Bohemian Switzerland

After a fairly lazy day the day before, I felt the need to redeem my trip by making an excursion somewhere. After waking up early and browsing cool day trip possibilities, I finally settled on going hiking near the Czech/German border, where my train passed by from Berlin to Prague a few days earlier. It looked gorgeous from the train, and I made a note that day that I NEEDED to return someday. Quick note: I should really just use italics to emphasize words. Too much work tho.

The name of the park/area i went to is called the “Bohemian Switzerland,” and has areas of the park in both Germany and the Czech Republic. It’s famous for rock climbing (one of the best places to go in Europe apparently) and the great Pravice Gate, which is the largest sandstone arch in Europe. Getting there was kind of a chore, but I made it there around 1:30pm, which was kinda late which sucked because it gets dark so early nowadays.

Getting to the park required taking a train to a random Czech town called Decin, and from there taking a bus to Hrensko. It took me forever to find the tourist office in town in Decin (I was trying to look up bus schedules and to ask about touring the castle in town), but when I finally got there, it was closed. yay. While wondering through town tho, I stopped at a couple cool thrift stores (didn’t get anything this time), and stopped at a food market where I bought the 2 of best tasting apples I’ve had on my trip (and I’ve had a lot of them, in every country). I also got a great big bowl of Goulash from one of the food vendors. I’ve always thought that Goulash was Polish, but after visiting Budapest Hungary I quickly learned that it’s a Hungarian thing. It was so good. I need to try making it back in the states for sure.

I actually got incredibly lucky when I showed up at the bus stop. It turns out the bus I needed to take to this random town only runs 3 times a day, and the next bus was leaving in 5 minutes. Even if I had showed up 3 hours earlier or didn’t get lost looking for the dang tourist office, I would have still needed to wait until ~1:00pm to take a bus to this city. Man I lucked out. Regardless of luck, or destiny haha, I was on my way to go Bohemian Switzerland.

The town leading into Bohemian Switzerland (Hrensko) is super tiny and is nestled in a valley right next to the river, which is also nestled in a huge valley with large/unique mountains on each side. It would have been a really cute town if it wasn’t flooded with so many Vietnamese tourist stands everywhere that you can’t walk 10 feet without a new owner haggling you to buy a new hat, remote control car, or pair of shoes. (I’m actually just guessing that they’re Vietnamese, but Adam told me that Czech has the largest number of Vietnamese immigrants in Europe, and that they’re some of the hardest working people in Czech). Either way, since the trailhead was ~3 km from the river anyway, and I was tired of being haggled, I decided to just jog through the city, giving the owners no chance to stop me. Got em!

Unfortunately, due to a semi-late start to the day and a long train ride, I was already starting to lose daylight when I arrived at the trailhead. No problem tho, I was wearing my red pair of trail running shoes and decided to make up some more time by jogging on the trail whenever I could. The trail to the sandstone arch (my destination for the day) was beautiful. It was evident that fall was in full swing, with gorgeous yellow and red trees everywhere. The trail was also kinda hard to follow with so many leaves on the ground (I totally thought I was gonna eat it running down certain parts of the trail), but the trees/path was well marked which was nice.

There were 3 other groups of people I met along the trail, but everyone was already heading back when I was going up, leaving me alone out in the wilderness which was kind of a scary feeling. It’s a good thing there aren’t any cougars or bears in this area, or Europe really. Haha As it was, I had a very nice hike, exploring all sorts of little areas including a small waterfall and cave on the way up. The trail had rails going up along the ridges, so I could tell it was somewhat of a touristy trail. It wasn’t very hard, and actually, really wasn’t ALL THAT pretty compared to any hike I’ve done in the Northwest. There weren’t any jagged mountains nearby, there wasn’t a pristine lake at the top, and even the view from the top wasn’t anything worth seeing again.

The Sandstone Arch was fairly impressive tho. It’s 26 meters in length and 16 meters high, and comes out of nowhere from the side of the mountain. There was also a touristy hotel built into the mountain right next to the arch which I thought was a little unusual. I actually thought the hotel kind of ruined the atmosphere. Hotels just don’t belong in certain parts of nature. The weather wasn’t the greatest (hooray fog), but even if it was a nice day, I still don’t think I would have been THAT impressed by the arch. After going to Sedona in Arizona with Cory and Athena, it’s going to take a TON of HUGE arches to impress me. Sedona is amazing. I definitely need to go back again.

After taking a couple pictures near the top, I climbed up a steep ledge through some barbed wire to get to the very top for the “best” views, which had been closed off for the winter season. It was a much better view, but still not that great because it was foggy. On the way down, I had to jump off an 8 foot ledge because I didn’t trust myself climbing down the steep moist ledge through the barbed wire. That was probably the most fun part of the hike actually. Haha The next trip I do needs to incorporate more adrenaline activities like white water rafting, bungee jumping, snowboarding, or just anything fast. I made my way back down the trail in record time, and was soon on a bus back to Prague after having a beer in a café while waiting for the bus. I definitely need to start trail running when I get back to the states. It’s so much fun, and much more fun than running through neighborhoods/cities.

With my trip to Bohemian Switzerland behind me, I was now ready to party with Adam and his friends for his 22^nd Birthday party/gathering... Next blog please...