Late March announced itself with quite warm weather. Which meant I had to take the opportunity and spend some time outdoors.

Given that the first quarter of 2023 was nearly over and I had, so far, taken only 1 of 25 vacation days at work, I decided to take three now. Not only it gave me a chance to go hiking.

23.3. – Me and the wind

I did the first hike right on the first day, on Thursday. The morning wasn’t really bright, and the beginning was windy as I left the train. I crossed the flat plain from the station towards the nearby village, then a gentle ascension to the foot of the nearby peak, followed by a bit steeper but still not really hard ascension towards the peak. It’s name “Slunečná” loosely translates as “Sunny peak” but I would’ve renamed it to “Wind-beaten peak” instead, was it my choice.

The trail took me through woods – or what was left of them, given the often-repeated and very devastating combination of bark beetle infestation and stronger winds caused by climate change. With my hike being on a workday, I was walking the trail alone. After the descent, it was mostly crossing the long gaps between smaller settlements, often between fields and pastures. At some point, I could see the “Malý Roudný” and “Velký Roudný” peaks – which I visited in April 2020 shortly after the COVID restrictions eased up.

Given that it was early spring, I hoped to find some flowers to photograph, but I was out of luck, managing to find only one at the very end of the hike. The ruin I was passing by was also left to nature’s force for over 650 years, so all I could see there were hints of terrain works, but no remains of castle walls were visible in the overgrowth.

So, I turned towards the nearby lookout tower. There, I had a view of the town below and the land around, but the windy day made me keep my stay up there short.

And from there, it was a short walk towards the town, where I had a short wait for the bus to get on my way home.

26.3. – better luck with flowers

I originally intended the next hike to be on Saturday, but I delayed it to Sunday because of a bit better weather forecast. The weather was still windy but with more sunlight. It took me a while of walking to weave through the town where I started to get to the woods, where I had the chance to see more flowers than during the previous hike.

The trail then lead me to a small plateau above the woods, where the clouds, the sunlight, and the hills in the background created a mosaic of shadows.

Though, as the skies cleared, it became a mosaic of greenery.

I turned back towards the woods, using them to descend toward my next destination. I took another photo of a flower in the damper part of the woods.

Nearing the small town, I made a loop through the hill above it which provides a bird’s eye view of both the town and the tower that remains from the castle once standing above it.

I crossed through, but skipped climbing the tower – it was still quite windy. On the way through, I took a photo of the narrow street just behind the former castle.

Then, it was once again towards the fields between settlements, and those took me to my final destination. The last photos I took were more of the urban variety as well, including the birthplace of Sigmund Freud (now turned into a museum dedicated to him)…

…as well as the nearby town square, where I grabbed an ice cream, then walked a short distance to the bus stop.

This put my March hiking to an end, as the next weekend belonged to April already. And that’ll be something to share another day.

---

So, with this, I hope March has treated you well. The weather is all sorts of unpredictable now in April, but that won’t easily stop me, so you can be sure there will be more photos to post in May describing my April hikes.