Cheb

A border town with a thousand years of German-Czech history — the crooked half-timbered Špalíček on the square, the imperial castle with its Black Tower, and the house where Wallenstein was murdered.

Cheb (Eger) packs an imperial past into a compact old town above the Ohře: the Romanesque castle — a Kaiserpfalz of Friedrich Barbarossa, with its Black Tower of volcanic stone and a rare two-storey chapel — anchors one end, and the market square runs down from it lined with merchant houses. In the middle stands the Špalíček, a doubled block of eleven crooked half-timbered houses split by an alley barely a metre wide — the town’s emblem. History’s dark headline happened here too: generalissimo Albrecht von Wallenstein was assassinated in a house on the square in 1634 (the town museum now occupies it). For walkers, Cheb is the natural hub of the region, with fast trains and routes out along the Ohře in both directions.