The Prague Detour

Kutna Hora, silver, saints and bone

Kutna Hora grew rich on silver mining in the Middle Ages, rich enough to briefly rival Prague itself in importance, and the wealth shows in St Barbara's Cathedral, a Gothic building with flying buttresses and vaulting that wouldn't look out of place in a much larger capital. That alone would justify the trip.

But the town's most famous site is the Sedlec Ossuary, a small chapel decorated, and there's no gentler way to put this, with the bones of around forty thousand people, arranged into chandeliers, garlands and a coat of arms. It sounds macabre in description and it is, honestly, a little macabre in person too, but it's also an extraordinary piece of 19th century craftsmanship built from a very unusual material.

It's a straightforward day trip, under an hour by train from Prague, easy to do without an overnight stay.

Cesky Krumlov, a town wrapped by a river

Cesky Krumlov, further south near the Austrian border, loops the Vltava river so tightly around itself that the old town sits almost entirely surrounded by water, with a castle rising above the rooftops on the outer bend. It gets compared to a fairy tale constantly, and it's a fair comparison, the winding streets, the pastel facades, the castle tower you can climb for a view over the whole loop of river below.

It's further from Prague than Kutna Hora, roughly three hours by direct bus, which makes it more of an overnight trip than a quick day out, and honestly it deserves the extra time. The town is genuinely lovely in the early morning and late evening once the day-trip buses have cleared out.

• Buses run direct from Prague, roughly three hours each way
• Stay overnight if possible, the town empties out noticeably after late afternoon
• Climb the castle tower for the classic view over the river bend
• Summer brings crowds, spring and autumn are calmer and arguably prettier with the light

Karlovy Vary, taking the waters

In the west, Karlovy Vary was once one of Europe's grandest spa towns, drawing figures like Goethe, Beethoven and later a string of European royalty to its mineral hot springs. The colonnades along the river, ornate ironwork and glass structures built to shelter visitors while they drank from the various spring taps, are still standing and still in use, and you can buy a small spouted cup locally and try the mineral water yourself, which tastes, fair warning, a bit like warm mineral water usually does.

Beyond the springs, the town is genuinely handsome, with pastel buildings climbing the hillsides above the river, and it also hosts a well known international film festival each summer that briefly turns the quiet spa town into something considerably busier.

Sequencing the three

Kutna Hora sits east of Prague and works best as a single day trip. Cesky Krumlov, to the south, and Karlovy Vary, to the west, sit in opposite directions from each other, so this route works better as a there-and-back sequence, Prague to Kutna Hora and back, then Prague to Cesky Krumlov overnight and back, then Prague to Karlovy Vary and back, rather than one continuous line.

What ties it together

Bohemia's wealth history runs through all three towns in different forms, silver in Kutna Hora, aristocratic patronage in Cesky Krumlov's castle, and the spa culture of Karlovy Vary that drew Europe's elite for two centuries. None of it needs Prague's crowds to be understood, in fact it's better appreciated once you've stepped outside them for a day or two.