As usual in the last years, the middle part of August meant a week-long hiking trip with the hiking club. Which, this time, was a bit different, leading to an area with interesting history, a couple of castles, and some technical landmarks.

Given that it was a bit longer distance from home, the first day was without a hike. We had a stop halfway through at a chateau with a park situated around a bend in the river, so we took a walk around, but the chateau itself had a mid-day break at the time we reached it and our schedule didn’t provide enough time for a full tour after the break. So I went for the shorter, self-guided tour through the chateau’s museum with the main focus on historical firearms (some of which were made in the town). Unfortunately, the glass cabinets didn’t work out for decent photos.

The second day was the first actual hike. A loop close to a major spa town but with the main focus on a plateau above it with marshlands and a large lake in the middle.

Before ascending to the plateau, there were some large granite boulders, some of them hidden in the woods, others at the edge of pastures.

Once the initial ascension was done, the landscape leveled out. Instead of taking a direct way to the lake, I took a loop around, which rewarded me with the view of a forester’s lodge from the early 1900s.

While a good part of the plateau is a natural bog, the central area around a small settlement with an old hunting lodge features a large artificial lake. The pond was constructed as a source of water from the marshy plateau and used to support a channel around 25 km long for flowing logs downhill and supplying tin mines with water. An educational trail describing the environment and history leads around the lake, with its edges father from the lodge being closer to natural bog lakes than the other side.

Finishing the loop led me around the ruins of an old castle – of which, only a few short sections of walls remain.

And then towards the chateau built later near to the town, with a large park that’s mostly used as a golf course these days.

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The next day, we started near the other end of the mentioned channel. The width hinted that if it was used for transporting logs, they had to be cut very short.

Still, for something built in the early 17th century, it was an impressive feat considering that it flows almost level with the ground (the elevation difference is as small as 35 cm per 100 meters of length – just barely downhill enough for the water to keep flowing). Just above it, we stopped at a stone lookout designed like a castle’s tower, though with the staircase being on the outside – an interesting design choice.

After some time between the fields, the trail turned towards the woods and a bit downhill, towards a pair of ponds that, like many other, were made as reservoirs of additional water for log flowing. The rain showers in the previous week led to some pleasant surprises in the form of quite large fungi.

The woods also hide a ruin of a 13th-century church that is believed to be abandoned already in the early 1500s. Despite that, the ruins are well-preserved.

Then it was uphill to a lookout, though most of what I could see were the surrounding woods. I then made my way to our destination for the day, a small town with a castle built on a rock outcropping in a bend of the river. I tried several lookouts for the view yet the best view of the castle was from the road bridge.

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The third day took us to an area with some weaker mineral springs. In addition to that, the fields above the village have a squat rock outcrop with fields that host several endangered flower species, though August was too late to see those. Instead, the colors were dominated by dry grass, dark green patches of blueberry shrubs, and light purple of heather bushes.

Then, crossing through the woods, I made my way to another mineral spring (like many in the areas, it had noticeable metallic taste) and to another grassy rock outcropping nearby.

As with the previous day, our destination was a small town with a castle rising above – and I, once again, took an extra loop around to search for some nice views. This led me through dry fields heated up by the relentless summer sun and reminded me of some kind of savanna, wondering if this is what most of Europe might look like in a couple of decades of continuing climate change.

I found a pair of lookouts, these were in places a bit shaded from the sunlight and somewhat overgrown, unfortunately.

With still some time to spare, I circled around the town to the hangman’s hill to have a view from the opposite side, then descended towards the town and made my way to the castle where I was content with seeing the exteriors.

And with that, the first three hikes were over, with three more to go – but that’s something for another post, soon.