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You know the kind of hiking trips where you happen to walk without much of planning? The ones where you decide to go a day in advance and in the end they blow your mind more than something that you’d planned weeks and weeks ahead? Yeah so this one was the case! My old hiking mate, Kuba and I decided to explore Žďárské vrchy just a day or two in advance before we arrived in Pustá Kamenice in the northern part of the range. It’s a completely forgotten place in the middle of the fields and forests with a train station which doesn’t appear to have been maintained since the WWII.

You can get there comfortably by a train. It usually has only one wagon and when you go through the forest, you feel like you can just open a window, stretch out your arm and pick mushrooms directly.

From Pustá Kamenice our legs were leading us towards the very cute village of Březiny. I hadn’t been there before but now it would be one of my favourite places to live in Czechia. Hidden in a looong, flat valley with an atmosphere of the past times, the local houses are fine examples of old Eastern-Bohemian architecture – all from wood but still with a lots of decorative elements.

From the village we continued towards Devět skal, the highest point of the range. While walking through the local forests we saw heaps of rock formations strangely sticking their tops just under the tree tops. So, by the way, while they’re fun to climb, the view you get is through the treetops rather than above them. However, it’s worth to climb at least one or two of them.

From Devět skal we kept on following the red marked route towards Žákova hora, Tisůvka and Škrdlovice to pond Velké Dářko. It was quite funny to see people trying to windsurf there. I always feel sorry for them and wish for their sake that they could have a bit of New Zealand beach in their yards.

Not far away from the pond we pitched our bivy. Birds were singing very loud that night but it was still much nicer than drunk people, the night singing birds of towns.

The day after we simply followed the red route heading to Žďár nad Sázavou. There is a big monastery and Pilgrimage Church of Saint John of Nepomuk which is a must for everyone who’s around to see. I was really impressed by the genuineness of the place. What other finish to a hike would you fish for?

Hiked with Kuba F. in June 2017. Photos taken by me and my lovely Sony a6000