Hruba Skala

Hruba Skala is the largest rock city of the Bohemian Paradise: several hundred sandstone towers standing up to about sixty metres, separated by deep narrow clefts, formed where a Cretaceous sandstone plateau was cut along its joints and the blocks between weathered into free-standing pillars. It is one of the founding areas of European sandstone climbing, with routes going back to the early twentieth century and a strict local ethic that limits fixed protection and forbids metal chocks, since the rock is soft and damages easily. Marked trails run through the clefts and along the rims, with viewpoints - Marianska vyhlidka above all - looking across the tops of the towers. The chateau sits directly on the cliff edge, a Renaissance and neo-Gothic house on a medieval castle site, now a hotel. Below the rocks lie Sedmihorky spa and the Valdstejn castle ruin.

History

The castle stands on a rock platform on a steep sandstone cliff and was first called simply Skála, the rock; "Hrubá", rough, distinguished it from nearby Malá Skála. It is first mentioned in 1353, seven years before the village, as a possession of Hynek of Waldstein, whose descendants held it until 1416; it then passed to the Lords of Jenštejn and in 1460 to Zajíc of Hazmburk. The Lords of Smiřice, owners from 1515, rebuilt it as a Renaissance castle at the centre of one of the largest estates in Bohemia, with more than 50 villages. After the battle of the White Mountain in 1620 Ferdinand II seized it; the Waldsteins held it again from 1630, and it was devastated by Saxon and imperial troops in the Thirty Years' War. It was rebuilt in 1710 and 1804, sold in 1821 by Franz de Paula Adam von Waldstein to Johann Anton Lexa von Aehrenthal, and rebuilt once more in 1859, in neo-Gothic style (Wikipedia, Hrubá Skála).

Highlights

• Several hundred towers - sandstone pillars up to sixty metres in a rock city.
• Deep narrow clefts - the trails running between the blocks.
• A chateau on the cliff edge - Renaissance and neo-Gothic over a medieval site.
• Climbing tradition - routes from the early 1900s under a strict local ethic.

When to go

April to October. A day.

Before you go

Paths between the rocks are narrow, stepped and slippery when wet. Some viewpoints charge. The chateau is a working hotel. Summer weekends and the Turnov area are busy.

Nearby

Valdstejn castle and Sedmihorky spa are below; Drabske svetnicky is west.