Orlické hory

Rokytnice v Orlických horách – ‘Gateway to the Eagle Mountains’ © Ricky Yates

After spending Easter Monday exploring Boskovice, the following morning we drove further north for about three hours, (including a mid-morning coffee break), from South Moravia, into the extreme north-eastern corner of Bohemia. This was in order to visit the Orlické hory (Czech) or Adlergebirge (German), both names which translate literally into English as ‘Eagle Mountains’.

The Orlické hory lie close to the border with Poland in the former Sudetenland, from which the Sudetendeutsche population were expelled at the end of the Second World War. They are not as high as the Krkonoše Mountains where we spent a walking holiday for a week in July 2011. Therefore, when planning some weeks earlier, how to spend my post-Easter break, we thought they would be an ideal location for a couple of days of walking enjoying some pleasant Spring weather 😉

The clear unwillingness of winter to relax its grip, did make us wonder whether this was still a good idea. But as Tuesday 2nd April dawned fine and sunny and the main roads were dry and clear of snow, we decided to stick to our original plan. So we arrived at Rokytnice v Orlických horách which, as the sign declares, is the brána Orlických hor, ‘Gateway to the Eagle Mountains’.

Rokytnice, (Rokitnitz in German), is a small town with a population of around 2500 and is around 580 metres (1,900 feet) above sea level. As with many Czech towns, at the centre is a pleasant main square, overlooked by a Church.

The main square in Rokytnice © Ricky Yates

Pension Rampušák © Ricky Yates

A short distance from the Church, on one side of the square, we spotted Pension Rampušák which offered both meals and accommodation. We adopted our regular pattern of saying, “Mluvíme trochu cesky” – “We speak little Czech”, followed by, “Do you speak English? – Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”, and found that the lady proprietor spoke fluent German.

Pension Rampušák proved to be a wonderful find. We were offered a spacious double-bedded room with an equally spacious on-suite bathroom, for CZK 700 (just over £23.00) per night, including breakfast! We promptly booked in for two nights. We then discovered as we sat down and had lunch in the pension restaurant, that our German-speaking hostess also employed an excellent chef 🙂

Snow-covered footpath © Ricky Yates

That afternoon, we set out on a post-lunch digestive walk, first exploring the town and then following a waymarked footpath along the river valley, south of the town. Although the path was snow-covered, it was never too deep for walking and we enjoyed bright sunshine throughout the afternoon.