Hiking the Czech Greenways
Unspoiled villages of Southern Bohemia await youBy Michael Yaeger
As I’ve traveled over the years, I’ve always embraced the idea of experiencing a place by rambling through the countryside between its cities instead of taking the expressway between them. This isn’t a new concept with plenty of guidebooks on backroads travel, but while most of these itineraries still call for traveling by car, train or coach, there are an emerging number of opportunities for trips which can be done on foot, canoe or even horseback.
For me, these conjure up romantic images of the bards of old wandering across picturesque hillsides, enchanting forests and idyllic farmland, encountering unexpected and unspoiled villages along the way. Despite the quixotic notion of unplanned wandering through a foreign country, logistics do play a major role in most people’s trips. Some countries have recognized this need and have created chances for travelers to have this kind of experience with varying degrees of assistance.
One of the most intriguing walking networks is the Czech Greenways, a 250-mile system of trails connecting Vienna and Prague. The routes meander through Southern Moravia and Bohemia, much of which was only opened to the outside world in the early 1990’s. The Greenways are maintained by a coalition of organizations dedicated to the restoration and preservation of the natural and cultural heritage of the region and the development of sustainable tourism, and includes a number of UNESCO World Heritage sites. The Friends of the Czech Greenways organization offers guided tours and information for self-guided tours, and has a great website.
We chose the self-guided option, but with our time constraints, we could only hike a small part of the network, filling in the gaps with buses mostly. Although the trails are quite well marked, it’s important to have a good map, and you can find topographic maps of all the sections at a map store called ITM in Prague located in Senovážné Náměstí, east of Wenceslas square. We began by taking a bus from Prague to Hodice, and caught a small train from the desolate train station (more of a shack) to Slovenice.
After spending the night in the pretty, but empty town of Slovenice, we set out the next morning for a fifteen mile hike through the castle of Landstejn and ending in Nova Bystřice. Despite its remoteness, this was actually the only section of the trails that we saw other people, mostly bikers. The countryside was definitely romantic, with dark wooded forests, alpine meadows and small towns with cobblestoned squares bordered by timbered houses and pubs serving the scrumptious Czech staples – pork filets with brown gravy, potato or bread dumplings and locally brewed beers.
From Nova Bystřice, we spent a few days doing short hikes, bike excursions, and bus trips, making our way west through the beautiful towns of Jindrichuv Hradec, Trebon, Český Krumlov, and arriving finally at the monastery of Zlatá Koruna, where we picked up the trail again. One of the joys of an adventure like this is its unplanned nature, not knowing where you’ll stay the next night, or what you’ll find around the corner. After beginning our hike after lunch on a Sunday, we passed through town after town with no lodging, and eventually ended up at a highway-side campground at 9 p.m., having hiked eight miles since lunch. Motel Stelic was a collection of small cabins apparently popular as a summer destination for road tripping Czechs. Our small and inexpensive cabin on the lake was clean, came with sheets, and communal bathrooms, a welcome find after a long day on the trail.
The next day was our final six and a half mile hike to Český Budĕjovice, a fairly significant town midway between Prague and Český Krumlov. We were pleasantly surprised mid-morning to come across a trailside restaurant, where the meat was grilled on large barbeque pits and the Gambrinas beer was plentiful. It was hard to leave, but we rambled on, completing the last miles of our journey following the Vltava River past several local sunbathing spots, and ending up in the large town square of Český Budĕjovice, claimed to be the largest in tact town square in Europe.
Although our hiking adventure was not contiguous, we had walked thirty miles through some of the most beautiful and unspoiled countryside in Central Europe. We saw places most tourists never saw, and we set our own pace, allowing us to take it all in. Rarely have I met fellow travelers who took the time to go outside of Prague when visiting the Czech Republic, but the real Czech Republic waits in the countryside of Bohemia.
Michael Yaeger is the senior editor of TravelsInParadise.com and lives in Barre, Vermont. He can be contacted atSee Michael Yaeger's bio and more of his travel articles
Resources:
Friends of the Czech Greenways: http://www.pragueviennagreenways.org/
Bus and Train Schedules: http://idos.datis.cdrail.cz/ConnForm.asp
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