Photos: Bludičky, Jakub Cejpek, Libor Erben, Honza Freml, Merity Hay, Petr Havlan, K2, Martin Kalous, Olda Kelnár, Hanka Kosová (FB), Alena Bigi Koubová, Péťa Kváková Všudezdejší, Lůca Kutrová, Vendulka Laštovková, Kačabka Mikulenková, Pavel Přílepek, Miloslav Průšek, tommie23, Martin Úbl, Hanii Zubalová, Filip from CestaSNP.sk

Text © Martin Úbl and friends, 2022

Translation © Jim&Ina Leckie, 2023

© Nakladatelství JOTA, s.r.o., 2023

ISBN epub: 978-80-7689-288-0

ISBN mobi: 978-80-7689-289-7

“The Czech Trail exists in its own right,
but it’s the people that bring it to life.”

Samko Valko, Stezkař

The History of the Czech Trail:

It may seem that the history of the Czech Trail is short and there is not much to write about. But our History Department has searched through tens of thousands of files and documents and found that the idea of a long-distance tour of the Czech lands in the heart of Europe has arisen repeatedly throughout history, only to be forgotten again and again. So, let’s take a look at the famous people who have literally stumbled upon it and who can all be counted among the personalities who shaped the Trail.

Around 600 AD

King Arthur and Merlin set out on the first two sections of the Trail in search of Excalibur. According to Merlin’s visions, they believed Excalibur to be in the Krušné hory (Ore Mountains), but instead of a powerful sword, the ground yielded only uranium. “I’m sure the spirits said Sword Mountains” lamented the wizard. Alas, no sword could be forged from uranium, so the noble gentlemen went home empty-handed.

Around the year 1000

Legend has it that the first person to hike the entire Trail was a Walker Stezkař Ranger by the name of Chuck Norris, and that he trekked both the Southern and Northern Trails simultaneously. He travelled light, with no backpack, no poles, just his iconic hat, which he used to filter water. Chuck Norris is also the only Stezkař so far to have caught up with himself on the Trail.

1360

Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, Charles IV, was planning to set up the official Trail along the borders of the Czech lands, but after the outbreak of famine he had to make sure his people were protected against starvation and destitution. To ensure their livelihood, he employed them to build the “Hunger Wall” (not a feature in Hunger Games) around Prague Castle. Thus, at least, he became the first Trail Angel in the Czech lands.

1628

John Amos Comenius, known as the “Teacher of Nations”, passed through the Orlické hory and Adršpach-Broumovsko sections on his pilgrimage to Leszno, Poland. He had planned to return that same year, but the problematic treatment of a blister he developed in the Adršpach Rocks delayed his return by several years.

1737–1756

Empress Maria Theresa gives birth to more and more children so that they can later carry her backpack and gear when she sets out on the Czech Trail.

1827

Josef Ressel tested his propeller principle using a ferry boat on the Elbe river between the second and third sections of the Czech Trail.

1866

Isaac Newton made the first attempt to walk the entire Trail in modern history, but his trek was interrupted when he suffered a serious concussion after an apple fell on his head. After several weeks spent in convalescence in an unspecified hospital, he departed the Czech lands and never returned. He also refused to eat any fruit from that day onward.

1888

Vincent Van Gogh worked all his life, so that he could earn money to finance a trek on the Czech Trail. Out of sheer frustration at selling only one painting, and constantly having to put off his plans, he cut off one of his ears.

1906

Jára Cimrman: The famous Czech inventor and genius was the first person in the 20th century to walk the Northern Trail on his way to Liptákov in autumn 1906, give or take two hundred years. He was also the man who invented trekking poles the same year. He claimed neither of these firsts due to his profound modesty, but also because of a low memory quotient of 0.03 – just one hundredth more than that of a dolphin.

