Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at and Tugendhat Villa in Brno

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. 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 is where the day begins. Next is Historic Centre of Telč.

2. 2. Historic Centre of Telč

   Ride into the main square of Telč for the first time and you may laugh out loud, because it looks too perfect to be real. A long, tapering square is lined on both sides by Renaissance and Baroque houses, each with a different gable, painted in soft pastels, cream, pink, green and yellow, with arcades running along the ground floor. After a fire in the sixteenth century, the town was rebuilt under its lord, Zachariáš of Hradec, who had travelled in Italy and brought back a taste for Renaissance style. His château, at the end of the square, has richly decorated halls and a garden. The historic centre was listed by UNESCO in 1992.

   Read the complete Historic Centre of Telč write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Historic Centre of Telč comes up about 69 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tugendhat Villa in Brno.

3. 3. Tugendhat Villa in Brno

   When the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed a house for the young couple Grete and Fritz Tugendhat in Brno at the end of the 1920s, he created one of the masterpieces of modern architecture. Completed in 1930, the villa sits on a slope above the city, with a vast open-plan living room enclosed by glass walls that could be lowered into the floor, a wall of onyx, and chrome-plated steel columns. It was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2001, and it remains one of the most influential houses of the twentieth century.

   Read the complete Tugendhat Villa in Brno write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 190 km into the recorded legs you reach Tugendhat Villa in Brno. Next is back through Historic Centre of Telč.

4. 4. back through Historic Centre of Telč

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Historic Centre of Telč write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Historic Centre of Telč, late in the day. Next is Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at.

5. 5. 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 at Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at. That is the ride.