Where to Stay in Ústí nad Labem, Ústecký kraj

What is Ústí nad Labem known for?

Ústí nad Labem is the river city of the northern Bohemian hills. Where the Elbe breaks through the volcanic hills toward Saxony, it grew as a port and a town of chemicals, and it is known for the ruined Střekov castle high on its crag, a famously leaning church tower on the square, and the wild sandstone country close at hand. The green hills rise around.

River and castle mark the city.

What are the main landmarks in Ústí nad Labem?

Střekov Castle stands high above the Elbe at Ústí. The ruined fortress on its basalt crag, said to have stirred the dreams of composers, looks down on the river bend, the emblem of the city, from the cliff. A leaning tower marks the square.

The tower of the old church leans off the upright, tilted by wartime bombs, while the museum, the zoo on the hill, and the river lookouts mark the town of Ústí nad Labem.

What is the history of Ústí nad Labem?

Ústí nad Labem grew where the river met the road. A market and river port stood here in the middle ages, guarding the Elbe where it breaks through the hills toward Saxony, watched over by the castle of Střekov on its crag. War passed by more than once.

A great battle was fought near the town in the Hussite wars, and armies used the river road down the ages between Bohemia and the German lands. Then coal and chemicals made it a city. In the nineteenth century the brown coal of the hills and the traffic of the river turned Ústí into a smoky industrial town, one of the great chemical centres of Bohemia.

War and its aftermath reshaped it. Bombs fell on the town in the last war, leaving a church tower leaning where it stands, and afterward its old German people were gone and the city was rebuilt. The old castle still guards the gorge. Ústí keeps its river and its hills in northern Bohemia.

Where is Ústí nad Labem?

Ústí nad Labem lies on the Elbe in northern Bohemia, near the German border. The city sits where the great river cuts a gorge through the volcanic hills of the Bohemian uplands, hemmed by steep wooded slopes, on the road down to Saxony. Wooded ridges rise around.

The river runs north to Germany.

What is the climate of Ústí nad Labem?

Temperate continental weather shapes the year in Ústí nad Labem. Warm summers and cold, damp winters cross the valley, and the hills wring rain from the clouds through the year, with snow in the cold months and mild spells between. Fog fills the river gorge in autumn.

The wooded hills stay green much of the year.

How do you get to Ústí nad Labem?

Ústí nad Labem lies in northern Bohemia, north of Prague on the way to Dresden. Trains and the motorway run to it down the Elbe from Prague and on to Germany, and boats work the river through the gorge. Buses reach the hill towns around.

Most arrive by train from Prague.