Bohemian Switzerland

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.”

― George Gordon Byron

Today we took 4 metros, 4 trains, 2 ferries, 2 trails, went to 2 countries, and hiked 15 miles.

The mission? Conquer Bohemia Switzerland, the most famous hike in the Czech Republic.

Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely loved exploring all of the cities and culture of Europe! However, I had been itching to go on a long hike for a while, and wanted to uncover more of the wilderness of The Czech Republic! Sometimes you just have to go outside and reflect away from the city sound. Brittney and I decided we were going to try the adventure the night before, and really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. Isn't this always how the most exciting adventures and stories unfold? Foreshadowing here...

We did a little research and knew we had to take two trains and a ferry to get there!

How you feel before you realize no one will understand your language for the next 20 hours:

Our second train connected us to a train stop in Germany, and we payed 25 Czech Korunas to take a ferry across the river to the "start" of our hike!

This cute visitor and information center was the first thing we saw from the ferry! Of course it was closed!

Bohemia Switzerland is a national park that spans from Germany to The Czech Republic, but the most popular trails and the natural stone arch

are in Czechia! On the other side of the river, we saw a map that looked like this to guide us! (Please notice the start to our no-English day!)

We were supposed to take the red trail to the natural arch, the biggest natural arch rock formation in Europe!

Anyone who is reading this from America, please take a moment to thank the US National Park Service for our well kept and clearly marked trails!

Thankfully, we had a cute little walk up to the trail heads! It was the perfect weather for a hike, and the skies were so clear!

The town was so quaint, and we loved the Czech styled homes and hotels! The only people in the town we passed were Chinese immigrants selling us bedazzled sweatshirts from carts, and we unfortunately had to pass.

A stone home built into the mountains to resemble a castle! Looks straight out of a movie!

We had walked about a mile at this point, and started to think we had walked the wrong direction. We came across a trail with a yellow marker, so decided to take it, seeing on the map that it would eventually connect to the red. This trail was beautiful! We walked alongside the river, past mossy rocks, and over bridges! All while listening to the sounds of waterfalls and birds chirping! We were positive we had found the right trail, because how could this not be the most popular one?

Mossy rock tunnels

For all we know, there is a troll impersonating Poseidon living in these parts of the woods!

In the distance, we saw a couple approaching us. They had a Weiner Dog so they were immediately trusted. "Will this take us to the Natural Bridge?" I asked. They looked at one another and then at us and shook their heads. "Anglitski?" We asked. (The Czech word for English) The shook their head again. I pulled out my phone to show them a picture of the map and when I pointed to the bridge they crossed their arms to show us it was closed. They then waved and quickly walked away.

We had checked online before we left, and saw that the bridge was open right now, so we didn't think they understood us. We continued down the path for another half mile, and realized that they were saying THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE TWO TRAILS WAS CLOSED :) So we turned around and walked the whole trail back. Honestly though, I am glad we took that wrong turn, because there was no water on the mountain trail! We got to see a whole different section of the park!

Once we got back to the trail head, we realized there was no where we could go but straight. The only other way would take us back to the ferry. Thankfully, we had left very early in the morning, so we still had plenty of time and sunlight to hike! We walked straight for what seemed like 2 miles until we found a small red trail marker and an arrow. We followed the arrows for about a half mile until we came to a sign for our trail!! After walking uphill to this point, we had to do some stretches to get ready for this huge ascent, but were so pumped!

Tall trees are my favorite!! Reminded me a little of hikes my family did in Oregon, or even the Red Woods!

Mother nature has the best curves!

The 6 mile hike was cut into the sides of mountains, and the trail markings were few and far between. We took about 3 wrong turns, but always figured it out! One of the pictures we took when we thought we were on the right path. We turned around soon after. Why would you have an informational board 5 minutes off a trail? Good thing it was written in Czech!

When we saw these awesome rock formations, we struggled to get a picture. Little did we know, we would be on top of them in about 30 minutes!

One thing we could understand from a sign, was that the holes in these rocks were made from Bats! We realized there was no way we were staying up here in the dark, and started hiking faster!

Painting was faded, but every Big Foot picture is. Sighting here in 1872?

WE MADE IT! GOD IS GOOD!

The wind was crazy at the top!! Resulted in these cute glamour shots:

The bridge is located next to a restaurant that is open during the summer months! Thankfully, we planned ahead and brought sandwiches and lots of water!

You are so cute, why won't you give me hot cocoa though?

We then took a steep staircase up to a platform at the top, and got a better view of those rocks from earlier! We saw a few other people at this point, and they all went up so we knew it had to be safe by "European standards!"

Amazing how the sides of these mountains have been transformed over the years!

So incredible! We headed back down the mountain much quicker than we came up, thanks to that fun ascent! We had to head back to the train station quickly, because we weren't sure when the last ferry left! We caught a ferry easily, but the station on the other side was a different story. There was only one lady working at the station, and she didn't speak a single word of English. She actually spoke German, so we couldn't even ask her basic things in Czech. The woman couldn't help us buy a train ticket back, and pointed to a machine to buy tickets from. The machine was broken, obviously, and we weren't near a road so we couldn't even Uber across the border. We started to panic, since we knew there weren't many trains that came to this stop. Right at that moment, a train rounded the corner with "Decin" lit up. This train would take us back into the Czech Republic. We ran to the conductor, and told him we needed a ticket but couldn't get one. He was some sort of angel because he let us on the train and had a hand held device that sold us tickets. We were in route back to Czechia!

On a side note, we found out a group from our university in Prague had gone hiking there a few weeks earlier, and each had to pay a $300 fine and got citations for crossing the train tracks at this German train station. We definitely got lucky!

We had a little less that an hour wait for our train to Prague once we arrived in Decin, so thought we might as well go check out Decin Castle! It was only 10 minutes away from the station, and was breathtaking!

Cute restaurant where we got coffee for the rest of our journey home!

Cheers!

After an hour train back, we arrived back in Prague, safe and sound! After hiking 15 miles, and even more considering all of the wrong turns and running to trains, we knew our legs would be sore in the morning! However, this trip was exactly what I needed to clear my head and get away from the city life for a bit! My dad once told me, "In life you need to be a little city, and a little outdoorsy. You need to have to art and the culture of the city person, but the self awareness and adventure of the outdoors person." I could not agree more.