Šumava

Introducing Šumava

Cornfields and roads may cover much of Middle Europe, but in the Šumava (Böhmerwald in German), the dense woodland harks back to wilder times. This 125km sweep of largely unpopulated wilderness on the Austrian and German border remains one of the region’s rural treasures, with pockets like the Boubín Virgin Forest still regarded as pristine.

Including some of the country’s grandest peaks, the humpbacked mountains (highest summit: Plechý, 1378m) of Šumava are now home to returning populations of deer, lynx and owl. They are also the source of the mighty Vltava, the river that rolls beneath Prague’s Charles bridge 250km north. Cut through with waterways and peppered with lakes and sweeping slopes, Šumava offers plenty of outdoor attractions for the active traveller.

It hasn’t always been this way. Ironically, while Šumava now personifies fresh air and freedom, it was a closed border zone during the communist era: a great slab of the Iron Curtain, interlaced with electrified barbed wire and watchtowers. The barriers are now dismantled, but for Czechs a certain intrigue remains in wandering through a former forbidden zone.

The Boubín Virgin Forest region has been a nature reserve since 1858. The 1630-sq-km Šumava Protected Landscape Region (Chráněná krajinná oblast, or CHKO) was established in 1963. In 1990 Unesco declared this a biospheric reservation. The adjacent Bavarian Forest gained this status in 1981, and together they comprise central Europe’s largest forest complex. In April 1991, 685 sq km of the CHKO became the Šumava National Park (Národní park Šumava). This and the CHKO now make up the biggest, single, state-protected area in the Czech and Slovak Republics.

Most of the Šumava is now open for hiking (turistická) with a broad network of trails. The mountainous terrain rules out cycling on most hiking trails, though the many dirt roads are good for an adventurous and challenging ride. The 240km ‘Šumavská magistrála’ bicycle trail traverses the park west to east, but there are also many opportunities for shorter journeys.

Czechs and Bavarians appreciate the Šumava for skiing and ski touring, the most popular areas being Železná Ruda, Špičák and Hojsova Stráž in the west, Zadov and Churáňov in the central Sumava region, and the Lake Lipno area in the east. The weather is cooler and wetter than in the rest of South Bohemia.

Last updated: Mar 2, 2009