- Distance: 20km
- Duration (with breaks): 6h 30min
- Difficulty: easy to moderate
- When to hike: all year round
- When we hiked: end-July
České středohoří or Central Bohemian Uplands
If you’re not from the Czech Republic, high chances that you’ve never heard of any of the names above. This is truly off the beaten path, we even met only a few locals. České středohoří is a protected landscape area in the north of Czech Republic. What makes this area unique are weird cone-shaped hills/mountains, spreading around the area. Those hills actually originated from volcanos, hence the shape. Cool.
Each time I visit the place, I love getting on top of one of the hills and observing the area around. On this trip, we decided to visit Milešovka, the tallest peak in the area (837m). Later I learned that it is also considered the windiest place in the country. Let’s see!
How to get there?
By car: from Prague head straight to Velemin, which is approximately 1 hour away. You can also pick another starting point as you’ll have to come back.
By public transport: this was our way. We took a train from Prague, heading to Lovosice, from where we took a bus to Velemin, our starting point. It took us 1.5h to get to the start. Going there by car is probably more time-efficient, but we had a few reasons for public transport:
- It is crazy cheap (yeah, I sound like a true cheap Dutch). One way ticket is less than 6 EUR
- Our route started in one place and ended in another, which is more difficult to arrange when you have a car
To come back, we took a train from Dolni Zalezly back to Lovosice and from there – back to Prague.
So how was it?
We started a walk alongside grain fields with almost no shade. Milesovka loomed just in front of us, hard to miss it when it’s surrounded by flat farm fields. Once the climb started, we entered a bit more forested area and gradually climbed to the top. On the way, we thought we saw a snake, which turned out to be a legless lizard, called slow worm (not confusing at all). Besides the lizard, we did not encounter more wildlife and reached the top in ~1.5h.
On the peak, we found a small restaurant and a meteorology station with an observation tower, which seemed closed (to us at least). There are plenty of benches to sit on and have a lunch break in the shade. From the main viewpoint area, I could see the other peaks rising above the towns. Milesovka clearly seems to dominate the landscape though as we looked at other peaks from above.
From Milesovka we followed the paths towards the Elbe. Occasionally those paths turned into rural roads, but we did not have any safety issues as we met maybe 1 or 2 cars only. Along the way, we passed several grain fields and more ancient volcanos.
Our final viewpoint for today was a cliff overseeing the Elbe and the towns below it. There are several viewpoints close to each other, so we just picked one and went there. The combination of cone-shaped hills in the distance and Elbe snaking through the valley will make sure you have splendid views.
Tips
- Make sure you have sun protection and a hat if you hike in this area in the summer. Some of the sections are very exposed.