1911

Albert Einstein observed the varying passage of time on his Trail, on which he then defined the basics of his famous theory. 1

1926

Agatha Christie and Coco Chanel set out on the Czech Trail together, both afraid to go alone. In March, they walked the Český les and Šumava sections. Agatha Christie’s experiences on the train journey with Czechoslovak Railways on the Prague-Klatovy route served as the basis for her famous book Murder on the Orient Express. Coco Chanel lost a bottle of Chanel No. 5 perfume on the way and, according to witnesses, the spring winds of that year had a particularly unique fragrance in Šumava.

1951

Ernest Hemingway set out on the Southern Trail. After completing the Podyjí section, he dwelled for several months on the banks of the Vranov reservoir, where he penned the greater part of his novel The Old Man and the Sea. Since Czechoslovakia, as it was at that time, did not have a sea, he delayed publication of the book until he moved to Cuba.

1988

Stephen Hawking defined the Czech Trail as “A thing that can be done by anyone”. Unfortunately, this definition fell into oblivion as it narrowly missed the editorial deadline for the book A Brief History of Time. It was therefore not dusted off until 2020.

09/2020

After a year of expert study of the sources and research into the previous attempts to walk or create an official route around the borders of today’s Czech Republic, a group of enthusiastic friends launch the official long-distance hiking tour of the Czech Republic, the Czech Trail.

1 The full story of Albert Einstein, his Czech Trail
and the origin of the Theory of Relativity

We know for a fact that Albert Einstein learned of the Czech Trail while in Zurich at the beginning of 1911. He knew immediately that he wanted to hike it, as this would allow him to observe various physical phenomena in the countryside, quite alone and undisturbed by anyone. So, he negotiated a position at the German University in Prague and moved there with his family in September 1911. He first hiked part of Section 4 in autumn 1911. He arrived in Oldřichov v Hájích by train and after two days he reached the train station in Kořenov and went back to Prague. He was enchanted by the landscape and observed the preparations for the construction of the Desná dam. He returned to the Trail regularly and became aware that the length of time spent on the Trail did not correspond with his family’s perception of time in Prague. While time passed quickly for him, his wife claimed that he had been away for a long time. In Prague, time just seemed to loiter aimlessly. By 1912, Einstein was beginning to talk in academic circles about the nature of time and the fourth dimension. After a year of wandering the Trail, he returned to Zurich and continued to explore the notion of a space-time relationship he had gained on the Trail, culminating in 1915 with the publication of his theory of relativity. Later, in 1952, he turned down an invitation to become President of Israel because of his memories of the Trail, explaining that his heart was still in the beautiful Czech Republic, and forever on the Czech Trail.

Useful information for planning your trek:

If you get into any serious trouble while hiking in the Czech Republic, the universal emergency service number to call is 112.

Otherwise, the numbers for specific services are:

Police 158 (“one-five-eight, don’t come late”)

Fire 150 (“one-five-O, bring a hose”)

Ambulance 155 (“one-five-five, keep me alive”)

A useful phrase of introduction – icebreaker – when interacting with locals: “Dobrý den, jdu Stezku Českem” (“Hello, I’m walking the Czech Trail”)

Emergency app Záchranka: free download, in the event of an emergency, this can locate your position and speed up contact with, and response from Czech emergency services. Thoroughly recommended!

Idos.cz: the best app for information on public transport throughout CZ, covering buses and trains. Should it seem that it offers you transport by submarine, you are advised not to go onboard, and rather take a long rest in the shade.

www.czechtrail.cz: The main website and source of information regarding this long distance trail. Here you will find all the information you need to plan and undertake your trek.

FB group Stezka Českem: If you have any questions at all, here you will find thousands of Stezkaři (hikers) who will be glad to answer you, help and encourage you. And, of course, they’ll be amused by your thrilling escapades!

Instagram Stezka Českem: For those who move with the times, who like Instagram, and want to soak up the atmosphere of the Trail.

