Vysočina

The broad hill spine between Bohemia and Moravia — granite tors in the woods, Telč's UNESCO square, and honest rolling kilometres.

Set your expectations to rhythm rather than drama: a day here is forest, pond, village, repeat, rolling over plateaus that sit mostly between 500 and 700 m and stay cool even in summer. Granite gives the days their punctuation — field boulders, balancing stones, and the tors that crown the higher woods, with Javořice (837 m) in the south and Devět skal in the Žďárské vrchy sharing the role of highest points. Trains from Prague reach Havlíčkův Brod or Horní Cerekev in around two hours, and Telč or Počátky make good bases.

The built highlights are outsized for such quiet country — Telč’s Renaissance square and the pilgrimage church at Zelená hora are both UNESCO sites — and the walking connects them through mushroom woods and along fishpond dams. The country around Počátky with Míchova skála is typical: granite rocks appearing suddenly among spruce.