10 Best Sights in Day Trips from Prague, Czech Republic

Getting to this beautiful cathedral is nearly as pleasurable as a visit to the Gothic church itself. It's about a 10-minute walk from the main Palackého náměstí along a road lined with baroque statues, from which you can gaze at the surrounding countryside and watch the massive shape of the cathedral come closer. From afar, the church resembles a grand circus tent more than a religious center. As the jewel in Kutná Hora's crown, it's a high point of Gothic style, although through the centuries there have been alterations and improvements. St. Barbara's was started in the late 1300s; it drew on the talents of the Peter Parler workshop as well as two luminaries of the late 15th century, Matyáš Rejsek and Benedikt Ried.

Upon entering, look up. The soaring ceiling is one of the church's most impressive features. It was added in 1558 and replaced and restored in the late 1800s. At the western end of the church, take the stairs up to the elevated section for closer views of the ceiling and the lavish organ, decorated with golden angels and cherubs. There are also some interesting casts of reliefs and other decorative church elements here, including a gargoyle of a cat with a fish in its paws, a sculpture of angels carrying the miners' guild coat of arms, and a small statue of an oddly fed-up-looking Jesus. Head out to the balcony for views over the garden; lean out a little and you can see the town center, including the visibly leaning tower of the Kostel sv. Jakuba (Church of St. James).

Once outside, take a stroll through the gardens and courtyard and venture down into the ancient Kaple Božího těla (Corpus Christi Chapel). This free-to-enter, 14th-century cemetery chapel, with its beautiful vaulted ceiling, is used today mainly as an exhibition and concert space.

Avoid purchasing the opera glasses on sale at the front desk (50 Kč); the cathedral's elevated sections mean that all but the most short-sighted won't need them to get a good view of the ceiling.

If it's a picture-book European castle you're after, look no further. Perched atop a wooded hillside, Karlštejn comes complete with battlements, turrets, and towers. Once Charles IV's summer palace, Karlštejn was originally built to hold and guard the crown jewels (which were moved to Prague Castle's Katedrála sv. Víta, or St. Vitus Cathedral, in 1619). There is a fairly strenuous hike up to the castle—lined with souvenir stands and overpriced snack bars—but it's worth the journey. Once you've reached the top, take time to walk the ramparts and drink in the panorama of the village and countryside below. There's a slightly bewildering list of different interior tours, but the pick of the bunch is Tour 2, which includes the castle's greatest treasure, the Chapel of the Holy Cross, which once held the crown jewels. Tours of the chapel are limited (and more expensive than the other tour route), so you must book in advance. On sunny days, there's also an exterior tour, or you can simply take a stroll around the courtyards at no cost. Because of its proximity to Prague, it is the most-visited site outside of the Czech capital, so be prepared for crowds, especially in the high summer months.

This is the reason many people outside the Czech Republic have heard of, and make the trip to, Kutná Hora. Forget all that beautiful baroque architecture and descend into the darkness with some bones. The skeletal remains of around 40,000 people have been lovingly arranged in the Kaple Všech svatých (All Saints Chapel), more commonly called the Bone Church. Built in the 16th century, this church forced the movement of a nearby graveyard, so monks from the nearby Sedlec Monastery decided to use the displaced cemetery bones to decorate the church with beautiful, weird, and haunting results. Look out for the chandelier, which is made with every bone in the human body, as well as the Schwarzenberg coat of arms, which includes a raven (assembled from various small bones) pecking the eye of a Turkish warrior.

A man dressed as a monk asleep in the corner; children practicing archery; traditional craftsmen offering their wares—close your eyes in Křivoklát's strangely atmospheric courtyard and you can easily imagine the scene with hunters clattering back atop their horses. Because the castle is a little farther from Prague, it's much less crowded and more authentic, so you can let your imagination run wild as you wander the walls and gaze out on the surrounding forest and the Berounka river winding lazily by below. The evocative name helps as well, even if it's a little hard to pronounce (it means "twisted branches" in Czech). There also aren't many signs, which helps with the feeling that you are having an adventure. You'll meet a lot of locals, rather than tourists, enjoying the castle, mainly because it's a national favorite thanks to its many romantic references in Czech literature. The river area is also popular with hikers and cyclists.