FarOut app: the biggest worldwide app for long distance trails, including the Czech Trail. A simple app with all the waypoints and everything you need to avoid inadvertently wandering onto another continent.

Mapy.cz app: a Czech app which covers the whole world. Excellent also for navigation in towns and off the Trail.

Basic abbreviations, Czech words and explanations that you’ll be lost without:

Strč prst skrz krk (Stick your finger through your throat): a Czech tongue-twister you can try when you get bored on the Trail. If you can master this, you have a good chance of being able to start learning Czech!

KČT: Czech abbreviation for the Czech Tourist Club (hiking club). For 135 years this organization has been taking care of marking the routes along which you will walk the entire Trail. Similarly, KST – Slovak Tourist Club

Stezka Českem: the Czech name for the Czech Trail

Stezkař [stεskaՔ] (pronunciation according to Collins Dictionary. No, mastering this is not obligatory): The Czech name for a person hiking the Czech Trail, hiker, thru-hiker (or, if you like, le Stezkaeur in French, el Stezkacho in Spanish, Szczcteczczkarcz in Polish…). You’ll recognise them by their backpack, a few cuts and bruises and the inviting smell of the forest.

NP: National Park. The highest level of nature protection in the Czech Republic. On the Trail you will find four NPs: Šumava, Krkonoše, České Švýcarsko and Podyjí.

CHKO: Protected Landscape Area. The second highest level of nature protection (don’t worry, there are no more). Here too, rules apply for behaviour in the countryside, which we describe below.

NS – Naučná stezka: Edu-trail, i.e. educational trail: a route where you should learn something. If you don’t remember anything, you have to walk it one more time…

SNP: Slovak National Uprising Heroes Trail: a trail in Slovakia, about 770 km long, between Dukla and Bratislava. Together, the SNP and the Czech Trail form the Czechoslovak Trail (see chapter below).

Pivo: If you get into trouble and no one comes to your rescue, try calling for a beer: “Pivo!”, there is a better chance that a local person will react when they hear someone shouting the name of their beloved national drink. In Moravia, we recommend calling “Víno!” (wine). Anyway, JOKING ASIDE: If even “Pivo!” doesn’t work and you get into serious trouble, call the emergency service numbers listed in the previous chapter.

Stezkaři vítáni: Hikers welcome – this sign indicates a network of chalets, guesthouses, restaurants, cafés or other facilities that are happy to accept hikers even if they’re wearing muddy boots and haven’t washed for a week. These places can be found on the FarOut app.

Trail Angels: people who live on or near the Trail and who voluntarily give up their free time to help Stezkaři. Let’s be grateful for the generosity of these people, and be kind to them too, thank you! Please do not confuse them with Hell’s Angels, that’s a different group altogether. Trail Angels can also be found on the FarOut app, or occasionally in the form of an enticing mirage.

Nouzové nocoviště: Emergency overnight campsite – a place allocated for overnight camping, under specific conditions, in a National Park where camping is otherwise prohibited.

The Undisputed Ten Commandments of the Czech Trail

1. What you don’t have, you don’t need.

2. Whatever you do need, it’s always at the bottom of your bag.

3. No matter how full your bag is, there’s always room for some coffee.

4. On the first day, any kind of food tastes
good to everyone.

5. Anything that doesn’t smell is therefore
still clean!

6. Flat terrain means anything that’s not uneven, regardless of incline, and ends in a serpentine bend.

7. Never believe locals! Whether talking about the number of inhabitants, kilometres still to walk, height to climb, or time it will take, they are only joking!

8. If you want a peaceful night’s sleep, you have to eat all the dogs in the neighbourhood for dinner.

9. Cold is just a feeling.

10. If your trousers are falling down, you’re at least half-way along the trail.

How the Czech Trail began

The idea of creating a long-distance hiking trail in the Czech Republic, which would be run in a similar style to famous trails abroad, came to us in the Canadian Rockies, while trekking the Great Divide Trail. It’s 1,200 km long, most of it is unmarked, and around fifty daredevils venture along it each year. The year we hiked it saw the heaviest rainfall in a hundred years.

