The hills around Votice belong to the Central Bohemian uplands, a rumpled country of fields, fishponds and small forests between Prague and Tábor. Votice itself is a modest market town with a square, a church and a few thousand inhabitants, a quiet place where the main event of the day might be the arrival of the bus. It has a bakery, shops and fuel, which is all a rider really needs from it.
The local landscape, though, has a legend attached. A short ride south-east rises Blaník, a forested hill that every Czech knows: according to folklore, an army of knights sleeps inside it, waiting to ride out and save the nation in its darkest hour. Smetana included the story in his cycle Má vlast, and the hill has a lookout tower on its summit. Even without the legend, the countryside around it is lovely, with long views over gentle ridges and small villages.
The roads here are narrow and winding, rising over low hills and dipping into valleys with ponds and mills. Surfaces vary a lot, from fresh asphalt to patched and broken stretches, and village roads can have potholes deep enough to be a problem on a sports bike. Watch for tractors and for cars overtaking on blind crests. The D3 motorway runs nearby, handy for a quick escape back towards Prague, but the minor roads are where the pleasure lies.
Benešov, the nearest larger town, has more choice of fuel and food, and its château of Konopiště, once the home of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose murder in Sarajevo triggered the First World War, is worth a stop if you have time. In Votice, a coffee on the square and a look at the old houses make a gentle pause before heading on into the rolling uplands.