Slavonice

Slavonice prospered in the sixteenth century on the road from Prague to Vienna and the merchants built accordingly: two connected squares of tall gabled houses with vaulted interiors and facades covered in sgraffito - scraped two-layer plaster decoration in figures, biblical scenes, ornament and dates - to a density found in very few towns anywhere. Then the road moved, the town stopped growing, and in 1945 the German-speaking population left and the border closed a few hundred metres away, so Slavonice spent forty years as a dead end inside the frontier zone with no development at all. That is why the sixteenth-century fabric survived essentially untouched. Restoration since 1990 has been careful. Under the town runs a drainage and cellar system, partly walkable. The bunker line of the 1930s defences runs through the fields outside, several restored as museums.

What you actually see

• Sgraffito facades - figures, scenes and ornament on gabled Renaissance houses.
• Two connected squares - the sixteenth-century town largely as built.
• Preserved by the border - forty years as a dead end inside the frontier zone.
• Underground passages - the drainage and cellar system, partly walkable.

When to go

April to October. A day.

Honest expectations

The underground route is guided, low and wet in places. The narrow-gauge railway runs a limited seasonal timetable. Services in town are modest. The bunkers need a car or a bike.

Nearby

Landstejn castle is south; Ceska Kanada surrounds the town.