Czech Republic Guide
West Bohemia
Kladruby
It's difficult not to be moved by the Benedictine monastery (April & Oct Sat & Sun 9am–4pm; May & Sept Tues– Sun 9am–4pm; June– Aug Tues– Sun 9am–5pm; tour in English 100Kč, tour with English text 70Kč; 
kladruby.euweb.cz ) at KLADRUBY (Kladrau), 35km west of Plzeň – particularly if you manage to catch a Christmas concert or join the August music festival. Designed by Giovanni Santini, arguably the most original Baroque architect to work in the Czech Lands, the monastery was founded by Vladislav I in 1114 (he's buried here, too) and was once the largest and richest monastery in Bohemia. Gutted by the Hussites and again during the Thirty Years' War, the whole place was transformed when the Counter-Reformation had set in – the monastery according to blueprints by Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer, and the church under Santini's supervision. This huge church, now restored, is the main attraction, where the original Romanesque and Gothic elements blend imperceptibly with Santini's idiosyncratic additions. The original lantern tower has been converted into an extravagant Baroque cupola, which filters a faded pink light into the transepts, themselves covered in stars and zigzags mirrored on the cold stone paving below.
The easiest way to get from Plzeň to Kladruby on public transport is to go as far as Stříbro (Mies) by train, and then change onto one of the fairly frequent local buses, which leave from the bus station in the town centre and cover the last 6km to Kladruby. Dramatically poised over the Mže (Mies) river, Stříbro itself was previously the vague frontier post between the German- and Czech-speaking districts, its tidy square sporting arguably the most beautiful Renaissance radnice in Bohemia, paid for by the town's long-extinct silver mines (stříbro means silver).