Hřensko to Herrnhut, Day 2 - Chata Tokáň to Rumburk

Wednesday June 3, Chata Tokáň to Rumburk

At breakfast, I spoke German with my host; at dinner the night before, I had spoken English with a different host. I was grateful to have two languages at my disposal, and grateful both of my hosts did too.

After breakfast, I happily set off back up the hill and then a pleasant half mile down the road before I realized I was on the wrong route.

Ah, this looks more like it...

It's kind of hard to tell from these photos if I was going up or down, but it was pretty much a straight shot up. Steep and narrow, but not so narrow that I couldn't have fallen sideways off the stairs in the drizzle, I ended up scooting on my butt on some of the landings.

I emerged...

...to some expansive views...

...and then resumed the playground-like ups and downs, throughs, overs, and unders.

Here are three of about a bazillion photos that I took of waist-high ferns.

About 4.5 miles in, I reached the Köglerova naučná stezka, which Wikipedia tells me is the oldest nature trail in Bohemia. Like the Teufelsgrund on the Malerweg, this trail makes an excellent natural amusement park. 

Carly the Travel Chicken, for scale

My eyes say "these steps were steep," even if the camera won't say it

At the end of the nature trail loop, the drama ended, and here I parted ways with the Ridge Trail. My destination for the evening was Rumburk, to the northeast, and then Herrnhut the following day, while the Ridge Trail was heading east to Krásná Lípa and then south to Jedlová.

Although I wouldn't head back into Germany until the next day, I had now left the Boehmische Schweiz behind. Villages became more numerous, often with charming houses and gardens.

I walked uphill through the woods and emerged behind a somewhat dilapidated church on the western edge of the tiny village Sněžná (population ~30), a little north of Krásná Lípa.

Beyond the church was an even more dilapidated schoolhouse. Further down the road, the village itself is more optimistically bucolic.

Past Sněžná (can you tell I like the name Sněžná?), in and out of fields and through the woods...

Berglandschaft in Böhmen, ca. 1830

...I eventually arrived at Dymník, a recreation area outside Rumburk.  

In addition to a restaurant, Dymník has a "Stone Tree of Life" based on "geometry" and "Zodiac signs." A gaggle of exuberant elementary-school kids was released into the field just as I arrived, so I didn't explore it up close. 

Up the adjacent hill, Rauchberg,...

...is a late-19th-c. lookout tower. Czechia, it turns out, has more lookout towers per capita than any other part of the world. Most were built during the past two centuries by either aristocracy or tourism-oriented hiking clubs.

I first learned about the Dymník tower when I was planning my route on Komoot, so I knew in advance that I wanted to go inside and photograph its spiral staircase. There was a guard selling tickets just inside the door and listening to every step I took up and down the stairs, so I didn't linger on the staircase too long, but I did take a bunch of photos, edited them to be black & white, and felt very artsy.

From the tower, it was just a few more kilometers into Rumburk, where I was warmly greeted by the welcome committee.

Rumburk was a blend of charming and depressed--like Hřensko and, a further to the east, small German towns too--and consequently shockingly inexpensive for this American tourist.

Ta da! Most of the day's 14.4 miles (I accidentally shut off my Garmin at the Dymník lookout tower), 2,000' up, 2,000' down.

Hřensko to Herrnhut, Day 1 - Hřensko to Chata Tokáň

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.

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.

Li'l chapel in the middle of the main drag

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...

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. 

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.

The trail eventually met up again with the Bohemian Switzeraland Ridge Trail.

 

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: 

Why hello, Růžovský vrch

Růžovský vrch, or Rosenberg, is on the left

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)."

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.

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.