Planning a holiday is always fun, especially if you like uncertainty and being unprepared. Zdenička and I were planning a walking trip, and because the summer weather of 2020 was gorgeous, we opened a map of Czechia in our flat in České Budějovice. It was the right moment for it, after all. Covid had flattened foreign travel and dreaming up complicated bureaucracy made no sense.
Just open a map of Czechia and take your pick. Šumava, the Beskydy, the Jeseníky, Moravia, the Krkonoše… but what do you do for a week in the Krkonoše when you want to keep moving and not spend more than a night anywhere?
I’m a specialist in so-called combos, so the trip that emerged began in the Broumov salient at the České Metuje railway halt and ended in Špindlerův Mlýn. A hard-earned 120 kilometres on foot and a few merciful kilometres by train. But it all started in the Teplice-Adršpach Rocks…
The Ostaš maze – a hidden gem of the Broumov area
The one-kilometre circuit is full of interesting rock formations very similar to those in Adršpach, and on top of that it’s free. More than one thrifty person will appreciate that price tag. Anyone who wants to squeeze the most out of this maze will certainly appreciate the extended version of the circuit, which is 500 metres longer. After exploring the maze we carried on on foot through Dědov to Teplice nad Metují, specifically to the Kamenec campsite, where we spent the night in a tent. In a campsite eatery, just as in a pub over a beer, you’ll hear the greatest wisdom and quips from the mouths of older people.
Almost everyone knows the sign saying “Free today, paid tomorrow” and walks past it with a smile. One unnamed gentleman felt the need to discuss this serious offer with the landlord in such depth that he suggested this: “I’ll just have this, if the sign holds and it’s free tomorrow?”
I love every honest attempt at a joke that isn’t understood.
From Teplice nad Metují to the beauty of the Adršpach Rocks
The people at the campsite were very kind and let us leave our packs with all our gear there. We caught the first train to escape the crowds and by 8 in the morning we were among the few passing through the gates of the rock town.
During the tourist “peak” before the pandemic there were reports that the Adršpach rock town was one of the places most “hit” by overtourism. Few people know, though, that you can find beauty similar to the Adršpach rock town a few kilometres away in the village of Ostaš.
The Adršpach Rocks
We set off on the basic circuit undisturbed by anyone and could enjoy the silence and emptiness, which we captured in photographs. If only I knew how to work with aperture and shutter speed on a camera. For some reason I’m still tempted to learn how to use it, and even though I know I’ll never get the hang of it and more than half the photos are unusable, I take it on every trip anyway. As a bonus I always bring a tripod too, which I use exactly once. For the sunrise, which I can’t photograph anyway 😊 You’ll find complete information about the Teplice-Adršpach Rocks here
You can pad round the circuit itself very quickly, but don’t despair. Another thing that isn’t much mentioned: from the Adršpach Rocks you can carry straight on along the yellow trail into the Teplice Rocks, which are free and just as lovely as the Adršpach Rocks.
If you’re trying to be cleverer than the rock town’s managers, watch out. If you head into the Adršpach rock town from the Teplice Rocks you’ll come unstuck. There’s a ticket office on that side too.
The Teplice Rocks
What I really enjoyed about these rocks was thinking about how something like this can come into being and entertain people all over the world. Walking through the rocks we had to stop time and again, laugh or start a debate about what something might be… often it was enough to look at the map 😀
The whole circuit is just under 6 kilometres with no dizzying ascent. On a path so well maintained that hardly anyone could trip on it – apart from Zdenička.
We’d recommend picking up a leaflet at the start of the visit, describing all the formations and including a schematic map of the whole route. Sometimes there’s no signal among the rocks, so a map comes in handy.
The plans for the night were clear. A romantic night at the foot of a several-metre ski slope in Radvanice. There, besides a bed on the roof of some machine room, we made powdered pasta on a gas stove and finished off with a shower from a hose. Sadly after a demanding day there was no energy left for the longed-for sex, which was consumed entirely by the effort not to freeze after that icy shower.
And what came next? You’ll find out how misleading the phrase “just a little bit further and we’re there” can be, what the route from Černá hora to Pec pod Sněžkou involves and what it’s like to sleep on the very summit of Sněžka. All of it in the second part of this lovely walk from the Adršpach Rocks to Sněžka.
