Moravia, Czech Republic

You got only four days after Prague. So my suggestions would be different if you are using car or public transport. With a car you can do for example Telc, Znojmo, Mikulov, Valtice, Lednice. By train I would suggest Brno and surroundings: Moravian Karst (abyss Macocha, Punkva Caves, Slavkov better known under its German name Austerlitz- place of famous Napoleon victory over Austrians and Russians, Monument of Peace). Or Olomouc and Kromeriz with two beautiful gardens Podzamecka and Kvetna which will be blossoming in May. Moravia also has many castles. Pernstejn is imposing. Better by car. Close to Znojmo (wine region) are castles Vranov and Bitov. Or you can visit region in southeastern Moravia called Slovacko with still strong folk traditions and beautiful folk music and songs. The last Sunday in May there is so called Ride of Kings in the village of Vlcnov: horses, folk costumes, folk music, wine. Well I am afraid you don't have enough days left for more suggestions.

Sorry I meant to add that- we'll be relying on public transportation. And we'll be heading to Vienna afterwords (hence why I was thinking south or east rather than west). And yes, four days isn't a lot but it's all we have! I know it will only be realistic to go to a couple of places. But that just makes narrowing them down harder.... Thank you for the suggestions. If you don't mind me asking, which are your favorites, and why?

Lots of regional train services have been cut as of this month, so many places are harder to get to by rail. If you pull out a map of Czech Republic and then look up the rail and bus routing for destinations, you'll find going north of Prague is a big chunk of time and effort considering you'll be then going south to Vienna( the exceptions are places like Karlovy Vary with direct service). You don't want to be spending a large part of the time getting to too many places and not enjoying what one place may have to offer. Using public transportation outside of Prague can be hard on someone who does not speak Czech, so check the bus routes for private lines like Student Bus Agency to help make our choice of where you want to go. http://www.studentagency.eu/ .
My advice is to pick only one additional place after Prague and then go to Vienna as you will be burning a bunch of time traveling to it from Prague and then more time to Vienna. The logical choice route wise is Cesky Krumlov and then to Vienna. Olomouc and then to Vienna is the next best bet. Unless you have a car, Znojmo is not a destination to go to, as it is the wineries around that area that are of interest, not the town itself.

Laura, based on you going to Vienna and your interests I would suggest Brno 2 days and Valtice, Lednice 2 days. I would take a train instead of Student Agency bus. Last time I took bus it got stuck in traffic jam for two hours. 1 day you can walk around Downtown Brno, Castle Spilberk, St.Peter and Paul cathedral, go for views there or on Old City Hall tower. Next day you can go either to Moravian Karst or Austerlitz battlefield and museum. I am sure TI in Brno can help you with logistics. For the next two days you can visit UNESCO Heritage Valtice-Lednice area. Train to Breclav (45 minutes), change there for about 10 to 15 min. train to Valtice. In chateau Valtice is also hotel Hubertus. I would stay there. They rent bicycles and you can pedal to chateau Lednice. It has a big park with canals and lakes and a minaret. Climb it for views. Visit chateau tropical greenhouse. You can take a boat ride from the chateau to the minaret. Or back or both ways. Then you can bicycle different way to Valtice. You can do some serious wine tasting in the 14th or 15th century wine cellar. Check www.salonvin.cz Then back to Breclav and from there there are many direct trains to Vienna (about 1 hour).

Hi Laura, In addition to the excellent suggestions above, I wanted to share a link from a TripAdvisor post I participated in earlier this year that is mostly about Brno (starting at Post #8 thru Post #17). In these posts are several helpful links regarding Brno and the area, including some from GCEK, the man James referenced above (and I totally second his recommendation to read through GCEK's posts). http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g274707-i96-k3566942-Initial_trip_planning-Prague_Bohemia.html In a nutshell, I would enthusiastically recommend a visit to Brno.

PART I OF MY REPLY:
First: Ilja in Seattle knows what she's talking about. I couldn't have given better suggestions myself, Second: Those who suggest you not try to squeeze in too much are right. Wouldn't you rather have a heavenly memory of cycling in the countryside for a couple days than one of rushing from museum to church to charming central square, then back on the train again? You can get almost anywhere by public transportation but it takes time. The smaller places require both train and bus. Coordinating the two is tricky, or you could spend a couple of hours waiting in a grungy station for the local bus. Third: If you get off the beaten track, you will find much less English, sometimes zero. Brush up on your patience and pantomime! Online you can use Google translate. However, Czech has complex declensions, conjugations, and prefixes, so "rough translation" is the word.

PART II OF MY REPLY Fourth, if you can possibly do it, go to the Moravian Vysocina, the Moravian area of the Czech-Moravian Highlands. It is cycling and hiking heaven. Trains from Prague (2 hours) go to Zdar nad Sazavou (diacritical marks omitted) while buses go to Jihlava. Both are not particularly pretty towns but they are jumping off points for the countryside. Wikipedia has a page on the Vysocina Region with a clickable list of small towns. Another good place to search for information is the website kudyznudy.cz, meaning "Escape form Boredom." Click the British flag for English. Finally, if you really want to do this, find a cycling tour company and book something with them for 2 or three days. KudyZnudy has a search function that turns up such outfits. You can then use Google maps to see exactly where you would be riding. These Google maps are so good we can pinpoint a gigantic storks' nest in one village! (The storks may be there in May.) BTW, May is a fantastic time to be in the countryside. It's all green and gold. The rape (canola oil seed) fields are in bloom and trees are blossoming. Enjoy!

We stopped at the Lednice chateau on the drive from Prague to Budapest. We were glad we did. I wish we had had more time to spend there. We did walk along the canal to the minaret and back. This is about the only place we ran into a language barrier at a roadside lunch stand but we managed with hand signals and smiles. It is definitely off the beaten path.

Thanks so much for the suggestions, that gives me a lot to think about. The kudyznudy.cz website is really informative- I hadn't come across it before.