Příbram

The mining town on the Brdy edge, crowned by Svatá Hora — Bohemia's foremost Marian pilgrimage site, an arcaded baroque complex above the rooftops.

Příbram is where the Brdy forests meet real town infrastructure — and where they meet Svatá Hora, the most important Marian pilgrimage site in Bohemia. The early-baroque complex above the town (rebuilt on a grand scale from 1648, a basilica since 1905) is a rectangle of cloistered ambits with corner chapels around the church of the Assumption on its stone terrace, and a covered pilgrim staircase climbs to it straight from the centre. The town’s other identity is mining: centuries of silver and uranium, remembered in the Mining Museum’s shafts and headframes at Březové Hory.

For hikes into the now-open former military Brdy, Příbram is the practical base — full services, buses towards the forest edges, and rail back to Prague.