Walking in Cesky Raj

I apologize for not posting for a few weeks. My elderly father has been in hospital. He came out today, just three days before I fly back to the Czech Republic from England. 

I have have had several trips to the beautiful and spectacular landscape of Czech Paradise or Cesky Raj. I am usually based in my favourite town in the region - Jicin. Close to the town are two major rock towns. These "towns" are complexes of huge pillars of sandstone carved by the weather over thousands of years.

The nearest rock town to Jicin is the Prachovske Skaly (above), indeed it is so close that you can walk through the rock town and back to Jicin. In addition to the trail that goes through the rocks, there are also two circular routes which climb up and down through the pillars. 

But walking in Czech Paradise isn't all about rock towns. There are less dramatic walks through verdant countryside past traditional wooden cottages like this one above. 

One day maybe I will write a book about the area - another excuse to walk in paradise!

The Rock Towns of Czech Paradise

 Czech Paradise (Český ráj) is one of my favourite areas in the Czech Republic. Because I offer walking holidays there, I have the perfect excuse to visit every year - well, I have to check the walks don't I? And quite a few of those walks take me through some of the area's famous rock towns.

The rock towns are the reason Czech Paradise was included in the UNESCO list of European Geoparks. But what are they? They are collections of huge sandstone towers created by erosion by rain and ice over millenia. When I say huge, I mean the height of several storey buildings. Nothing can quite prepare you for the scale of them and no photo can really do them justice (although I have tried). In the photo below - the dark dot on the path is a man.

The most famous rock towns are the Prachovské Rocks (shown here) and the Hruba Skala Rocks, but there are several others. My husband and I first visited the Prachovské Rocks one early evening in September. The sun was low in the sky, turning the rocks a pinkish yellow and casting long shadows. Virtually alone, we followed the paths that wove through the area, climbing steep staircases, squeezing through cracks in the rocks, and standing on their summits to watch the setting sun.

It was a magical experience. No wonder that the rock towns are used by film production companies - for example for Disney's Narnia films and more recently for the BBC's Three Musketeers series. Nor is it a surprise that these natural labyrinths were once home to robbers.