After a couple of days in Prague, we headed outside of the city for a brief break and day trip to Bohemian Paradise (Cesky Raj), which offers unique landscapes of sandstone rocks popping up out of the forest. While possible to explore in one day from Prague, we headed back to Prague in the evening wishing we had a bit more time to explore the area. The Bohemian Paradise area was a great place to explore as a family and spend time in the outdoors.
Getting There
The heart of Bohemian Paradise is only about 1 hour away from Prague; however, we got a bit of a late start so we ended up being a bit rushed in our exploration of the area.
We headed towards the town of Hruba Skala as we wanted to hike around the Hruboskalsko rock formation, which has towers reaching up to 55 meters high and steep canyons. We knew we might be pushing our luck with the distance we wanted to hike with the kids, so instead of beginning the hike in the town of Hruba Skala, we found a forest parking spot where we parked the car to begin our hike there. We arrived on a Monday in September and there were several parking spots, but I could see this filling up quickly in the busier times of the year. The parking spot was a great location and right above Adam’s Bed; however, we missed out on the viewpoint of the Hruba Skala castle, which we found out later is right around the corner.
Hiking Hruba Skala to Valdstejn Castle & Back
We chose to hike the Red Trail to the Valdstejn Hrad (Castle), which was about 2 km long. This trail was a gravel type road and was relatively straight forward – making it an easy route for kids and parents with strollers. There were several viewpoints of Hrubaskalsko, including the specific rock formations of the ‘The Band’ (Vyhlidka na Kapelu) and the one solitaire one of the ‘Bandleader’ (Kapelnik). About ½ km after the Bandleader is the ‘Lion’ (Vyhlidka u Lvicka).
At the end of the trail there is a café that we enjoyed a snack at, as well as the opportunity to explore Valdstejn Hrad. However, our plan was to visit Trosky Castle later in the day so we decided to forego going inside this particular castle.
We originally had planned on taking the yellow trail back, but that would have been over 5 km. Since the kids were complaining about the distance they had been so far, we didn’t think that would be the best option. We started to head back in the same direction we had come, but we got to a point where the blue trail branched off of it. We checked on our map and it looked like it would take us back to our parking spot, so we decided to take that trail back instead. We’re so glad we did!
The blue trail ended up being the perfect trail to take back, as it took us down to the bottom level of the sandstone towers, so it offered a whole different perspective and viewpoint. It was only about 2 km back on this trail as well. There were a couple different series of stairs – one to descend down to the bottom, as well as another set towards the end to ascend back up through Adam’s Bed. However, it wasn’t too steep and the trails were more traditional trails, instead of feeling like we were walking on a road. There were even a few areas where we could walk through the narrow openings of the sandstone towers. The kids were much more excited to hike and explore this section of the trail as there was so much to see and discover!
We really enjoyed checking out the rocks in the location of Adam's Bed. The size of the rocks and the deep canyons were amazing as well.
Trosky Castle
After we finished our hike at Hruba Skala we drove the 20 minutes to Trosky Hrad. We thought we might have hit the off-season jackpot when we pulled up in the parking lot and didn’t see any other vehicles parked. However, we quickly realized that Trosky Castle is closed on Mondays in September. (In hindsight, we probably would have missed it even if it had been open, as it looked like they closed most other days at 4:30-ish. However, it had varying hours throughout the year, so make sure to check the website prior to your visit.) We walked up and around the castle, but there was no way to view the castle than from outside the castle wall. The castle is unique in that it has two towers built on opposite basalt rocks with the middle of the castle being between them. It was disappointing to have missed it, but will give us another reason to come back and explore on another trip.
However, there are several things that we missed seeing in the area because we didn't have enough time. Those other places that were recommended to check out included Drabske Svetnicky, the Hruba Skala Castle and Mala Skala. We did check into Drabske Svetnicky, but Google said it was temporarily closed at the time we were visiting.
A visit to Hrubaskalasko was a great day to spend one of our days from Prague and we really enjoyed hiking and exploring the area! We’d highly recommend going to check it out – there are even supposed to be trains that can take you from Prague to Hruba Skala.
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