Experience the best of Český Krumlov

Český Krumlov is wrapped in a tight loop of the Vltava river in South Bohemia, with a castle on a rock above red-roofed medieval lanes. The old town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the castle, the second largest in the Czech Republic after Prague Castle, is a chain of courtyards crowned by a painted round tower. It has an eighteenth-century Baroque theatre with its original stage machinery, and brown bears have long lived in the dry moat.

Lanes of Gothic and Renaissance houses run down to Svornosti Square, with its plague column, and the Egon Schiele Art Centrum remembers the Austrian painter who lived here for a few months in 1911. Canoes and rafts float down the Vltava in summer. Beyond the town, the forests and lakes of the Šumava hills spread to the west, and České Budějovice, home of the Budvar brewery, lies a short drive to the north-east.

Roast pork with bread dumplings and sauerkraut is the classic Bohemian plate, and beer is brewed in town at the Eggenberg brewery. Taverns occupy vaulted cellars under the old houses. Summer is busy on the river and in the squares, December brings a Christmas market, and spring and autumn are calmer.