Walking Trails in Czech Republic
The foundations of walking in the Czech Republic were laid down by the Czech Tourist Club over 100 years ago. An extensive network of hiking trails was created and marked out by hundreds of club members.
This excellent net – 40 000 km – of well-marked and well-connected, Czech hiking trails is the legacy of their work. Today the hiking trails are still maintained by Czech Tourist Club members on a voluntary basis. The marking system is very easy to follow and you can find painted signs on posts, rocks and trees along the way. Sign posts at main hiking route junctions detail also kilometers to the nearest towns.
Czech Hiking Symbols
In addition to walking in the beautiful historical cities, there are a great number of hiking paths and scenery-rich trails going through the Czech Republic’s forests and natural areas. The Czech Tourist Club (Klub českých turistů) has mapped and marked these trails so that walkers can easily locate and navigate thousands of kilometres of scenic paths.
In fact it is probably the best maintained system of marking in Europe. You can buy in Czech Republic maps of the paths in most bookstores, tobacco shops or museums (green maps, marked with the organization’s symbol and the words EDICE TURISTICKÝCH MAP KČT 1 : 50 000 at the top).
These maps are based on military maps and are very precise. It is also possible to go by bus or train to a small village at the edge of a forest and find the on-site map of the surrounding area, and four possible paths would be visible, marked in red, yellow, green and blue in nice tourist maps. Nearby such a map will be a set of directing signs, usually posted to a tree, pointing the initial direction on any of the coloured paths. The path’s colour will be marked on trees throughout the path: three short horizontal bars, the outer two white and the innermost the colour of the path you are on. This symbol will at times appear as an arrow, indicating a turn. Bus and train stops will also be indicated on signs. You can also register to become a member of the Czech Tourist Club, which will enable you to camp for around 30-50 Kč per night in cottages all around the Czech Republic.
