No, Switzerland is not next to or has not annexed part of the Czech Republic. The Bohemian Switzerland National Park is named because some guy from Switzerland thought the area reminded him of home. This may sound silly but many parts of the US are named in a similar manner.
Northern Hikes
We booked this tour with Northern Hikes. They were very good at communicating with us via email. They even sent us a photo of the guide, Sarka, who would pick us up at our hotel. It was nice but unnecessary given the van she was driving.
The other hikers with us were from Colorado and were very nice but rather quiet. Sarka drove the hour and a half drive to the park with colorful stories about Czech jokes and odd hills all Czechs have to climb.
Traffic was super light due to the upcoming holiday and we had fun conversation with Sarka along the way.
How hard is this hike?
When we booked this trip the tour company asked us if we had hiking experience, proper footwear, and other information about levels of strenuous activity. This made us uneasy and made us question if we were capable of surviving the hike.
During the hike, Sarka commented that in her previous tour group people had been wearing slip-on furry dress boots. This made us even more confused about the difficulty. Sarka parked the van at the trail head and we started to hike into the park.
The trail was uphill but not terribly hard. Interestingly enough the first part of the trail had been paved with cobblestones to reduce erosion. This park is on sandstone that has eroded over millions of years to form interesting rock formations.
When we got near the top where the arch and former hotel is there was a sign depicting a woman falling off a horse.
Sarka said that a fancy woman, Olgasturz, had fallen off a horse and was very embarrassed. This sign is to commemorate this embarrassment. I am unable to find anything about this online but the picture is a woman falling off a horse so its at least partly true.
To celebrate our ascent to the the top without a horse accident, Sarka broke out some mulled wine and we toasted our success beneath the arch. There is a theme of Czech tour guides carrying booze with them on there tours.
More hikers appear
When we started our descent there were many more hikers coming up to enjoy the park. We even saw a father pushing a stroller up this trail! While this trail is not super hard it is not for strollers. At one point we saw a stroller hidden way off the path behind a rock.
After much starring and self-reflection we concluded as a group that one of the fathers who lacked determination had decided to ditch his stroller in shame. In his haste to hide the stroller, he forgot to check if it would be visible from both directions on the trail.
Lunch time
We got back to the van and Sarka drove us to a restaurant within the park. We were served traditional Czech food (I have no pictures because I hate taking pictures of my food) and beer. As I was watching the American’s eat I observed that we were all using the zig-zag utensil etiquette. Sarka looked very confused and I explained how you can usually spot Americans eating by how they use utensils. We spent most of the rest of lunch discussing this and what the other options for using cutlery were.
Outside the restaurant there was a playground in the shape of the arch we had just seen. Since they don’t allow you to get on the arch anymore, Devin felt it was necessary to get on top of the children’s arch.
Devin is a bad influence because the other couple with us did the same thing.
Bastei
Back in the van we headed for Germany. The German border was only a few miles away but there are no guards so its just like driving to another state. We were headed to Neurathen Castle, the site of a former castle in the Bastei rock formations. Its in the same park as earlier just on the German side.
This place is very accessible and filled with many more tourists than the Czech park. There is a hotel here, bus parking, restaurant, and beer garden. The path takes you through where the castle was but the views are far more interesting and captivating.
Back to Prague
Sarka got us back to Prague safely and we headed out to get Korean food. Food was excellent and we crawled into bed at 22:00 not wanting to partake in the festivities that were exploding around Prague. Prague does its official New Years fireworks on the 1st at 18:00 but tonight its drunks setting of tons of explosives.
I was awoken at 00:30 by Devin and it sounded like we were in a war zone with all of the explosions going off around us. That made us very glad we didn’t go out.