Křivoklát began life as a humble hunting lodge back in the 12th century. Greater things were to come, thanks to King Wenceslas I, who commissioned the first castle here. Future inhabitants expanded and beautified the place, including Charles IV and his son, Wenceslas IV. A number of fires significantly damaged the buildings, and toward the end of the 16th century it lost its importance and fell into disrepair. Following the Thirty Years' War, the Schwarzenbergs took over and revived it. It's been in state hands since 1929.

Today, Křivoklát offers some of the more interesting castle tours around. There are five to choose from, with Tour 3 ("The Grand Tour"; 390 Kč in English) the most comprehensive. Over the course of 1 hour and 40 minutes, visitors will see the Great Hall, one of the largest Gothic halls in Central Europe (second only to the one at Prague Castle), the beautiful chapel, the castle library, a prison complete with torture instruments, and lots of hunting trophies. Tours of the castle are offered regularly in Czech and less regularly in English (check the website for times), but you can always join a Czech tour and purchase a pamphlet with information in English.

Even without a tour, the castle is well worth a visit. You can walk along the castle ramparts, climb the tower (for great views of the surrounding countryside), or simply sit and nurse a beer in the beautiful courtyard. There's also a lovely 2-km (1-mile) woodland walk from the castle to a viewpoint above the river; follow the path marked with yellow paint, which starts across the road from the castle entrance.

Under the historic center of Mělník lies a secret: a network of underground passages leading to a medieval well. Half-hour guided tours from the Tourist Information Center take you down into the tunnels, which were dug out of the sandstone rock in the 13th and 14th centuries and used as storage rooms, wine cellars, and shelters during times of war. After a short walk, you'll come to the beautiful and unique medieval well. At 184 feet deep and 15 feet wide, it's the largest well in the Czech Republic—yet from above ground in the main square, you wouldn't even know it exists.

Located 15 miles northeast of Kutná Hora, this national stud farm was established in the 16th century to breed and train ceremonial horses for the Habsburg court. In 2019, it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site—the first stud farm anywhere to be listed—in recognition of its vital role in protecting and promoting the rare but ancient Kladruber breed. Covering 1,310 hectares (3,240 acres) of flat, sandy land and fenced pastures near the Elbe, the site includes fields and forests along with its horse breeding and training grounds. Visitors can take a guided tour of the stables, home to a mix of gray and black horses—in the past, the former were used for royal ceremonies and the latter for high-ranking clergy—as well as explore the coach room, the château, the forester’s lodge, and the observation tower.

There is an eerie silence at Lidice. The lovely green rolling hills, small pond, babbling brook, and groves of trees are typical of the Czech countryside, but somehow the events that happened here remain in the air. It's incredibly moving to walk around the empty area, constantly reminding yourself that this was a thriving village before the Nazis effectively erased it from the map.

You'll first enter the colonnade that houses a small museum. Inside you're introduced, through a series of films and photographs, to the original inhabitants of the city. German documentation from the time describes the horror of the mass murder in a disturbingly straightforward fashion. From here, the grounds of the memorial are free to wander, or you can secure an English-speaking guide to escort you around the entire area for 500 Kč (book in advance through the website).

The most visited and evocative sight in Lidice is the Monument to Child Victims of War. This life-size sculpture of the 82 children gassed by the Nazis is haunting in its detail, particularly the delicate facial expressions. Sculptor Marie Uchytilová dedicated two decades of her life to the project. On the opposite side of the path is a stark cross, which marks the place where the men were executed.

Walk to the end of the field to see the former location of the town's cemetery, or head back toward the entrance to a vast rose garden; the west portion of the garden is planted with light-colored roses to honor the children.

The museum entrance fee also includes access to Lidická galerie, home to a permanent exhibition of contemporary art donated by artists from around the world, and Rodinný dům č. 116, an example of the typical 1950s houses that make up the new, thriving village of Lidice. Both are around a 10-minute walk west of the rose garden.

