Počátky

A small town on the Bohemian-Moravian divide with a tidy square, the poet Otokar Březina's birthplace, and the little woodland spa of Svatá Kateřina nearby.

Počátky is the kind of small highland town that surprises by simply being pretty: a compact square of burgher houses, a handful of pubs, and not much to do — which is rather the point. Its famous son is Otokar Březina, the symbolist poet, born here in 1868 and remembered by a small museum. In the woods north of town sits Svatá Kateřina, a little spa by a chapel spring that has drawn bathers since the 18th century; the walking route from the north passes it.

For a walker crossing the Javořice highlands the town is the natural overnight: accommodation, food and shops in one place, with the climb towards the hills starting straight from the square.