But even when walking in the rain, wading across rivers and squelching through marshes, you slow down now and then, and have time to think about various things. For example, why are we wading a river for the thirtieth time today, how old are the bear pawprints in front of us, whether there exists a place on earth where it doesn’t rain, if it’ll ever stop raining again, and whether our karma is at a sufficient level or if this weather is a punishment for our sins. But it also led us to planning, throughout one entire section of our hike, how we could start importing to the Czech Republic a particular brand of trekking cookies that we really adored. But then we completely gorged ourselves on them, and the whole business plan was in ruins. This allowed us to focus on something else, and the idea of creating a similar trail in the Czech Republic was born.

In the Czech Republic we have the best trail marking in the world, thanks to the Czech Tourist Club, which has been marking hiking trails all over the country for 135 years. Routes are marked in four different colours, and you can see the marks everywhere. All Czech people know what they mean. We wanted to combine this unique marking system with the kind of organisation and backup that is customary for famous long-distance trails such as the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, or Te Araroa in New Zealand. So, a website was created with all the information, a Facebook group where people can ask questions and possibly find a travel buddy. We also added Instagram to move with the times. One day a young lady came along and told us that our Instagram looks like it’s been knocked out on a typewriter, so now she does it for us. We’re not on Tik Tok yet, we’ll probably never be so modern.

We didn’t have a clue how many people might be interested in this project, but we thought that even if only a few people took to the trail, it would be nice. The way we saw it, it would give us a good reason to meet, and these meetings would be conducted with philosophical wisdom. But of course, without those who are not philosophical types, we planned to exclude them from the discussion altogether, as we always do.

From the very start, we agreed on three main basics for the whole Trail:

• It will be a non-commercial project in the style of “By people, for people”. We don’t want to do it for money, and we also want it to be evident, from our efforts, that the Trail has been prepared by people who love the mountains and spend time in them.

• We will try to describe the experience and raise the possibility of a longer stay in the mountains for people who might not otherwise dare to do such a thing. That’s why our logo states “... anyone can do it”. The aim was not to have a few super-conditioned athletes going on the trail to chase records and be admired by others.

• Everything we do on the Trail will go hand in hand with the principles of sustainable tourism. On our travels we have come across places that have been badly damaged by tourism, and this is something we wanted to avoid.

When we launched the Czech Trail in September 2020, we did not expect the interest that has arisen. Within a week, the first thru-hikers hit the trail, many volunteers came forward to help us create the trail, and the first Trail Angels got in touch, offering support and assistance. The enthusiasm has not waned to this day. In the beginning there were six of us, and today we have dozens more people helping us in their spare time, free of charge, without whom many things would be impossible. They include, for example, Hanka, who translates our texts into English, Míša, who created the certificates and prepares each one we issue, Lukáš, thanks to whom we have a website, Hanka, our Instagram manager, Tereza, who arranged for dozens of places to join our Stezkaři vítáni (Hikers welcome) system as part of her bachelor’s thesis, and the artists who drew our postcards. Dozens of Trail Angels who help and accommodate Stezkaři on the Trail. And last but not least, all of you who hike, send comments, give advice or help out when needed.

The Trail has come a long way in the short time it has been in existence: it is the official trail of the Czech Republic, it has its own route markings, it is included in the ERA European Long Distance Route System, it is on FarOut – the world’s largest long distance trail app, it has been featured in Forbes in the US, tourists from all over the world hike the Trail, and so on, and so on. But at its core remain the people and their stories.

For us, working with the Czech Trail is a lot like crossing mountains: most of the time it’s beautiful, sometimes it’s a slog, sometimes it rains a lot, but when you finally look back, you know it was, and still is, totally worth it.

