The word dollar comes from these hills. In the early sixteenth century, a silver rush at Joachimsthal, today's Jáchymov, made the town one of the largest in Bohemia, and the coins minted there, the Joachimsthaler, shortened to thaler, gave their name to currencies around the world. The Erzgebirge, or Krušné hory, the Ore Mountains on the Czech-German border, were mined for silver, tin, cobalt, iron and finally uranium for eight centuries, and the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2019.
Jáchymov has a darker chapter too. After 1945, the uranium mines were worked by forced labour, including thousands of political prisoners held in camps by the communist regime, to feed the Soviet nuclear programme. The Path of Hell, a memorial trail, tells their story. Long before that, Marie Curie had isolated radium from Jáchymov ore, and the town became the first radon spa in the world, which it still is today.
Up on the plateau around Abertamy and Boží Dar, the land is high, cold and open, with spruce woods, peat bogs and old mining scars: spoil heaps, collapsed shafts and the long ditches that carried water to the wheels that pumped the mines dry. Klínovec, the highest peak on the Czech side at 1244 metres, faces the Fichtelberg across the border. In winter, this is ski country; in summer, it offers excellent riding, with long, smooth roads through forest, wide views over the Ohře valley, and the steep, twisting descent from Boží Dar down to Jáchymov and Ostrov.
Weather here is a story in itself: mist, wind and cold can arrive even in summer, and snow can linger until late spring. Abertamy itself is famous, oddly, for glove making, which once employed much of the town. It is a small place, so fill the tank in Ostrov, Karlovy Vary or across the border in Johanngeorgenstadt. Try Czech classics like svíčková or goulash with dumplings in a mountain inn, and remember that Czech motorways require a vignette.