Chyše

A small town on the Střela with a Tudor-Gothic castle where Karel Čapek once tutored, and a castle brewery pouring its own beer again since 2006.

Chyše is a small town on the upper Střela, dominated by its castle — a seat that began as a fortress in the 12th century and went through Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque forms before its mid-19th-century remodelling into the English Tudor Gothic it wears today. Karel Čapek worked here in 1917 as tutor to the young Prokop Lažanský — his first job — and drew inspiration here for Krakatit; the castle keeps an exhibition on him.

For a hiker the practical draw is the castle brewery: beer has been brewed in Chyše since 1580, the brewery building itself dates from 1839–41, and production was revived in 2006 after a 74-year pause. It runs a restaurant and beer hall on the spot.

The town also keeps an early-Baroque church of the Annunciation, completed 1710 on the site of a 14th-century Gothic predecessor, with two bells from 1520 and 1572 in its tower.