Šumava Forest Weekend

A 420 km loop

Open this ride in the planner →

Why this ride

A rider’s loop: clean exit, memorable middle, calm return. 420 km round from Český Brod - plan on about 8 h 44 of riding. It goes by way of Žandov, near Bílina, near Zaječov and Modřany. The climb of the day is in Postupice.

Roadbook

1. Fuel stop near Český Brod fuel

   Český Brod means Czech Ford, and the name tells you why the town exists: a crossing on the old trade road running east from Prague towards Kolín and the Elbe lowlands. Merchants, armies and pilgrims all came this way, and the town grew fat enough on the traffic to build walls. A stretch of fortification and a stout gate tower survive, and the long square, with its church and arcaded houses, is a calm place to sit for ten minutes at the end of a ride.

   The bigger story lies a few kilometres east, on a low rise above the fields. At Lipany in 1434 the radical Hussite field armies, the Taborites and Orphans who had beaten crusade after crusade for fifteen years, were finally crushed by an alliance of moderate Hussites and Catholic lords. A memorial mound marks the battlefield. There is not much to see beyond the monument and the wide horizon, but standing there with the wind in the wheat you get a sense of how open and exposed this country is, and why cavalry and wagon forts mattered so much.

   The landscape is gentle: big arable fields, orchards along the lanes, copses of oak and pine, and a scattering of fishponds. Some of the ponds and small reservoirs in the area are used for swimming in summer, especially around Klučov and the woods towards Kounice. Water quality varies with the season and a hot August can turn ponds green, so look at what locals are doing before you jump in.

   As a finishing stretch the riding is easy-going. The roads roll over shallow hills with long sightlines, and the minor routes between villages are quiet if patchy in places. The main road back towards Prague can be busy at commuting times. Fuel, a supermarket and a few pubs serving svíčková and cold Bohemian lager are in town, which is about all a tired rider could ask for.

2. Near Žandov, on the way back swim

   The country is one of volcanic hills, sandstone rocks and mixed woods, the western edge of the Lusatian region. Cone-shaped basalt peaks rise from the farmland, and the lower slopes are patched with orchards and small fields. It is lovely and little visited, and you will often have the roads to yourself.

   Česká Lípa, with nearly forty thousand people, has plenty of fuel and food, and a neat old centre with a Gothic Augustinian monastery and a handsome square. The town sits at the edge of the Kokořín and Lusatian landscapes, and it is a natural base for a few days of exploring. The nearby Máchovo lake, near Doksy, is a famous spot for swimming and boating, and the sandstone rocks and forests around it have a romantic, mysterious character.

   For a rider, the roads here are enjoyable and varied. They wind through the foothills of the Central Uplands, climbing to small passes and descending to quiet villages, with views of volcanic cones and distant ridges. The surface can be patchy, and bends are often tight and blind, with farm traffic and cyclists. In summer the hills are green and the air is warm, and in autumn the beeches and oaks are a blaze of colour. Fog fills the valleys on cold mornings and burns off by midday.

   The area was long home to a mixed Czech and German population, and the old half-timbered houses, known as Umgebinde, are a distinctive feature of the region. Many have been restored, and a few small museums tell the story of the weavers and glassmakers who once lived here. Fuel is easy to find in Česká Lípa, but the smaller villages have little, so fill up beforehand. A bowl of garlic soup and a dark beer in a village pub is a good way to end a day.

3. Food stop near Bílina food

   Bílina sits in the valley of the Bílina river in north-west Bohemia, between the industrial basin around Most and Teplice and the volcanic cones of the České středohoří, the Bohemian Central Uplands. Look up from almost anywhere in town and you will see the Bořeň, a massive dome of phonolite rock rising abruptly from the woods. Climbers love its crags, and walkers make the climb for the views across the basin and the uplands.

   The town has been known for its mineral water for centuries. Bílinská kyselka, a naturally sparkling water from local springs, has been bottled here since the eighteenth century and is still sold across the country, along with Zaječická hořká, a famously bitter mineral water with a reputation as a remedy for digestion. The spa park and pump room are a short stroll from the centre. The chateau of the Lobkowicz family stands above the old town.

