How to spend 3 days hiking in Bohemian Switzerland

Discover the beauty of this national park with your legs instead of a bus! Change your plans midway, or just have a beer anywhere. Sounds good? Keep reading!

This hike is the first one I did in Czech Republic, back in April 2020. The national park is an amazing place, unfortunately at the time that I'm writing this story (August 2022) the park had just suffered a huge fire that seems to have been originated by human hands. Parts of this hike are not accessible at the moment, and it is unknown when they will reopen, the damage done is unimaginable. Let's take a better care of our nature so everyone can keep enjoying it!

The hike

The stats:

45km | 3 days | Max alt: 470m | Min alt: 123m | Ascent: 1160m | Descent: 1241m

The route:

The hike itself is not very hard, there are no huge mountains to climb and for the most part it is flat. We went on this hike to take a break from the COVID-19 lockdown in Prague. We, being the crazy people that we are, slept in a tent (meaning that we carried said tent, sleeping bags and mattresses for the whole trip). This trip is definitely possible and easier without having a tent, as it is not allowed to build up tents in the park there are accommodation options along the way. A lot of the places we visited are also reachable by car or public transportation, we just like walking.

Let's start then:

Day 0 - Getting there

It is quite simple to get there from Prague. We arrived by train from Prague to Děčín, there we took a bus to the village Jetřichovice, our starting point.

Our equipment for this hike:

• 65L, 20kg backpack (for me)

• 40L, 15kg backpack (for Lucy)

• 2 people, 3 season tent

• 2 sleeping bags

• Food

• Water

• Clothes

We have arrived quite early, and the first viewpoint (point 2) was just an hour walking away. There is a small entry fee to the national park, which can be covered in the village as well. It's important to remember that we are in Czech Republic, that means there is beer everywhere. Even at the entrance to a national park, even in a remote village, even during a pandemic. We did the local thing to do and filled our beer stock and went up to the viewpoint at Mariina skála (Marina's rock?) to watch the sunset (bring your wind jackets, it gets windy).

We went back down to the village (point 1) to spend the night.

Day 1 - From point 1 to point 5 | 14km | 5hr

We woke up quite early (for us) and started walking. The beginning of the trip is probably the steepest part of it (up until point 4 more or less). We passed our sunset viewpoint and continued. The way was filled with huge rocks and a lot of viewpoints to look at the green scenery around, and a noteworthy Šaunštejn Castle. We, of course, stopped at every single one of them to take a break and some photos. Unfortunately for you and us, I'm not a great photographer so most of the photos from said viewpoints turned out to be quite bad. On the bright side, Lucy was busy walking so you got the better model for the photos that did come out well. Here is the best of it:

We ended our day at a village called Mezní Louka. They have a camping site at which you can build your tent as we did.

Day 2 - From point 5 to point 11 | 16.5km | 5.5hr

The second day was the busiest one of this trip, other than having the longest distance to walk, it had the most highlights.

5.5km from Mezní Louka (about 2hrs of walk) lies the main highlight of the park - Pravčická brána (point 7 on the map). This is a touristic area with some built walking paths, restaurants, viewpoints and even a castle. You can reach this place on a day tour from Prague, or by car and taking a cable car up there. I think our way was way more fun.

After we finished walking around, and of course having our beer, we continued our hike to Hřensko. The way was 6km long and it took us about 1.5hrs to walk it. This village is usually recommended as the starting point of any trip to Czech Switzerland, we of course chose a different path. This was an extremely hot day, and by the time we arrived to the village we ran out of water. We were walking around the village, and most of the places were closed because of the pandemic. We started asking around where we can get something to eat, or at least where to fill our water bottles before we go fill them in the river. We stumbled upon a closed restaurant with the owner washing some dishes outside, he was nice enough to let us fill water. As part of our local mentality, we of course asked him if we can buy some beer from him, the answer was negative because the restaurant was closed because of the lockdown and to sell the beer he would have to 'open' it. What this amazing man did do, is to just offer us the beer for free! We accepted the counter offer (big surprise) and decided to fill half of our water bottles with beer (even bigger surprise).

Happy and absolutely not thirsty we continued, our original plan is to walk along the Kamenice river and take a boat tour to sail the river and see the amazing gorges the river has to offer. Unfortunately for us the boat services were all, like the rest of the businesses, closed because of the pandemic.

We changed our plan and decide to take a hike through Suchá Kamenice, the dry version of the river. And how great that decision has turned out! We have discovered an amazing trail that is a mix between rocks, trees, and trees that grow from inside the rocks. We found some abandoned bunkers as well (from the time of Sudetenland annexation). We walked as much as the time allowed us (point 10), and turned to the forest trail to get Labská Stráň village (point 11) to put up our tent there to spend the night (and drink our beer!).

Day 3 - From point 11 to point 16 | 14.5km | 4.5hr

The last day of our hike started with rain. Lucky for us it was not that strong when we woke up and we were able to pack things up without getting too wet.

This part of the hike had mostly a forest vibe, with a lot of tall trees around. The route we took passed through some beautiful viewpoints, the main being: Belvedér, which is a viewpoint that was built in the early years of the 18th century. Růžová vyhlídka, which gives you a spectacular view of the Elbe Valley, the surrounding rocks, the towers of the Pink Ridge, the Děčínský Sněžník or the Velký Zschirstein. And Labská stráž, a viewpoint that has a pavilion from the late 19th century that overlooks Elbe valley.

Our hike ended in the town Děčín once again, where we took a train back to Prague.

Final thoughts

Bohemian Switzerland offers a vast amount of different hiking routes you can do, and the scenery is just spectacular. This route was planned by Lucy and adjusted by us depending on the actual situation of the route. Feel free to follow the same path, or take parts of it and enjoy the amazing nature that lies in the national park and it's surroundings. Did I manage to inspire you? Or at least open your mind to one of the best hiking areas Czech Republic has to offer? Tell us, or spread the word!

Until next time!