Why this ride
From Litomyšl it runs 216 km to Litomyšl; allow about 4 h 06 of riding. The stops in between: Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at, The Jewish Cemetery and back through Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Litomyšl Castle and The Jewish Cemetery
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 216 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 4 h 06
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Scenic road chapters
Litomyšl Castle → Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 57 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 55 km
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Litomyšl Castle
Bedřich Smetana, the composer of Má vlast and The Bartered Bride, was born in 1824 in the brewery of Litomyšl Castle, where his father was the brewer, and the town has never forgotten it. Every summer, the castle courtyard hosts an opera festival named after him, Smetanova Litomyšl, and his birthplace in the brewery building is a small museum. The castle itself, an elegant Renaissance building with arcaded courtyards, was built in the sixteenth century for the Pernštejn family and is famous for its sgraffito decoration: the facades are covered with thousands of rectangular panels, each with a slightly different pattern. It was listed by UNESCO in 1999.
Read the complete Litomyšl Castle write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Litomyšl Castle is where the day begins. Next is Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at.
2. Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at
On a low wooded rise called Zelená hora, Green Mountain, just outside Žďár nad Sázavou, stands one of the strangest and most beautiful churches in Central Europe. The architect was Jan Blažej Santini-Aichel, a Prague builder of Italian descent who loved to mix Gothic forms with Baroque drama, and here he built a pilgrimage church to St John of Nepomuk in the 1720s, shortly before the saint was even canonised. Everything in it plays on the number five: a star-shaped ground plan, five gates, five altars, five-pointed geometry repeated in the cloister around it. The reason is the legend that five stars appeared over the Vltava when John's body was thrown into the river in Prague, and the saint's tongue, said to have been found uncorrupted, is the other motif you will spot once you know to look for it. UNESCO listed it in 1994.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at comes up about 55 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Jewish Cemetery.
3. The Jewish Cemetery
On a hillside above the Jihlava river in Třebíč, thousands of gravestones stand among trees, some upright, some leaning, some covered in ivy and moss, their Hebrew inscriptions weathered by centuries. The Jewish cemetery is one of the largest in the Czech Republic, founded in the seventeenth century and used until the Second World War, and it is part of the World Heritage listing of the Jewish quarter and St. Procopius' basilica in Třebíč, inscribed in 2003, the first Jewish monument outside Israel to be listed.
Read the complete The Jewish Cemetery write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 108 km into the recorded legs you reach The Jewish Cemetery. Next is back through Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at.
4. back through Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at, late in the day. Next is Litomyšl Castle.
5. Litomyšl Castle
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Litomyšl Castle write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Litomyšl Castle. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Litomyšl Castle to Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at
Litomyšl Castle → Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at to The Jewish Cemetery
Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at → The Jewish Cemetery is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Jewish Cemetery to back through Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at
The Jewish Cemetery → back through Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at to Litomyšl Castle
back through Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at → Litomyšl Castle is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.