Kašperské Hory

A former royal gold-mining town high in the Šumava foothills — renaissance town hall on a sloping square, the Šumava museum, and Kašperk castle an hour's walk above.

Kašperské Hory lived on gold: medieval miners drove kilometres of galleries into the hills around the town, Charles IV gave it royal favour and a castle to guard the diggings, and the sloping square with its renaissance town hall still carries the confidence of that era. Today the town of a thousand-odd people is a walking base for the central Šumava — museum, pubs, a small brewery, and buses down to the Otava valley. Kašperk castle stands an hour’s walk north above the roofs.