Zdarske Vrchy

The Zdarske vrchy are the highest part of the Bohemian-Moravian highlands, a plateau of rounded hills to just over eight hundred metres with spruce and beech forest, meadows, hundreds of small fishponds and peat hollows, and granite tors standing out on the ridges - Devet skal, Nine Rocks, is the best known, a cluster of blocks on the highest point with a viewing platform. The watershed between the Elbe and the Danube basins runs across it. It is a protected landscape area of about seven hundred square kilometres, and its character is agricultural as much as wild: stone walls, avenues, small villages, and a landscape that appears constantly in Czech painting and photography. Nove Mesto na Morave is a centre of cross-country skiing with a biathlon stadium that hosts World Cup rounds, and the winter trail network here is among the best in the country.

What you actually see

• Granite tors on the ridges - Devet skal and others standing out of the forest.
• Hundreds of small ponds - filling the hollows across the plateau.
• A continental watershed - the Elbe and Danube basins divided across it.
• A biathlon stadium - Nove Mesto, hosting World Cup rounds in winter.

When to go

May to October, or the ski season. Two days.

Honest expectations

The landscape is gentle and its appeal is cumulative rather than dramatic. Weather is cool and wet by Czech standards. Ski events fill accommodation. Public transport between villages is limited.

Nearby

Zdar nad Sazavou and the Zelena Hora pilgrimage church are on the edge.