Schwarzenberg Logging Canal, Bohemian Forest

Did I mention that Klaffer am Hochficht is a skiing area? Well, as you might know, I’m not exactly a fan of skiing, but as it was summer, I couldn’t really object to checking out the slopes. I was surprised at how much I still know about the sport – I recognised this as a blue slope straight away!

I was amused at the name of the ski hut at this lift: Gasthaus zum Überleben, The Survival Inn. I could have done with that on my last ski outing – which I almost didn’t survive at all!

Luckily the Oldies stuck to the walking, and we went on some more wonderful hikes on both sides of the Czech and Austrian border. I was delighted when I spotted lovely Lake Lipno which brought back great memories of our first trip to the Czech Republic. This time, however, the Dynamic Duo stayed in the forest, following a route from Jelení Vrchy to Plöckenstein Lake. The fascinating part of it was that it ran along a section of the Schwarzenberg logging canal.

This canal is a phenomenal feat of engineering, dating back to the 18^th century. It is around 50 km long, includes a number of sluices and tunnels and it overcomes the continental divide between the Vltava and Danube rivers. It was originally designed to transport firewood through the Bohemian Forest to homes in Vienna and it was still in use up to the early 1960s. Talk about being ahead of your time!  I wonder how many modern forms of transport are as ‘green’ as this – using a renewable resource to transport a renewable fuel.

Apparently the canal was neglected and almost forgotten until after the fall of communism. Since then parts of it have been restored and tourists can nowadays have a crack at floating logs themselves.

The Oldies, however, were more interested in consuming another renewable resource provided by nature. They must have eaten their own weight in wild strawberries as we made our way through the forest. If the mozzies hadn’t started to chew on the Oldies whenever they stopped for too long in the one spot, I think we’d still be there now.

Plöckenstein/Plešné Lake, when we finally got there, was well worth the walk. A glacial lake at an altitude of about 1000m, it is pretty as a picture!

It’s hard to believe that this forest was ever anything other but forest, but as I discovered when the Wingless Wonders went on a walk along another section of the Schwarzenberg canal, this area was once teeming with people. As we had seen many times before in our travels in the Bohemian Forest, the German-speaking population of several villages here were expelled after the war and the villages destroyed.

The church and graveyard at Glöckelberg were restored in the early 1990s, but there is no trace of the villages of Josefsthal which had a thriving glassworks and employed up to 180 glass cutters, or Hüttendorf which, back in 1908, had a population of 536.

This granite canal tunnel at Jelení Vrchy is an almost 400m long! It’s no surprise that a large number of the population (260 in 1945) were stone masons, responsible for the building and upkeep of the canal. But today there is only a handful of houses here, most of which looked like holiday homes to me. A sign of the times!

A couple of days later, it was again a case of water, water everywhere, but the surroundings couldn’t have been more different. The Oldies decided to pop across the border to Germany to visit Passau. What a beautiful town! I knew that it lies on the confluence of three rivers, the Danube, the Inn and the Ilz. The surprise for me was how the waters of the Inn and the Danube remain distinct, even after they meet. It’s amazing how long it takes for the different colours of the rivers to eventually blend into one.

With temperatures in the early 30s, the Oldies were thankfully not overly ambitious with their sightseeing.  Judging by all the puffing and panting though, I was beginning to wonder about the wisdom of the Wingless Wonders’ decision to climb the covered staircase up to the pilgrimage church of Mariahilf on the far shore of the Inn. But those views… definitely worth their efforts. (Yours Truly took the rucksack ride as usual!)

Later, they drove out of town to a Gasthaus which also promised panoramic views. Sure enough, it lived up to expectations. The only challenge was that the Oldies weren’t sure whether we were still in Germany or had already crossed back into Austria. I was highly amused listening to them trying to figure out what to order. ‘If this is Austria, I’ll have an Almdudler*. If it’s Germany ask for a Spezi.**’ ‘If I ask what country we’re in, they’ll take me for a complete eejit!’

Ah, the trials and tribulations of border hopping!

* herbal lemonade, **  cola-orange mix