Visiting southern bohemia

Tabor is really lovely and really interesting. It was founded as a "City of God" by a group of religious extremists in the 15th century. The Hussite museum in the town hall is one of the best museums in the country and the Nautilus hotel with its Goldie restaurant (opposite the town hall) are really worth a visit. Mercifully the tourists haven't found Tabor yet. (I probably shouldn't even be telling you about it.)

Cesky Krumlov can be pleasant, but unfortunately it is the victim of mass tourism. Over one million tourists lay it under siege each year, and now there isn't a single authentic local shop left in the village - now they are all just peddling crap for tourists. April is probably a bit chilly to go rafting on the Vltava, but that is how must Czechs experience Krumlov, viewed from a boat, paddling gently downstream.

If you're in the area, I would definitely visit Hluboka nad Vltavou castle, just outside of Ceske Budejovice. It's a state-owned castle, accessible by guided tour. Remodelled to look like Windsor Castle in England, it is really impressive.

Ceske Budejovice (Budweis) itself is worth a look. It is definitely more real than Krumlov. It is in the former Sudetenland, an area that has seen lots of political upheaval. For instance, the main square in Budejovice/Budweis has been called: Emperor Franz Josef Square, Freedom Square, Masaryk Square, Adolf Hitler Square, 9th May Square, Zizkov Square and Premysl Otakar II Square. Premysl Otakar II has been dead the longest, so he is the least likely to offend anyone.

I will second Tabor, lovely little town.
this is an extract from one of my trip triports from a few years ago when I visited.

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 15 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.

The train trip back is uneventful and we do not have to be bussed past the engineering works.

Almost all towns in southern Bohemia are pretty so it is hard to go wrong. The prettiest and most interesting on your way to Prague IMHO are these: Cesky Krumlov, Ceske Budejovice, Trebon, Tabor. C.K. is absolute magic fairy tale gem, that's why it's overrun by tourists. Stay overnight to enjoy it without crowds. C.B. is pretty historical regional city, much bigger than C.K. Historical center with its huge square is worth seeing. You can take a tour of Budvar (Budweiser) brewery. http://www.visitbudvar.cz/en/ . Tour is at 2 pm every weekday without reservation. They have tours in Czech, English and German languages. They brew the original Budweiser there (German name for Ceske Budejovice is Budweis). Original Budweiser is called Beer of kings which apparently inspired St.Louis Budweiser to be called King of Beers. One Budweiser is much better than the other one. Even if you don't have time to stop for the brewery tour you can order Budweiser beer in many pubs in Czech Republic. Don't be afraid, they won't bring you the one from St.Louis.
Then Trebon - it's on the shore of a huge pond (better call it lake) called Svet (in English - World). We rented bicycles and did the Journey around the World - about 12 kilometers. There are other big lakes nearby. They were built in 14th and 15th century as fish farms which they still are.
I agree with Marcus and Unclegus about Tabor. Unlike all other towns which were founded by King or nobility or developed from the villages, Tabor was founded by Hussites in 1420. There is Hussite museum in Tabor worth visiting. As Unclegus says you would enjoy it more if you know just little history about them. They were followers of preacher Jan Hus. His teaching was somewhat similar to Luther's, only about hundred years earlier. He was accused of heresy, called before religious council in Konstanz (on Bodam Lake) and burned at stake July 6th 1415. His followers did not like it, called themselves Hussites and under leadership of a brilliant military leader Jan Zizka defeated their Crusaders enemies in one battle after another. Their weapons were peasant tools (because most Hussites were peasants) made into deadly weapons. You can see some of them in the museum. After Zizka's death Prokop Holy (other names: Prokop the Great, Prokop the Bald) became the leader of Hussites. If you want to learn little bit more (it's pretty interesting) read these articles:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hussite , then look under related topics for Jan Count Zizka and Jan Hus.
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/zizka.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD0WNwr5AGg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prokop_the_Great
In one of these articles and in video it is mentioned that after Zizka victory on Vitkov Hill the hill was renamed Zhitkov. Actually it was renamed Zizkov (read Zhizhkov) after Jan (read Yan) Zizka (read Zhizhka). Zizkov is now working class neighborhood in Prague with the most pubs per square kilometer probably anywhere in the world.
You can find more information about Cesky Krumlov and Trebon in Rick Steves book: Prague & the Czech Republic.

Note that Prog is not the name of a city.

It's unclear to me whether it's actually about another part of today's Czech Republic, but I enjoyed the period film "Zelary" very much. It appears to be a beautifully scenic place, immune to mass tourism. It was a few years ago we saw C. Krumlov, but I liked it very much. And I've been to 15 other medieval towns, at least. We didn't have time to do the "Three T's" from Prague, alas. A brewery is a brewery, BTW.

I remember a funny radio commercial in NYC, in which reference was made to Soho and Tribecca (NYC) as "The New Bohemia". An ironic, heavily Eastern-Europa, matronly voice confided that "... well, actually the Old Bohemia wasn't that great." By ironic, I mean that she was referring to Pogroms.

Obviously a typo .... written in haste😉

The film Zelary was made in coproduction of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Most of the movie was filmed in Mala Fatra mountains in Slovakia. Eliska had to disappear because Gestapo was after her. It made sense to go to Slovakia because until 1944 Slovakia was "independent" Nazi Germany puppet state so she was more or less out of Gestapo direct reach.