Last summer, when we were based in Dresden for a few weeks, I spent six days hiking the Malerweg through the Saechsische Schweiz.
This summer again started in Dresden, and I spent three days hiking eastward across a nub of Czechia and then back into Germany to Herrnhut (a destination known for its Moravian stars industry, and where I knew I could catch a bus/train back to Dresden using the Deutschland Ticket).
For most of the first two days of my hike, I followed Czechia's answer to the Malerweg: the Bohemian Switzerland Ridge Trail (Hřebenovka Českým Švýcarskem). The route was more rugged than the Malerweg, with more thrills for acrophobes, but just as beautiful and well worth the hike.
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| Last year plus this year |
Day 1: Hřensko to Chata Tokáň
On Tuesday morning, June 2, I took a train eastward from Dresden to the last German stop, Schöna, then crossed the Elbe by ferry to Hřensko, Czechia.
Hřensko struck me as a little more depressed than its east-German counterparts along the Elbe--"three-wall" stalls lined much of the main street--but the 19th-century buildings retained a resort grandiosity.
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| Li'l chapel in the middle of the main drag |
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| This cat understood International Pet Speak |
Hřensko is the easiest starting point for hikes up to Pravčická brána (Prebischtor in German), the largest natural sandstone arch in Europe.
A map at the info stand showed trails that are still closed due to forest-fire damage.
Up, up, up the road I hiked, wondering whether I would eventually reach trails...
...until I eventually reached the access trail to Pravčická brána.
From there it was up, up, up...
...with many views of burnt trees...
...and up some more...
...to the first views of the Sokolí hnízdo (Falkannest, Falcon's Nest), the glamorous 1881 hotel below the arch.
19th-century paintings and lithographs show people walking across the top of the arch. Erosion and environmental stewardship put a stop to that in 1986, but you can still walk underneath it...
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| https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18564770 |
...if you don't mind waiting in line and buying a ticket. I arrived at the end of the line five minutes before opening, and decided I'd rather keep hiking than stand still.
The stretch of the Bohemian Switzerland Ridge Trail beyond the arch was closed due to wildfire damage, so back downhill I went...
...to the main road to take a trail on the other side of the valley. A few miles in, a viewpoint and photographic exhibit offered reminders that like the phoenix, forest life also rises from ashes.
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| A view of the arch looking northward across the valley. You can see the hotel roof through the arch! |
Some parts of the trail were a bit of a slog, kept clear of plants thanks to mountain bikers. The growth was a good reminder that plant life returns in stages.
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Up, up, up again. Eventually the trail curved around the hills to face the valley to the south. I looked up to see a familiar mountain that I had previously only seen in a painting:
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| Why hello, Růžovský vrch |
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| Růžovský vrch, or Rosenberg, is on the left |
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| Also in the distance, Großer (l) and Kleiner (r) Zschirnstein, back in Germany |
Occasionally the trail offered holes to hike through...
...and rock walls to hike under.
The only challenge I skipped was this staircase, cuz acrophobia, but it would have taken me up to...
...the rock ruins of the 14th-c. castle Šaunštejn, built on a rocky outcrop with fantastic views.
Instead, I continued downhill toward Jetřichovice, eventually reaching an easy asphalt road with markers explaining the history of human settlement in this valley. I couldn't tell from the sign text whether the kiln in the photo below was from the 19th century or as far back as the 13th, but it was used to distill wood to make tar. Google translate says "the construction of the kilns did not change over the centuries; their age can only be estimated based on the materials used to build the outer casing (often bricks in the 19th century)."
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| Looks like bricks to me, but who knows how old the underlying kiln is? |
This part of the trail overlapped with the E3 European long-distance trail, which runs west to east from Spain to Bulgaria.
By now, I was on a bit of a detour, since I wanted to hike up to a lookout pavilion before arriving at my hut for the night. I skirted around Jetřichovice...
...and headed uphill again.
And up, and up, and up. Eventually I came to the side spur that would take me up to Mariina skála (German: Marienfels) and the lookout pavilion.
The views were stunning on the way up...
...and truly thrilling for the acrophobe.
Ah, at last! The pavilion was originally built in 1856, but was rebuilt in 2021 after a 2005 forest fire.
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| Princess Marie Kinsky, after whom the lookout is named. |
The views were impressive, although I avoided walking close to the railing because you could see through gaps in the floor, and the rocks dropped off toward the edges. Eek.
There were continued thrills heading down too.
After all those thrills, plus the long hike--almost 17 miles by the end of the day--I was grateful when I finally saw a sign for my hut for the night, Chata Tokáň.
I was one of two guests total, and felt lucky that they were still waiting for me by the time I arrived around 6pm. For dinner, I ate the all-too-familiar central-European vegetarian-hiker's dinner: beige food including a honkin' huge slab of melted cheese.
Ta da! 16.6 miles, 3,550' up, 2,650' down.
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