Section 1 – Krásná Klínovec

110 km in total

2 260 m ascent

1 800 m descent

4-5 days

Transport: Prague – Aš (train), or Prague – Krásná/Rehau

Return: Boží Dar – Prague (bus-train)

Most hikers start their adventure on the Czech Trail at the Westernmost Point (WP) of the Czech Republic, so this is where our story begins. The nearest civilization is the village of Krásná (Beautiful), from which it is approximately 5 km to the WP. Alternatively, you can travel to Rehau in Germany and walk to the start of this section from the German side. There is a shelter at the WP which, in bad weather, might remind you of a Nordic cabin. And when it rains in the evening, you may get the feeling that something is hiding in fog so thick you could cut it with a knife. But not to worry, in the Czech lands this saying brings to mind a well-loved and friendly cartoon character called Rákosníček. You can sleep on the first floor of this shelter, and while away the long evening by writing a postcard to send from the Trailbox (Stezkobox in Czech), thoughtfully located here and fitted with a lock with the unbreakable code 777. If you are staying overnight, then in the morning you will take the obligatory selfie at the Westernmost Point and the Czech Trail signpost, before setting off towards the town of Aš.

On your way to the WP you’ll have passed through the former village of Újezd, the first of many abandoned villages on the way. If you are interested in 20th century history, this remnant of a village poignantly illustrates the history of the western border of the Czech Republic: after WWII, the entire German population of the Sudetenland was driven out, and, with the onset of communism in the 1950s, the borderland villages were razed to the ground as the Iron Curtain was established. There are many such stories in the regions of Krušné hory, Šumava and Český les. At km 6 you will find a shelter set up by the Krásná village council, providing an alternative to sleeping at the WP. After ten kilometres you reach the town of Aš, where you are advised to withdraw adequate cash, as the following kilometres to Kraslice are devoid of ATMs and seriously lacking in card payment points. However, in the case that you’ve brought a banjo and are determined to earn money by busking in the streets, or for wild animals in the forests, then you probably won’t need to withdraw anything, will you.

Beyond Aš come the first of many firsts on the Trail: the first view-tower at Háj (758 m), the first mineral spring in Dolní Paseky and, at km 25, the first golf course. Although the nicely manicured fairways may seem to offer an attractive campsite, we highly recommend you resist, as the morning thud of golf balls on your tent can be quite annoying. After Hazlov, the yellow trail takes you through a beautiful forest into Germany for a while, only to join the blue trail a few kilometres later. This will lead you to Plesná, the first opportunity to resupply since Aš. If you follow the green trail after Liščí hora, you will arrive at the Kozabar guesthouse, which is one of the facilities bearing the Stezkaři vítáni (Hikers welcome) sign, where you’ll be given a warm welcome.

The trail continues on the red route to Vysoký kámen, a remarkable natural monument at km 48. Have a snack here, climb to the viewpoint, take a look around and slow down for a while. Then follow the red trail across vast plains and meadows to yet another village named Krásná; this one worth mentioning mainly because it has approximately 153 scrapped cars per inhabitant, which is perhaps a world record (Krásná = Beautiful, remember?). A few kilometres further on is the town of Kraslice, where you can withdraw more cash and throw away the banjo, as the density of ATMs increases from here on.

From Kraslice, the climb to the main ridge of the Krušné hory begins. Before Tisová you reach the first Trail Milestone. It stands at km 66 and marks the location of what is considered to be the first Stezkař’s backpack. According to archaeological research, this dates back to the year 27 BC. If you want to spend the night at the local rectory, which also displays a Stezkaři vítáni (Hikers welcome) sign, turn onto the cycle path towards Stříbrná. And if you prefer to visit Zina, the first Trail Angel in the Krušné hory area, go a little further. If you don’t turn off the trail, you’ll have a climb to Olověný vrch (Lead Hill) with its view-tower, which is remarkable in the fact that it is so overgrown that you can see practically nothing from it.