A Travel Diary

My Rating:

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Travel Cost: $10 -18 USD (212 – 382 CZK) or €8.76 – €15.78 EUR
Travel Time: About 1 hour and 15 minutes from Prague (Praha hl.n)

Why Tábor?

When I was planning this trip, I knew Prague would serve as my home base and that I wanted to take full advantage of day trips. After I booked my plane tickets and hotel room, I realized I had time for up to four full day excursions. I wanted to make the most of this trip, so I decided to do all four days. I knew I had specific criteria for where I picked. I wanted a mix of town sizes, touristy and non-touristy places, different countries, and destinations under three hours by a direct train. Click to read more about my day trips from Prague!

Tábor was ultimately picked as a close day trip because it checked every single box. It was a smaller, non-touristy medieval town that was a direct train ride from Prague. The overall feel I got when watching travel content from here was amazing. I am so glad I picked it; it ended up being one of my favorite days of the trip. If you are looking for a quick and easy day trip from Prague, this should be at the top of your list!

Getting to Tábor

Tábor is about an hour and a half drive from Prague. If you don’t have a car (like me), then it is about an hour train ride or an hour and a half bus ride. The roundtrip ticket costs around $10-$18 USD (212-382 CZK or €8.76-€15.78 EUR). I haven’t used public transit much internationally, but I still felt this entire process was very easy.

I ended up using Prague’s main station (Praha hl.n) and České dráhy (https://www.cd.cz/) for all of my day trips. The train was clean and comfortable. It had plenty of power outlets so I could charge my devices and there was also a small café! Read my guide to Czech transit apps here!

What We Ate

We only had one meal here, but we enjoyed it so much! We ate at Restaurace Škochův dům (https://www.skochuv-dum.cz/) on Žižkovo náměstí. Originally, I planned to eat at Triko Tábor, but it was closed the day we went. Luckily, we found this amazing restaurant right on the square instead! It was a little chilly out, but they had outdoor heaters, so we opted to eat outside so we could take in the views. The staff was so kind and helpful. While I never expect it, it was really thoughtful that they gave us a waiter who spoke some English.

Smažený sýr (Czech fried cheese) is one of my favorite meals to get while in the Czech Republic, and this place was so good! For my side, I got parsley potatoes and they were perfect. My husband got a side of sweet potato fries that we both liked. My meal was only $8.72 USD (189 CZK or €7.76 E) and the portion size was so large I could barely finish it! We also shared an order of onion rings. While I was initially disappointed that I couldn’t go with my original lunch plans, this meal definitely made up for it!

Travel Diary

I was feeling ambitious and thought I could get up early to meet up with a friend before going to Tábor, but I was clearly wrong! I ended up not leaving Prague until the afternoon. We picked up some traditional Czech koláče (kolaches) at Praha hlavní nádraži (Prague’s main train station) to snack on along the way. While we loved them, our favorite koláče are still from Kolacherie in Prague. At around 1:00 pm, we boarded our train to Tábor.

Prague’s main train station was actually very easy to navigate. We found our platform and track faster than I expected. I had pre-selected a window seat, which I am so glad I did! The views were amazing. I think I only looked away from the window to study some Czech vocabulary and phrases!

There is something so magical and surreal about visiting a new place in a different country. Growing up, I wasn’t surrounded by people that really traveled much, let alone traveled internationally. I am so grateful to have been able to travel abroad so much these past four years; it is definitely not something I take for granted. Pulling into the Tabor station was so special. It was my first time traveling to a smaller European town and navigating regional transit! While I was traveling with my husband, I did the majority of the trip planning and navigating. I am so proud of myself for successfully accomplishing this.

There is a local bus that runs from Tábor’s main train station to Žižkovo náměstí(the main square), but we decided to walk along the Jordan Reservior. Jordan Reservior is the oldest reservior and dam in central Europe! The easy walk is about 20 minutes but so beautiful! We saw some many people enjoying the weather even though it was still pretty cold out. The path was fairly level and had benches and even small piers to walk out onto. If it was summer, I definitely would have been tempted to go swimming!

