Table of contents
- Motorcycle tour in the Giant Mountains Rubezahl’s empire
- The road goes against the mountains
- Just go for a walk
- Reserved for hikers and mountain bikers
- The young Elbe, wild and completely unregulated
- Info and map
Jo Deleker
14th pictures
Jo Deleker
1/14
Just drive and let yourself drift.
archive
2/14
Giant Mountains; Location: Poland, Czech Republic; Area: 631 km²; Highest peak: Schneekoppe (1603 m).
Jo Deleker
3/14
There are only a few legally skiable slopes in the Giant Mountains. This one is at Vrchlabi.
Jo Deleker
4/14
Jo Deleker
5/14
At the Elbe Falls, the young Elbe can still be wild and unregulated (CZ).
Jo Deleker
6/14
The Elbe above Spindleruv Mlyn looks like a wild mountain stream. That will be over soon downstream.
Jo Deleker
7/14
Pure driving pleasure: In summer there is almost no traffic on the forest roads.
Jo Deleker
8/14
Break at Benecko with a view of the Giant Mountains.
Jo Deleker
9/14
Colorful places and almost no traffic.
Jo Deleker
10/14
Hostinne market square with vaulted passages.
Jo Deleker
11/14
If you look closely, you will discover the German word “Gasthaus”. After WWII the house was neglected.
Jo Deleker
12/14
Everything programmed for tourism, and Germany is only 50 kilometers away. In Szklarska Poreba in Poland.
Jo Deleker
13/14
Spring in the Giant Mountains. Side street near Nowa Kamienica.
Jo Deleker
14/14
Typical old wooden house in Vrchlabi (CZ).
to travel
Motorbike tour Giant Mountains
Motorcycle tour in the Giant Mountains
Rubezahl’s empire
A patron saint is always good, you just have to believe in it. Rubezahl takes over this job in the Giant Mountains, on both sides of the Czech-Polish border.
Joachim Deleker
09/17/2015
People have their legends and myths. The Scots believe in Nessie, Norwegians blame their trolls for everything mysterious, sailors fear the Klabautermann, Middle Earthlings from Sauron and Rhine boatmen from the Loreley. The inhabitants of the Giant Mountains love their legendary mountain spirit Yeti – sorry, Rubezahl – who sometimes appears as a capricious forest rascal, rampaging giant or as a friend of the poor and disenfranchised, so to speak as Robin Hood of the mountains. As is so often the case with legends, it is difficult to trace the historical traces of Rubezahl. It is only clear that he was first mentioned in writing in 1553 and is said to still live in the dark forests of the Giant Mountains today.
Buy complete article
Motorbike tour in the Giant Mountains
Rubezahl’s empire
6 pages) as PDF
€ 2.00
Buy now
He has to, because otherwise the numerous souvenir shops in the tourist resorts on both sides of the border would no longer have a livelihood, as Rubezahl figures, costumes and other devotional objects are the absolute bestsellers. Tourism and forestry have been the main sources of income in the Giant Mountains for generations, with most visitors coming in snowy winters. At the beginning of June there is hardly anything going on here, in the huge empty parking lots of Spindlerúv Mlýn, Karpasc or Pec pod Sniezka you could organize driver safety training.
The road goes against the mountains
Coming from Trutnov, I swing the Tenere northwards into the mountains early in the morning. The high, bare knolls around the Schneekoppe are hidden in dark clouds. At 1602 meters, Schneekoppe has been the highest mountain in the Czech Republic for 20 years. Until 1991, when Czechoslovakia split into two sovereign states, this honor went to the 1000 meter higher Gerlachspitze in the High Tatras. But it is now in Slovakia. No matter, the good road messes with the mountains, curves higher and higher through the dark spruce forest. It gets colder and wetter the closer I get to the border. Individual rustic wooden houses, traditionally in red or black with vertical white stripes, crouch on the mountain meadows under the threatening clouds. Beyond the 1000 meter mark, I roll through the old winter sports resort of Mala Upa, switch over to Poland and wedge down into the valley to Karpasz. The gas station at the entrance to the village comes as if called, after 630 kilometers the XT tank is slowly running out of juice.
