Žatec

The world capital of hops — a medieval town whose warehouses, oast houses and surrounding hop fields were inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage in 2023.

Žatec has grown, dried, pressed and traded hops for a thousand years, and the town is built of that trade: a medieval core on a bluff above the Ohře, ringed by an entire quarter of 19th-century hop warehouses, drying towers and packing houses — the largest complex of its kind anywhere. Saaz hops from the surrounding fields flavour lagers worldwide. In September 2023 “Žatec and the Landscape of Saaz Hops” became a UNESCO World Heritage site, taking in the town and the hop-growing country toward Stekník. The Hop and Beer Temple with its hop lighthouse plays the showman, but the real atmosphere is in the warehouse streets, best out of season when the town is quiet.