Kouřim: Holiday Apartments and Holiday Homes

Kouřim is home to the Museum of Folk Architecture, the only open-air museum in the Czech Republic with a nationwide focus. It enables visitors to directly compare various regional types of folk architecture from the 17th to the 19th century. The open-air museum comprises 14 larger residential and farm buildings as well as several smaller monuments. Throughout the year, the site hosts numerous ethnographic and other accompanying programmes.

Culture

One-day courses in traditional crafts are regularly held at the Museum of Folk Architecture in Kouřim. Participants learn craft skills and take home a handmade souvenir. There is a car and bus park in front of the entrance to the site.

The Church of St. Stephen is one of the most significant examples of early Gothic European architecture. Its crypt of St. Catherine features a star-vaulted octagonal ceiling and wall paintings from the early 15th century.

The Kouřim Region Museum is located in the historic Old Town Hall and documents the history of Kouřim and its immediate surroundings. A permanent exhibition is accessible there; the temporary exhibitions are renewed three times a year. The museum’s offerings are complemented by a long-term archaeological exhibition about the early medieval hillfort of Stará Kouřim.

History

Stará Kouřim is a hill on an elevated gneiss block above a bend in the Výrovka River. Its steep slopes reach a height of up to 60 metres. The site was inhabited from the Late Stone Age until the early Middle Ages.

Lechův kámen is a gneiss rock on the Stará Kouřim educational trail near the hillfort there. Further information about the Stará Kouřim hillfort is provided by the Stará Kouřim educational trail.

Landscape and Trails

The hiking route “Around Kouřim in the Footsteps of the First Slavs” is 4.6 kilometres long and takes approximately 1.5 hours. It begins and ends in Kouřim.

Structures

The Chapel of Our Lady of Help is a Baroque pentagonal chapel. It was built between 1724 and 1727 based on a design by Jan Blažej Santini-Aichel. The interior of the chapel is not accessible to visitors.

The Prague Gate is the only surviving one of the five former entrance gates to Kouřim and is considered one of the best-preserved monuments of its kind in Central Europe.

Discover More Places

You can find more places at Drahobudice, Pašinka, Veltruby, Libodřice, Křečhoř, Malotice, Jestřabí Lhota and Nebovidy.

For the higher-level travel overview: Kolín District.