Karpasz, which was called Karpasz in Silesian times, has dedicated itself fully to tourism. Guesthouses, hotels, ski lifts, wellness bathing temples, Wild West town and Poland’s longest toboggan run all attract visitors. The most bizarre sight, however, is the 800-year-old Norwegian stave church Vang. In 1840 the residents of Vang wanted a larger church and sold their old one for 427 marks to the Prussian king, who had it dismantled and transported from Norway to Krummhubel.
Just go for a walk
For the motorcyclist, however, Karpasc has little to offer, apart from an endless through town. So I’m heading north, as the map behind Jelenia Gora promises a lot of winding back roads. In Jelenia Gora, the former Hirschberg, the structural change of the last centuries can be experienced very well. The outskirts are dominated by Lidl, Obi, Penny and western car dealerships, followed by a zone of socialist architecture, prefabricated buildings in all stages of their condition from colorful renovations to terrifyingly scrapped, which are being replaced by old townhouses, which are mostly urgently waiting for fresh paint, and finally the historic one Center, ancient town houses, picturesque alleys, baroque vaulted walkways, lively and surprisingly beautiful.
The card didn’t promise too much. As soon as I showed Jelenia Gora the rear light, I dive into the Polish province. Small villages with stylish wooden houses, lumpy, traffic-free avenues, circling storks, it smells of fire and fresh hay. Poppies and blooming rapeseed, blue sky and clouds over the Giant Mountains. Perfect conditions for just taking a walk. I ignore the map, let myself drift and be drawn to paths that have never seen asphalt. Procedure is hardly possible, the mountains in the south are always present.
Reserved for hikers and mountain bikers
The next day I use the same tactics on the Czech side. To the north of Vrchlabi, tiny roads wind their way through the mountains, passing places worth seeing such as Rokytnice, Benecko and Vitkovice with their typical cozy wooden houses, blooming mountain meadows, countless racing cyclists, nice inns and wide views of the rounded peaks of the Giant Mountains. However, it will be difficult to get up close and personal with these mountains. The Giant Mountains National Park, in Czech Krkonoše, is reserved for hikers and mountain bikers. The Yamaha has to stay outside. But it could change in the future.
Only in Spindleruv Mlyn do I find an entrance, a small toll road that winds up to the Spindlerbaude directly on the border. The gatekeeper gives me a permit, and the Tenere is thundering uphill along the young Elbe through the spruce forest. Up at 1200 meters there are rough conditions, the cold and strong wind is driving wisps of cloud over the plateau, trees have long since stopped growing here. On the neighboring Schneekoppe the annual average temperature is 0.2 degrees, the climate is called subpolar. Almost like on the Scandinavian fells.
The young Elbe, wild and completely unregulated
You can only go higher up on foot. Not a bad idea, I’ve always wanted to see the source of the Elbe. So I rush back down to the Elbgrund, swap my motorcycle boots for hiking boots and follow the forest path. Here the young Elbe, the Czechs call it Labe, is still allowed to bubble wildly and completely unregulated. The dense spruce forest blocks the light. Only further up does it get lighter, but my mood, in view of the astonishingly high number of dead trees, is cloudy. Tree dying, last act. Dead trunks creak in the wind, testify to the immense air pollution (mainly caused by coal-fired power stations), which unfortunately massively destroyed the forest in the Giant Mountains in the 1960s to 1990s. Past the Elbe Falls, I climb the last few meters to the source, a simple concrete ring from which a sparse trickle seeps. But what did I expect? Don’t all big rivers start out very small? Fog pulls in on the descent, in the mystical atmosphere the dead trees transform into ghostly figures. A forest full of mythical creatures, trolls, fairies, junkie men and – of course – Rubezahl.
Info and map
archive
Giant Mountains; Location: Poland, Czech Republic; Area: 631 km²; Highest peak: Schneekoppe (1603 m).
