From Prague to Kutná Hora and our cabin door, step by step

You land at Prague airport around midday, or step off a train from Dresden at Praha hlavní nádraží with a backpack on your shoulder. By evening, you can be standing at our garden gate in Lomec. Getting to a dark retreat near Prague is simpler than it looks on the map. Here is the whole route from Prague to Kutná Hora and the last few kilometres to the cabin – the way we would explain it to a friend on the phone.

Step 1: Get to Prague – or skip it

Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Budapest and Warsaw all have direct trains to Prague, so for many people in Central Europe the journey is one long, comfortable ride with a book. If you come from Vienna or Brno, look for trains that run via Havlíčkův Brod: some of them stop in Čáslav and in Kutná Hora, so you don’t need to go to Prague at all.

Timetables change, so always check the current connections on cd.cz, the Czech railways’ website. We deliberately don’t list train times here – nothing is more annoying than an outdated timetable on a blog 🙂

Step 2: From Václav Havel Airport to the main station

If you fly in, you arrive at Václav Havel Airport Prague. From there, take the AE bus straight to the main station (Praha hlavní nádraží), or a city bus – line 119 or 59 – and then the metro. Count on roughly 30 to 45 minutes.

If your flight lands late, don’t squeeze everything into one day. A night in a Prague hotel and a calm morning train is a much better start than sprinting across the station with your suitcase and arriving in the dark already worn out.

Step 3: The train from Prague to Kutná Hora

Trains from Praha hlavní nádraží to Kutná Hora take about an hour and run roughly every hour during the day. Get off at Kutná Hora hl. n. – the main station of the town. Look up the timetable on cd.cz the day before you travel and send us the train you’ve chosen.

A small practical thing: the Czech currency is the koruna (CZK). Have a card or a few crowns ready for tickets and a coffee on the way. The stay itself you pay in euros, so you don’t need more cash than that.

Step 4: The last 10 kilometres from Kutná Hora to Lomec

Lomec is a village of about 30 people, roughly 10 km south of Kutná Hora. There are three ways to cover the last stretch.

Free pick-up by car

Tell us which train you’re on and we’ll pick you up in Kutná Hora, in Čáslav or in Bykáň. It costs nothing. From Kutná Hora it’s about 20 minutes by car – just enough time to ask all the things you didn’t want to ask by e-mail.

The local bus

On weekdays, bus line 240024 from Kutná Hora to Červené Janovice runs six times a day and stops on the village green, 60 metres from our gate. At weekends it only goes as far as Kutná Hora and Čáslav, about 10 km from us – so for a Saturday arrival, choose the pick-up or the walk.

The walk from Bykáň

This one is our favourite. Trains from Kutná Hora arrive at the small station of Bykáň at 15:30 and 17:30. From there it’s 6 km on foot through Úmonín: past the chateau, through a small pine wood and along a field path, about an hour in all. We recommend it to anyone who can carry their bag comfortably. You arrive slowly, on your own feet, and the change of pace starts before you even open the gate.

By car: a dark retreat near Prague, about 1 hour 15 minutes away

From Prague, take the D11 motorway towards Hradec Králové and leave at the Kolín exit. Continue to Kutná Hora (road 38), then follow the signs towards Zbraslavice (road 126). After about 3 km, turn left towards Křesetice (road 337), then left again to Úmonín, and 2 km later you’re in Lomec. It’s roughly 90 km in total.

For your navigation, our gate is at GPS 49.8678117 N, 15.2862292 E. Parking is free, right next to us, and your car can rest for the week just like you.

Driving from further away, count roughly: from Brno about 1.5 hours, from Dresden about 2.5 hours, from Vienna about 3.5 hours, from Berlin about 4.5 hours and from Munich about 5 hours. Add a break or two – there’s no prize for arriving tired.

When to arrive

The arrival day depends on the length of your stay:

• A week: Saturday, towards the evening (occasionally Wednesday) – so you can spend the day travelling or looking around Kutná Hora first.
• Three nights: Wednesday or Saturday – easy to combine with a long weekend or a few days in Prague.
• One night: Tuesday – good if you already happen to be in the area.

If you travel from far away, plan a buffer: a night in Prague or in a hotel in Kutná Hora before your retreat means you won’t step into the dark already exhausted from the journey. The town is well worth it – see our Kutná Hora travel guide. And if you want to put Prague, Kutná Hora and a week in the dark into one trip, there’s a 10-day itinerary for that.

Before you leave home

• Send us your train or your expected arrival time, so we know when to expect you – and where to pick you up.
• Save our phone number, +420 608 08 33 33. Tom answers in English, so a delayed train is just a quick call, not a drama.
• Leave chemical shower gels, perfumes and antiperspirants at home. The cabin is small and closed, and our waste water is cleaned by our own small sewage system and ends up in the garden – your nose and our apple trees will both be grateful.
• Pack light if you plan to walk from Bykáň. The field path doesn’t come with an escalator 🙂

More about the region around us is on dark retreat near Prague. Once you know how you’ll travel, pick your dates – everything else we’ll sort out together by e-mail.

See you in the dark – Tom & Lenka

P.S. The fastest thing you’ll meet on the last kilometres is usually a Gripen jet from the air base in Čáslav. Don’t worry, it isn’t coming to pick you up.