After the success in April of a risky but in the end navigable voyage hiking around rural Franconia to far away brewpubs, (including using the always patchy Oberbayern public transport), I must have experienced a surge of confidence, because I upped the stakes in June, relying on a ludicrous number of connections in order to try several very nice looking pubs in the Žďárské vrchy national park in Czechia all in one day. On a Sunday.
Remarkably they were all open with one exception of Hyltn in Oldřiš which opened only at 4pm by which point I’d be at the other side of the region. Still, given the circumstances, 7 out of 8 targets being open seemed too good to miss out on.
En route we encountered a village called Května (blooming flowers) that was genuinely fields of flowers, log cabins, lakes, a mechanical orchestra, Medieval turrets, a village pub run by an incredibly elderly lady, local life and the cheapest half-litre of beer in Czechia.
Below is a look at the day’s itinerary cobbled together with Mapy.cz and Muj Vlak, the state railways app. Spot the number of short changeovers and absolute absence of a backup if anything goes wrong.
Sunday 22nd June
Train – Vranovice (our base) to Brno 08:24-08:48
Train – Brno hl. N to Svitavy – 08:56-09:56
Train – Svitavy to Polička 10:02-10:29
Walk 10 mins walk from station to centre.
Pub #1 – Šenk Nožíře Dobroty, Polička
Train – Polička to Borová u Poličky (NOT Zastavka, the one after) 12:00-12:11
Pub #2 – Roubenka Borova, Borová u Poličky
Run (yes, really…) to Pusta Rybna, 4.9km (A fast walk will take 36 minutes so to catch the bus we’d need to arrive around 1pm, which requires departing at 12:30
Pub #3 – Hostinec Hlučál, Pusta Rybna (who knows how much time we’ll have – have a quick look in)
Bus – Pusta Rybna 842141 bus to Leave at Krizianky dolni konec stop – leaves in the square opposite the pub – 13:08 – 13:20
Bus – Krizianky dolni konec 842140 bus – 13:25 to Nove Mesto na Morave rozc. Kadov (halfway to Nove Mesto, crossroads of Kadov) 13:42
Walk to Kadov – 18 mins – arrive 14:00
Pub #4 – Hostinec U Janečků, Kadov
Bus – Bus 842143 from square opposite pub to Tři Studně – 14:43-14:53
Pub #5 – Krčma na náměstí, Tři Studně
Walk to Hostinec s orchestriónem 8.9km / 5.5 miles – should take about 1hr 20 // 15:45-17:05
Pub #6 – Hostinec s orchestriónem/Hostinec Veselíčko, Veselíčko
Bus 842130 – Veselicko to Žďár nad Sázavou 17:46-17:57 OR 18:22-1835
Walk Exit at Obchodni centrum and walk 6 mins to:
Pub #7 – Süssův hostinec, Žďár nad Sázavou
Train to Brno: 19:33-20:40 or 20:33-21:40
Train to Vranovice later and home.
8 trains, 5 buses, a 5km run and an 8km hike (with a combined 45 minutes of other walking in-between). By the end I’m 7 beers deep with a dying phone battery.
Normally I do these crawls to help guide you to accessible routes, but on this occasion I would advise against it! Not because these pubs don’t deserve a visit – they were lovely.
The pubs were all between good and great and, as a result all of them got on the guide. But I wouldn’t advise trying my route chiefly because it’s something a rather dumb, obsessive and reckless person would do. I needed a bit of luck and got it: superb dry weather, punctual public transport. Nothing snapped, broke or fell out.
But it would only have taken a single mishap for it to turn sour. It was also not possible to spend a good amount of time in a couple of the pubs due to the single and only bus option at Pusta Rybna without which the endeavour would have failed.
This is the bind though – there is limited time, so when the days are long and the forecast is good it suddenly seems reasonable. I wouldn’t bet against trying something similarly daft in future.
Did you enjoy our article? Please consider making a donation to help keep this guide going!