The Giant Mountains on both sides of the Polish-Czech border are clearly small with a length of 40 kilometers. Nevertheless, Rubezahl’s Reich has so much to offer that even after a week you won’t get bored.
Travel time: 3 days – Route driven: 600 kilometers.
getting there: For Saxony, the Giant Mountains, which once separated Bohemia from Silesia, belong to the category day tour, as Zittau is only a mere 60 kilometers away. The fastest route from the Hamburg area leads via Berlin and Dresden. Coming from West Germany, you can quickly take the A44, A7 and the new A38, past Leipzig to Dresden and on to the Czech Republic. South Germans can best travel to the Giant Mountains via Nuremberg, Pilzen and Prague.
Worth seeing: When the weather is clear, it is worth taking a cable car ride up to the Schneekoppe, at 1603 meters the highest mountain in the Giant Mountains. The hike along the young Elbe to the source at 1,387 meters above sea level enables intensive insights into the nature of the national park, which are impossible from a motorcycle saddle. Many Czech cities have beautiful historical marketplaces in the center. Friends of rustic old wooden houses will find what they are looking for on both sides of the border. The Norwegian stave church Vang in Karpascz is also worth a visit.
accommodation: Tourism has a long tradition in the Giant Mountains, especially in winter. The infrastructure is accordingly good. From a simple campsite for five euros to a five-star luxury hotel, everything is available, with the largest range in the medium-price segment of guest houses. The price level is noticeably below that in Germany.
literature & cards: Marco Polo has the “Riesengebirge” travel guide for 9.95 euros. The guide of the same name from Trebner-Verlag for 13.95 euros is more detailed. A good map comes from Marco Polo: Sheet 2 of the general map of the Czech Republic on a scale of 1: 200,000. If you want to find even the smallest of trails and want to hike, the “Riesengebirge” compass map in 1: 50000 is ideal.
Info:
www.e-riesengebirge.de
www.tschechische-gebirge.de/riesengebirge
www.riesengebirge.pl
www.riesengebirge24.de
www.krkonossko.cz/de
Related articles
-
Iron ham to travel Giant Mountains Giant Mountains Little giant The Giant Mountains, located on the Polish-Czech border, are only 40 kilometers long and…
-
Motorbike Tour – Madeira (Portugal)
Deleker 14th pictures Deleker 1/14 The old north coast road is a spectacle for all the senses, you’ll never forget that. Deleker 2/14 Sunset on the Pico…
-
MOTORCYCLE tour tip – Ore Mountains
Tour tips Exclusive motorcycle tours for children to follow Presented by Gerhard Eisenschink to travel MOTORCYCLE tour tip – Ore Mountains MOTORCYCLE…
-
Motorbike tour through Carinthia
Daams 14th pictures Daams 1/14 Every meter of the alpine road is painstakingly punched into the field. Daams 2/14 Carinthia: Wonderful curves near clear…
-
Klaus H. Daams 13th pictures Klaus H. Daams 1/13 Under the bright Saturday morning sun in the azure sky, walls of snow up to eleven meters high tower up…
-
Motorbike tour tip Nauders – Dreilandereck
Gerhard Eisenschink 21 pictures Gerhard Eisenschink 1/21 The most famous postcard motif in the region. Gerhard Eisenschink 2/21 The Reschensee was…
-
Motorbike tour Extremadura Spain
Klaus H. Daams 29 pictures Klaus H. Daams 1/29 This sparsely populated Spanish region on the border with Portugal is in a class of its own with wild…
-
Motorcycle tour – border between Sweden and Norway
Deleker 22nd pictures Jo Deleker 1/22 On all fells – on the move in Sweden. Jo Deleker 2/22 Swedish moments: curious moose. Jo Deleker 3/22 Swedish…
-
Motorbike tour on Lake Constance – horsepower on the go with readers
Jahn to travel Motorbike tour on Lake Constance – horsepower on the move with readers House route PS – the corner paradise on the lake Out and about with…
-
to travel Elbe Sandstone Mountains Elbe Sandstone Mountains Perfectly shaped In the east of Germany the Elbe has formed a unique landscape ?? Table…