The Jizera Mountains sit in the far north of Bohemia, right where the Czech Republic meets Poland and Germany, and they have a stern, quiet character that sets them apart from the better-known Krkonoše to the east. Hejnice, at their foot, is a small town in the valley of the Smědá river, famous for a large Baroque pilgrimage church with a basilica and a Franciscan monastery. Above it, the ridges rise to forested plateaus and open peat bogs, with roads that thread between spruce and beech.
The mountains have a hard recent history. In the 1970s and 1980s the forests of this region were devastated by acid rain from the power stations of the nearby coalfields, a part of Europe sometimes called the Black Triangle. Great swathes of spruce died, and the landscape you see today is partly a result of replanting and natural recovery. Many of the high-altitude areas are protected, and the night skies here are some of the darkest in the country, since the area has been recognised for its low light pollution.
For a motorcyclist, the Jizeras mean quiet, twisty roads through forest, with some fine bends near the passes and an air of seclusion. Surfaces are mixed, with good main roads and rougher forest tracks, some of which are closed to motor vehicles, so check signs and follow them. The weather can change quickly, with mist and cold even in summer, and winter brings snow and ice, so the riding season runs from late spring to early autumn.
Hejnice is small, with fewer than three thousand people, so expect basic facilities, and plan for fuel in larger towns like Frýdlant or Liberec, where you will find plenty of petrol stations and restaurants. In the mountain villages, small guesthouses serve Czech comfort food, and a bowl of garlic soup or a plate of fried cheese will go down well after a chilly ride.
On this ride, the Jizeras link with Herrnhut and the Muskauer Park, which gives a nice picture of Upper Lusatia, a borderland where Czech, German and Polish history overlap. The mountains are a gentle introduction to that world.