Milevsko

A quiet town around the oldest monastery of southern Bohemia (1187) — where a 2020 find in the church attic produced what may be a nail from the True Cross.

Milevsko grew up around its Premonstratensian monastery, founded in 1187 and the oldest in southern Bohemia — a Romanesque basilica and cloister that survived the Hussites burning the estate around it. In 2020 the monastery returned to headlines: researchers exploring a hidden chamber above the sacristy of St Giles’ church found a reliquary containing a nail fragment with a gold cross inlay, presented as a relic once venerated as a nail from the True Cross. Whatever one believes, the find fits the place — the monastery was among the richest in Bohemia before the Hussite wars.

For a walker the town is a practical stage stop: hotels, pubs, a brewery tradition, and bus links towards Písek and Tábor. The monastery complex sits on the northern edge, directly on the routes in from the Vltava side.