Schwarzenberg Canal

Vienna in the eighteenth century needed firewood and had run short of it, while the Schwarzenberg estates in the Sumava had enormous stands of spruce that could not be moved because the rivers there flow north into the Vltava and the Elbe. Josef Rosenauer's solution, built between 1789 and 1822, was a contour canal running about fifty kilometres along the mountain flank at a near-constant gradient, crossing the European watershed, so logs cut on the Bohemian side could be floated into the Danube system and down to Vienna. It included a tunnel of over four hundred metres through a ridge. Floating continued into the twentieth century, ending in the 1960s. Long stretches survive with their stone lining, sluices and the tunnel, and are followed by walking and cycling routes through the Sumava forest; demonstration floats are staged in summer at some sections.

What you actually see

• A contour canal across a watershed - fifty kilometres at a near-constant gradient.
• A stone-lined channel - with sluices and structures surviving along much of it.
• A four-hundred-metre tunnel - cut through a ridge to cross the divide.
• Demonstration floats - staged at some sections in summer.

When to go

May to September. A day.

Honest expectations

Only parts hold water, and much of the route is a dry channel in the forest. Demonstration events run on set dates. National park rules restrict access in the core zones. Trails are long between services.

Nearby

Lipno reservoir is east; the Sumava ridges rise west.