Mělník

Mělník is among the longest continuously inhabited places in the country. In the 5th and 6th centuries Slavic tribes settled the area, and the Pšovans made their main settlement here, at the fort of Pšov on the hill above the confluence. Their most famous daughter was St Ludmila, who married the Bohemian prince Bořivoj I and was grandmother of St Wenceslas. Coins of the princess Emma, who died in 1005 or 1006, are the first evidence of the town's existence. The name comes from the Slavic mělnit, "to crumble", after the crumbling Cretaceous rock of the hill.

In November 1274 King Ottokar II raised Mělník to a town, and it became a dowry town held by the queens of Bohemia; in 1449 it won the right to run its own affairs through councillors headed by a mayor. Vines had grown here since the end of the 9th century, but Charles IV laid the ground for real development by bringing vines from Burgundy, and wine made the town famous in the first half of the 16th century.

The town joined the Bohemian Revolt of 1618–1620 and paid with confiscations and re-Catholicisation; Saxon and Swedish raids, plague and fires in 1646, 1652 and 1681 followed. A fire in 1765 destroyed 42 houses, including the town hall and the Capuchin monastery, and prompted a new phase of Baroque rebuilding. Mělník became a district town in 1850, gained a sugar factory in 1869, a railway in 1874 and a bridge over the Elbe in 1888, and a late 19th-century transhipment depot grew into its river port. Under communism the château was confiscated; it has since been returned to the Lobkowicz family.

Wine is Mělník's identity. The town gives its name to the Mělník wine region, one of the most northerly in Europe, and the legend runs that Ludmila had vines brought from Moravia and planted near Pšov after the Great Moravian prince Svatopluk sent her husband a barrel of wine to celebrate the birth of their son. Her grandson Wenceslas is said to have tended the vineyards himself and became the patron saint of winemakers, and the town's wine festival is held at the end of September on his feast day.

The confluence is the other part of the town's self-image. Mělník is known as the place where the Vltava flows into the Elbe, though by tradition rather than hydrology, since the Vltava is the bigger river at the meeting point. The view from the château terraces and the church tower down to the two rivers, with the vineyards between, is the town's classic image.

The regional museum tells two stories that matter here: wine-making in Bohemia and the town's tradition of making prams. The ossuary under the church of St Peter and St Paul, whose remains the anthropologist Jindřich Matiegka arranged between 1915 and 1919, is a sombre counterpart to the wine cellars under the château. The Villa Carola near the château houses the town library, part of the Mělník Culture Centre.

About 20,000 people live in Mělník, and some of them commute to Prague every day. The town lies in one of the most important farming areas of the country, on the Polabí lowlands where the Central Elbe Table meets the Jizera Table, and its fields and vineyards spread across the flat country around it.

The economy rests on more than wine. The river port, one of the largest in the Czech Republic, handles container transhipment on 42 hectares of land, and the town sits at the crossing of the I/9 and I/16 roads between the D8 motorway, Česká Lípa, the German border and Mladá Boleslav. The largest industrial employers make grinding tools and rubber products, each employing more than 500 people, and the hospital is the largest non-industrial employer.

Life divides between the old town on the hill, with its square, château and church, and the newer districts, the stations and the port below. Railway lines run towards Ústí nad Labem, Kolín and Prague, and the line along the right bank of the Elbe carries freight as well as express trains. The protected landscape area of Kokořínsko, has its administration in Mělník, and its sandstone canyons and Kokořín Castle are a short trip away.

Wine comes first. The local wine is usually dry; large wine cellars lie beneath the château, and the regional museum holds tastings in its Gothic cellars. Charles IV's Burgundian vines are the founding story of local viticulture, and wine tastings can be arranged through the regional museum. At the end of September the wine festival brings tastings, music and a cultural programme to the town, as the biggest Czech harvest festivals do.

The food is Bohemian. Bread dumplings, knedlíky, steamed and sliced like bread, come with most main courses; roast duck is served with dumplings and braised red cabbage; and guláš, a stew of beef, pork or game with onions and spices, is eaten with dumplings or bread. Goulash soup, gulášovka, and broths with liver dumplings are common starters, and klobása, a smoked sausage, is sold at markets and festivals.

The best places to eat and drink are on Náměstí Míru and in the lanes around it, where restaurants serve local wine with Czech dishes, and near the château, whose terraces look over the confluence.