   For riding, the location is excellent. To the east and north, the České středohoří offers some of the most interesting roads in Bohemia, winding between steep volcanic hills, through orchards and vineyards, and down into the Elbe valley. To the west, the Ore Mountains rise along the German border. The basin itself is less attractive, with open-cast mines and power stations, but even that has a strange, raw grandeur.

   As a food stop, Bílina is modest but adequate. There are pubs and restaurants in the centre serving solid Czech food: goulash, roast pork with dumplings and sauerkraut, fried cheese. Fuel is available in town. Bring an appetite, then head for the hills.

4. Photo stop near Zaječov photo

   For decades the Brdy hills south-west of Prague were off-limits: a large military training area closed to the public, with forests that grew wild and roads that only soldiers used. In 2016 much of it was opened and became a protected landscape area, and the hills around villages like Zaječov have quietly become one of the more interesting places to explore in central Bohemia.

   The Brdy are a long, forested ridge of old rocks, rising above the surrounding farmland. The forests are mainly spruce and beech, with clearings, peat bogs and streams, and they are full of roe deer, boar and many birds. The region also has an industrial past, as iron ore was mined and smelted here for centuries, and the ironworks at nearby Komárov were famous for their cast iron. Small museums and old buildings tell this story.

   Zaječov itself is a small village at the foot of the hills, with a church and a few farms. The roads around it are narrow and winding, climbing into the forest and dropping into valleys, with very little traffic. Some forest roads remain closed to motor vehicles, so follow the signs carefully. Surfaces can be rough and covered in leaves or gravel, especially after rain.

   There are no real services in Zaječov, so fill up in Hořovice, the nearest town, which has fuel stations, shops and a château. A picnic in the forest is a good alternative to a restaurant. Onward, the way heads south towards the Šumava, the great forest on the border with Bavaria, where the roads become even wilder and the landscape more remote.

5. Near Modřany finish

   South of Prague, the Vltava leaves the city through a deep, wooded valley, and the suburbs give way to villages, orchards and cliffs. It is a place of transition: the city's traffic behind you, the Bohemian countryside ahead.

   The Vltava is the river of Smetana's famous symphonic poem, and its course south of Prague is a chain of dams and reservoirs, beginning at Vrané with a small dam and power station, then rising toward the larger lakes at Slapy and Orlík. The valley is lined with weekend cottages, a Czech institution: under communism many families built small chatas in the countryside, and the tradition of leaving the city on Friday evening is still strong. Zbraslav, on the river nearby, has a former Cistercian monastery turned chateau.

   The rides from here head west to Karlštejn and the Berounka. Karlštejn Castle, built by Emperor Charles IV in the fourteenth century to protect the crown jewels and his collection of holy relics, rises from a wooded hill above a narrow valley, with towers stepping up to the Great Tower and its chapel decorated with gold and precious stones. The surrounding Bohemian Karst is a landscape of limestone cliffs, caves and quarries, including the flooded quarry known as Velká Amerika, sometimes called the Czech Grand Canyon, and the Koněprusy Caves. The Berounka valley itself winds through forest, with roads following the river in long curves.

   The roads around here are mostly narrow, with variable surfaces, cobbled sections in some villages, and tight bends through the woods. Weekends bring cyclists and day-trippers, and the road to Karlštejn can be crowded. Remember the Czech rules: dipped headlights are required at all times, and the legal alcohol limit for drivers is zero. Prague itself has trams, cobbles and congestion, so leave early to avoid the city's traffic.

   For fuel and supplies, Modřany and Zbraslav are close, as are the larger towns along the main roads. Village pubs serve hearty Czech food, such as goulash, roast pork with dumplings and sauerkraut, and of course excellent beer, which is for the evening, not the ride. Bring a jacket, as the river valleys can be cool and damp in the morning, even in summer.

6. High point in Postupice pass

   Postupice is a straggling village in the hills east of Benešov, the kind of place where the church tower is the tallest thing for miles and the pub is the second most important building. Around it the Posázaví uplands fold into small valleys with ponds in the bottoms and woods on the crests, and the roads between the hamlets climb and drop in short, satisfying pulls.

