Tabor vs Cesky Krumlow

Keep in mind that there are three "T" towns. We chose CK, so I can't evaluate them for you. This is such a LONG runout from Prague (we used a car and driver) that you can't do both destinations.

I will say that having the driver advance-book a local guide for 90 minutes helped us get an English language (only one a day) tour of the Baroque Theater. (That special interest was my top priority for the trip. Does not apply to you, maybe.) Outside guides can't go in the theater. The point is that the ticket seller for Castle or Theater tours (a civic employee) was a perfectly nice lady, who did not happen to have, it seemed, a word of English. I don't remember if the tickets were to go on sale later in the day, or what. But our guide, upon request, went back to the booth for us and bought the tickets! Our whole day was oriented around that event.

I'm not big on local guides, so I was hesitant to do this booking. But our relatively short visit to CK let me break my usual rule to do it on our own. I didn't think it was wasted money, but it was not necessary for a good visit (paragraph above excepted!)

Tabor is the much better day trip. It's much closer to Prague, and it hasn't been destroyed by mass tourism. The Hussite Museum in the Tabor town hall is absolutely excellent, and the tour of the medieval tunnel system that lies under the square is worth doing as well. Treat yourself to slap up meal at Goldie restaurant, overlooking the square.

Don't even consider Krumlov as a day trip. It's too far from Prague. You spend three hours getting there and another three hours getting back, and it's not a good use of your time.

You can do it yourself to Tabor quite easily. Just hop on the train.

I can fully agree with Marcus about Tabor, one of my favourite little towns for a day trip and very easy to get to by train from Prague.
this is an extract from a trip report of a visit I did to Tabor several years ago.BTW I would happily head back again.

We have a day trip to Tabor today. I had heard about this place on travel forums and found out that it was easy to get to from Prague, Andy had some DVD’s of European train travel and Tabor was featured in the Czech Republic one so we decide to go.

Return tickets cost 382kc for the two of us and we left from Hlavni at 9.16 am, the journey was fine until we reach Benesov where we have to transfer to a bus as there is some engineering work being done to the track, about 30 minutes on the bus took us to some place that shall forever remain nameless, a 2 horse town in the middle of nowhere, we re join the train and are in Tabor about 10 minutes later than scheduled.

Once in Tabor we walked to the main town it is a 10 minute or so walk but there are buses you can use, we enjoyed the walk and were delighted by the small town of Tabor, it has a warren of streets that are quite confusing, for many years this was an enclave of the Hussites in the Czech Republic and they basically rebuilt the town, I am not going to give a history lesson, you want info just google it.

The place is really nice with a town square some obvious town walls and a very nice little tower which gives great views over the town and of the surrounding countryside. There is also a medieval museum within the tower building which is very nice and informative, cost for both tower and museum was 80kc each.

We have lunch in the restaurant Modra Ruze, pork steaks with ham, potatoes and loads of veg. (150kc); it was very nice though I wasn’t so keen on the potatoes. this was washed down a Staropramen beer (22kc).

Fed and watered we headed to the town hall and to the Husite museum there, nice exhibits and some great dioramas of battles ,all a bit lost on me as I just could not really work out all the history.

We then took the tour of the underground vaults that start here, The Museum and vaults tour cost 100kc for both.

The tour was great fun, you have to wear a hard hat and even someone as short as me bumps their head, we joined a tour with about 40 school kids and their teachers, the tour was in Czech and we were the only 2 non Czechs on the tour, the guide very kindly came to us at each interesting bit and explained in basic English where we were so we could check on the English crib sheets we had been given ,very kind of her it was not in her remit to do that but she kindly gave us that info. The tour finishes in another part of the square and we return the short distance to the town hall to return our hard hats and crib sheets, it has been real fun. We then take a wander out of the old part of town and down to a waterfall area and carp farm, all very nice though the waterfall is a bit quiet, we then walked along the man made reservoir (there is history about why this was built, something to do with a fire in the old town and no water to put it out) back to the station.

It has been a great day, nice warm weather, a lovely town, a nice meal, and really nice people. This is a day trip I can recommend folk trying, not many English speaking tourists about, but a nice place with enough to keep you interested for the day and people that are genuinely pleased to see visitors.

As a day trip - Tabor. Cesky Krumlov is too far for a day trip but excellent with overnight. Tabor was not rebuilt by religious rebels Hussites but founded and built from scratch. Hussite museum is indeed very good. I recommend to learn little bit about Hussites to enjoy it more. If you google (and read) Jan Hus, Jan Zizka, Hussites, you will know what the museum is about.

Hello from Wisconsin,
Czesky Krumolv is in a class of its own...if you could reduce the tourism pressure by a factor of 10. On the other hand, Tabor is a noce town with an interesting history. I would encourage you to read about the Hussite movement. It is BIG in Czech. So learn a deal about the Hussites and really enjoy Tabor.

You will no doubt visit old town square in Prague. The large statue in from of Tyn Church is of Jan Hus. And he puts an entirely new meaning on "cooked their goose".

wayne iNWI