The town of Podbořany lies in North Bohemia's south-west corner, near the highway from Germany via Carlsbad to Prague and to the Pilsen -Most road, in a valley of two brooks. The region around is known as Podbořansko, or the Podbořany Region. The country is mainly agricultural with hop the no.1 product. Close to the town, visitors find Krásný Dvůr, or Beautiful Yard-a château in the midst of a 100 hectare English park. The place is worth spending a day in the arms of nature, with a swimming-pool, ridingschool and teeing ground at hand. The nearby village of Siřem cherishes the house of Franz Kafka's birth. Professor Jaromír Bažant, the composer, was born in Krásný Dvůr. Podbořany was given the status of a town by Kaiser Rudolf II in 1576, but the architecture is much younger due to fires. The list includes the latel8th-century Peter & Paul's Church, the Most Holy Trinity Post, the pseudo- Romanesque Virgin Mary Assumption Church and the Synagogue. Geographic dominant is the Rubín Hill where an ancient Slavonic settlement had been in the 7th and 8th centuries, with ravishing views of the rich forests and large ponds.

The Krásný Dvůr château

Podbořany