transit camp there, then stayed overnight in Decin in order to visit the Cesky Syvcarsko area. I wouldn%26#39;t stay in Decin again -- it%26#39;s a dump and plenty of nice B%26amp;Bs in a more rural area. Walked up to the rock bridge near Hrensko in Cesky Syvcarsko area.





We stayed one night overnight in Liberec -- walk round the town and go up the lift to the top of Jested mountain.





Then drove across to the other side of the coutnry past Prague. If you haven%26#39;t been you should stop at Kutna Hora (see the bone chapel and the Italian %26quot;mint%26quot; building) for a few hours and then stay in Cesky Krumlov for at least one night.





I drove straight down to Mikoluv, and spent a couple of days at the Hotel Templ -- which I think is wonderful. This was a good base for visiting the nearby UNESCO heritage centres of Lednice and Valtice. This is the wine area in the Czech Republic so we spent some time looking round vineyards and sampling the local vintages. You can hire bikes in Mikoluv to see the area.





On the way back to Prague we stopped at Moravsky Krumlov, which is a tiny village with the Slav Epic by Mucha and well worth a detour. A stop at Telc (medieval country town) is also possible between Moravsky Krumlov and Praha.




|||



You must visit the best place in the Czech Republic - Brno! It is a beautiful medieval city with an infamous castle and Gotham City-style cathedral, heaps of baroque churches and theatres, and the unique Tugendhat Villa UNESCO heritage site. It is also a very young city with several universities, so the nightlife is lively and geared towards the younger crowd.



It is also much cheaper than Prague, so it is perfect if you are on a budget. In addition the centre is completely pedestrianised, and it is pretty much stag-party free. If you want to see the life of the local people, that is the place to go to - you will probably not experience that in Prague unless you venture out into the suburbs as it has become very tourist-oriented, which Brno is not. You must go to Prague, though, as it is a beautiful city, but you will find that your money will not go as far as it would elsewhere.



For Cesky Krumlov you need a couple of days to appreciate it - it gets extremely crowded, and the best time to see it is at night or very early in the morning - if you go on a day trip you will spend 8 hours on a bus and will miss its main delights.



The bus and train services in the Czech Republic are excellent and cheap - this site will help you out jizdnirady.idnes.cz/JRCis.asp?tt=c%26p=MF%26cl=E5



and you can reach almost every corner of the country in this way.



From Brno it is a couple of hours to Vienna, and there are direct trains to Slovakia, Hungary and Romania.



There are loads of other places to see - my other favourites are Kutna Hora, Litomysl, Olomouc, Nove Mesto nad Metuji, Telc, Ostrava (yes - if you want to see how the %26#39;real%26#39; people live, although it is totally different than it was 15 years ago)



The list is endless...



Have fun!




|||



Thirdpenguin and GCEK have excellent points - i would follow their suggestions, although i am not as keen on spending too much time in Brno, its surely great to spent 2-3 days there and get to know the locals. Its very lively university city.





I would add some more: the region of South Bohemia - land of lakes, marshes and mountains. Historical cities such as Cesky Krumlov, Jindrichuv Hradec (loved it, the castle is marvelous), Telc, Sumava mountains (Modrava, Antygl, walk along river Vydra - Otter). Great many castles - eg Rabi, Rozmberk... Also hikes into the many glacier lakes there and pristine old growth forests. Best to pair it with a canoe trip down river Vltava or Sazava, there are many companies renting boats or arranging the whole trip incl. transportation and lodging. You can also try windsurfing lessons on lake Lipno.





From there you can take trains or buses to the area of South Moravia via Znojmo or Trebic, don%26#39;t miss the renaissance jewels of Slavonice and Dacice.



The Lednice/Valtice UNESCO area for at least for 3-4 days, rent a bike or car and explore. Its very romantic landscape. Mikulov is a great base for this and right on the border with Austria, easy to catch a train to either Vienna or Budapest to continue in your travels further east.




|||



I completely forgot Slavonice and Mikulov - they are unmissable if you can search them out, and if you are there in the wine season (around August), a tour of the South Moravian villages to the south of Brno and towards Mikulov is a must - you might stumble across a wine festival (%26#39;hody%26#39;) or two, where the villagers put on spectacular dances in traditional costume involving lots of wine and slivovice. These tend not to be advertised, and it is a fabulous experience. If you travel by train in that part of the world there are inevitably people travelling back from the vineyards with great barrels of wine, and they invite you to join in with them, which makes the journey all the more pleasant!



BTW I wouldn%26#39;t really class France and Romania as being %26#39;nearby%26#39; countries - both involve train journeys of aproximately 20 hours!




|||



-:- Message from TripAdvisor staff -:-

This topic was inactive for 6 months and has been closed to new posts. We hope you'll join the conversation by posting to an open topic or starting a new one.

To review the TripAdvisor Forums Posting Guidelines, please follow this link: http://www.tripadvisor.com/pages/forums_posting_guidelines.html

We remove posts that do not follow our posting guidelines, and we reserve the right to remove any post for any reason.

Removed on: 12:20 pm, September 22, 2009

No comments:

Post a Comment