   The high ground here is not dramatic, but it gives you a long look across Central Bohemia. On a clear evening you can pick out wooded ridges in every direction, and to the south-east the twin humps of the Blaník hills. Velký Blaník holds one of the best-loved Czech legends: inside the mountain, so the story goes, sleeps an army of knights led by Saint Wenceslas, waiting to ride out and save the nation in its darkest hour. Plenty of Czechs will tell you, with a wry smile, that the knights have overslept on several occasions.

   Closer at hand, Konopiště, just outside Benešov, was the country seat of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination in Sarajevo in 1914 set off the First World War. The chateau is stuffed with his hunting trophies, many thousands of them, and its park and rose garden make a pleasant break if you are passing.

   The riding is quiet and twisty in a low-key way. Lanes are narrow, often bumpy and patched, with blind crests and the odd farm dog that considers motorcycles a personal insult. Traffic is light enough that you can relax into it. Late in the day, with low sun raking across the fields and the smell of hay in the air, this is Bohemian back-country at its most likeable.

7. Scenic stretch near Benešov scenic

   Benešov is a busy little county town about forty-five minutes south-east of Prague, and for most riders its name is shorthand for one thing: Konopiště. The chateau sits in a wooded park just west of the centre, a Gothic castle remodelled in the late nineteenth century for Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Habsburg throne. He was an obsessive hunter, and the corridors are lined with an almost unsettling quantity of antlers and trophies. The rose garden, the deer park and the lake below the castle are calmer company.

   The town itself is practical rather than pretty, with a railway junction, supermarkets and a modest square. Its practical side is what matters at the end of a ride: fuel stations on the edges of town, places to eat, and an easy run back to Prague on the D1 motorway if you want to be home quickly. Remember that Czech motorways require an electronic vignette, motorcycles included.

   The country around Benešov is the Posázaví, the land of the Sázava river, and it is made for unhurried riding. Minor roads swing through mixed forest, past fishponds fringed with reeds, and up over low ridges where the view opens across a rumpled quilt of fields. Corners are frequent but rarely tight, and surfaces range from fresh to tired. Weekend traffic is light away from the main roads, though cyclists like these lanes too.

   If you are finishing here, the old road towards Prague through Poříčí nad Sázavou and along the river makes a gentler alternative to the motorway, with the water glinting through the trees and campsites and riverside pubs along the banks. It is a pleasant way to let the day unwind.

8. Back to Šumava Forest finish

   The dot lies in the Elbe lowland east of Prague, between the small villages of Přerov nad Labem and Poříčany, about two hundred kilometres from the forests of the Šumava where the ride began. This is flat, open, intensively farmed land, with big fields of cereal and rapeseed, small villages with a pond and a chapel, and a horizon that stretches in every direction. It is the quiet exhale at the end of a weekend.

   The Šumava, or Bohemian Forest, is the great wooded range along the border with Bavaria and Austria, a landscape of spruce, peat bogs, glacial lakes and old farmsteads that is protected as a national park. For decades, during the Cold War, the border zone was closed and fenced, and nature recovered in the empty space, which is why lynx, otter and capercaillie are found there today. The Boubín primeval forest, with its huge old beeches and firs, is among the last such places in central Europe, and Lipno, a vast reservoir, offers sailing and swimming in summer.

   In Přerov nad Labem, there is an open-air museum, the Polabí skanzen, which preserves rural houses, barns and a small church from the Elbe region, and gives a good idea of how people lived on the plain before collectivisation. It is a gentle stop, especially with children, and it shows the practical, thatched architecture of the lowlands. Nymburk, the nearest bigger town, was the home of the writer Bohumil Hrabal, and its walls and brewery are well preserved.

   The riding here is straightforward. The roads are straight and well surfaced, though busy at commuter hours, and farm vehicles are common. Wind is a factor across the open fields, and the best time is early evening in summer, when the long light turns the grain gold. Fog is common in autumn. Speed cameras guard the main roads and village entrances.

   Fuel is available in Nymburk, Český Brod and Kolín, and every village has some kind of pub or snack bar. Czech lunch menus are cheap and generous, with soup, a main dish and often a drink for a modest price. After a day in the mountains and forests, the flatness is a relief, and the long sky is its own reward.

Where this sits

Rides near here