Český Brod

An old bishop's market town on the Prague–Kolín road, royal town since 1437 — St Gothard's church with its renaissance bell tower, remains of 14th-century walls, and the Lipany battlefield close by.

Český Brod guarded a ford on the old road from Prague to Kolín — the “brod” in the name. Prague bishop Jan I founded a market settlement here in the 1130s, a later bishop raised it to a town, and Archbishop Arnošt of Pardubice paid for the stone walls in 1343–64, of which stretches still stand. After the Hussite era the town negotiated its reward: Emperor Sigismund made it a free royal town in 1437, three years after the battle of Lipany was fought on the low ridge a few kilometres south. On the square stands St Gothard’s — a church of Romanesque origin (1136) in baroque dress — with a detached renaissance bell tower of 1578–85 wearing an onion dome. A practical trailhead too: the town sits on the main Prague–Kolín railway.