A walk above Kanon Labe

The Labe river flowing towards Germany, where it becomes the Elbe © Ricky Yates

On Saturday 1^st September, a group from my former congregation at St Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church, Prague, are travelling by train to Decín, for me to take them on a guided walk through the Labské pískovce Protected Landscape Area where I now live. This post is both an account of my research for that walk and is also aimed at giving the prospective participants, a taster of what they can look forward to experiencing 🙂

The walk starts in the village of Ludvíkovice, which lies between Decín and Stará Oleška. From outside the Post Office, where I parked my car, I then walked into the forest a short way, to join the red waymarked route that comes up from Decín and is part of the E3 European long distance path. Heading north and climbing steadily for about 1.5km, the path arrives at the first spectacular viewpoint, Vyhlídkové místo.

This is the view looking north with the Labe river flowing towards Germany, where it becomes the Elbe.

The view looking south, back towards Decín © Ricky Yates

Whilst this is the view looking south, back towards Decín.

View from Vyhlídkové místo © Ricky Yates

Slightly further on, there is second viewpoint, also called Vyhlídkové místo 😉 , from where the full extent of the forest lying below the cliffs and stretching down to the valley floor, can be seen.

From Vyhlídkové místo, there is a shallow valley to be crossed, followed by a short climb up a zigzag path to Ružová vyhlídka, at 433m above sea level, the highest point on the route.

The view south from Ružová vyhlídka © Ricky Yates

This is the view south from Ružová vyhlídka. Decín in the far distance, stands at 135m above sea level which means that Kanon Labe is nearly 300 metres deep.

The view north from Ružová vyhlídka © Ricky Yates

And the view north.

The green waymarked route through the forest © Ricky Yates

From Ružová vyhlídka, the red waymarked route is followed for a further kilometre before turning off onto the green waymarked route, heading back south through the forest.

Slunecná brána © Ricky Yates

The path then passes this fascinating geological feature, Slunecná brána, a small sandstone rock arch formation. As you can see, there is a seat provided if you need to rest your weary legs 🙂

The village of Ludvíkovice © Ricky Yates

The path then undulates through the forest, with glimpses of the village of Ludvíkovice through the trees, completing a circular walk and rejoining the red waymarked route.

Retracing my earlier steps for about 0.5km, rather than then walk back into Ludvíkovice, I continued along the red waymarked route, in the direction of Decín. This leads to two further viewpoints.

Sandstone pavilion at Vyhlídka Labská stráž © Ricky Yates

The first of these is Vyhlídka Labská stráž where there is this sandstone pavilion, originally built in the late nineteenth century. As you can probably see in the photograph, the safety barriers have been recently repaired. The stonework has also been re-pointed, restoring the building to its former glory.

The view from Vyhlídka Labská stráž © Ricky Yates

From the pavilion there is this splendid view. On the west/left bank of the Labe is the Prague-Decín-Dresden railway, whilst on the east/right bank, is the main road from Decín to Dresden.

Decín, as viewed from Císarský výhled © Ricky Yates

A further kilometre on from Vyhlídka Labská stráž, is Císarský výhled, which provides expansive views across Decín.

Zigzag path © Ricky Yates

From Císarský výhled, the red waymarked route then descends down this zigzag path to a bus stop opposite Decín hospital. There is a local bus from here, directly to the main railway station. On the day of my exploration, I had to walk to another stop to get a bus back to my parked car.