The most powerful aspect of Terezín is that you don't need much imagination to visualize how it looked under Nazi rule. When it was a Jewish ghetto, more than 59,000 people were crammed into this camp. Terezín was actually an exception among the many Nazi concentration camps in Central Europe. The Germans, for a time, used it as a model city in order to deflect international criticism of Nazi policy toward the Jews. In the early years of the war—until as late as 1944—detainees had a semblance of a normal life, with limited self-rule, schools, a theater, and even a library. (Pictures drawn by the children at Terezín are on display in Prague's Jewish Museum.) As the Nazi war effort soured, the conditions for the people in Terezín worsened. Transports to Auschwitz and other death camps were increased to several times a week, and eventually 87,000 Jews were murdered in this way. Another 35,000 died from starvation or disease.

The enormity of Terezín's role in history is most starkly illustrated at this former military fortress. From 1940 to 1945, it functioned as a jail, mainly for political prisoners and others resisting the German occupation, holding them in abject conditions. Around 30,000 prisoners came through here during the war. A tour through the fortress is chilling; you'll first visit the administrative area, where new prisoners were brought, and then glimpse their cells, crudely furnished with stone floors and long wooden beds. Not much has been done to spruce up the place for visitors, leaving the original atmosphere intact. As a military prison, 150 people could be held in the cells; under the Nazis, it was typical to have 1,500 prisoners held in the same space. There was no gas chamber here, but the appalling hygienic conditions led to many deaths, and about 300 prisoners were executed. Many of the juxtapositions are deeply cruel, such as the swimming pools for guards and their families, which prisoners would pass on their way to their execution.

Those who did not die in detention were shipped off to other concentration camps. Above the entrance to the main courtyard stands the horribly false motto "Arbeit macht Frei" (Work Brings Freedom). At the far end of the fortress, opposite the main entrance, is the special wing built by the Nazis when space became tight. These windowless cells display a brutal captivity.

The largest natural rock bridge in Europe, Pravčická Archway is the symbol of the gorgeous national park that is Czech Switzerland, which sits on the border with Germany. To reach the archway, you can either start walking from Hřensko (follow the red hiking route) or take a local bus to a stop called Tři Prameny. From here, it's a lovely and atmospheric walk up through the forest to reach the rock formation, which comes complete with a museum and restaurant called Falcon's Nest—supplies are brought in via pulley. This being the Czech Republic, there's also a pub where you can order fine beer in the shadow of the bridge itself. For an entrance fee of 95 Kč, you can scramble around nearby rock formations, which have a similarly alien appeal, for a better vantage point.

A series of gentle, well-marked hikes on pretty forest trails and mossy gorges will take you on a circular route back, ending up in Hřensko. The highlight of these trails is being punted along the river—when the paths run out—in a precarious boat with a ferryman who tells you (in German and Czech and hand gestures) how the rocks over your head look like different animals and monsters. Each boat trip costs around 50 Kč.

Built in 1568, this towering Renaissance château is a rare example of the "arcade" castle style in northern Europe. As you approach, the white-walled exterior appears to be made from thousands of bricks, but on closer inspection, it becomes clear the pattern has been achieved through intricate sgraffito. Each "brick" is etched into the plaster and has its own design, often incorporating imagery from the Old Testament or from classical mythology. Head into the courtyard to find even grander and more elaborate wall frescoes. While the exterior has remained largely unchanged for the last 450 years, the interior has a number of high baroque architectural additions. To see them, two guided tours are available: the first takes in a set of 12 castle rooms plus the perfectly preserved 18th-century baroque theater, complete with original stage machinery and decorations; the second takes in another set of 12 rooms as well as the elegant, vaulted castle chapel. Each tour lasts just 50 minutes, but if you have time for only one, choose the first. Tours are in Czech, but an English transcript is provided. It's also possible to visit the castle cellars—home to a permanent exhibition of contemporary sculptures by Olbram Zoubek—for a wine tasting and to stroll around the pretty castle gardens.