I got to the end of the walk, crossed the street, and saw the stairs that lead to the Staré Město (Historic Old Town). The view from them overlooked beautiful Jordán Reservoir. Since it was around Easter, they also had a decorated tree. There was a little box where you could take a rolled piece of paper with a prayer or scripture passage. I thought this was such a lovely and charming idea.

When I got to the top of the stairs, I saw an arts and crafts store called Výtvarné potřeby U tukana (https://www.utukana.cz/). It was so much fun to stroll through and browse. There was so much I wanted, but I ended up with three handmade notebooks as souvenirs. My sister loved hers so much and I can’t wait to use one of mine as a travel journal! They were small enough that they fit perfectly in my day bag. (click to read about my Europe Essentials!)

Sometimes I will map out walking directions ahead of time, but I really wanted to jut explore and figured if I just keep heading “up”, I would find my way to the town square. After a few turns through alleys, I recognized where I was based on travel videos I watched before the trip and headed towards Žižkovo náměstí. We were both getting hungry but still stopped in a few stores along the way to lunch!

We ate at Restaurace Škochův dům, which I mentioned earlier. As we sat there looking at the town square, a school nearby must have let out. It was so interesting to see younger children walking around without supervision. They were just laughing and playing! I live in a safe area, but that level of freedom as a child isn’t really something you see where Ilive anymore.

After eating and people watching, I picked a random road to explore. I don’t think we could have picked a better one! Some of the alleys were so narrow and winding that we had to step into doorways to let the cars pass. I really enjoyed the architecture here. The buildings were so colorful and it felt like such an experience. It was a pretty short walk but it took much longer because I kept stopping to take pictures.

On the right, I saw Vila bratří Nováků (also known as Vila Černý leknín) and realized that I had reached the edge of Old Town. I crossed the street and followed Příběnická street along the ridge. It overlooked a beautiful valley below along the Lužnice river.

Eventually, I turned left to go back into the Old Town area. The sun was setting so the golden hour light made everything feel like a fairytale! It was truly stunning. We ended up back in the town square. Friends and families had now gathered and they were all socializing while kids ran around and played. I found a bench to people watch while my husband grabbed a mulled wine (svařák). I can’t imagine living in a town where this was my every day life!

It was getting late, so we decided to find a restroom and head back toward the train station. The public restrooms on the town square were closed, so we kept walking toward a shopping center. By this point, finding one was becoming more urgent, so we went into a store so I could ask where the restroom was in Czech. In all of my trips, this was one of two times I ever felt judged for being American or not speaking the local language fluently. I have said those same phrases both before and after this incident without any problem, so I truly feel like those women understood and just didn’t want to be bothered. It was the end of the day, so I’m sure they just wanted to go home. It would have been nice if they had just pointed us in the right direction though.

After the shopping center, we continued toward the train station and passed Husovy sady (Hus Park). The park was small, but so charming. I loved all the flowers and there was a statue of Jan Hus. I wish I could have explored it more!

As I got close to the station, I noticed an alert on my České dráhy app. While I was in the Czech Republic, they were modernizing a lot of the tracks throughout the country. Because of this, I got a notification about taking a bus instead. I was really confused, so I asked a bus driver for help. She was a little confused at first too, she asked another bus driver and they took a look at my České dráhy app. Despite the language barrier, we were still able to communicate and figure it out! They were both so kind and explained that there wasn’t a direct bus to Prague from Tábor, and that the app would update with the correct track and boarding details about ten minutes before departure.

About ten minutes before departure, I checked, and they were right! I quickly reserved our seats in the app. We ended up having our own compartment (kupé), and it was so relaxing! It was the perfect way to end such a great day.

Final Thoughts

If you are looking for a quick and easy day trip from Prague, I highly recommend Tábor! Tábor is perfect because it is a great way to experience what the Czech Republic is like outside of Prague. I had so much fun exploring all of the incredible alleys and beautiful nature. There is so much to do there that I would love to come back to see the rest!