One of the more well known castles to visit not far from Prague is Křivoklát, but if you don’t make a lot more time for some hiking or biking you will miss the beautiful Křivoklátsko, a landscape protected area. Because it was the hunting grounds for the kings and princes since the Middle Ages it is very well preserved. And its even more lovely on a warm day in October. The photos below show that mushrooms (poisonous and edible are growing well). The red fruit in one photo is rosehip, ready to be picked for making your rosehip tea.
We started from a small village named Zbečno. The parking for this ride we found on the square next to the post office. Part of the road was closed in front of the square due to some reconstruction which will be probably done in couple of weeks.
After reviewing our plan we made a last minute decision to avoid riding on the main road up the hill. Instead of riding from point 2 to 4 on a windy road with cars we decided to take a yellow marked tourist path straight up. The 350 m from point 2 to 3 were a super steep, narrow and basically a non-rideable uphill fight. Fortunately one perk of our E-bikes is the ‘walk mode’ which helps to walk the bike uphill. You can imagine these bikes are heavy so going straight up a slope helps when it can pull its own weight.
From point 8 to 14 we followed the red marked tourist road which led us through the forest and in some places it was a VERY narrow path along the fence of Lány obora (game reserve). This game park was established by the Wallensteins back in 1713. Today it belongs to the environmentally protected area of the Křivoklát region. The 3,000 hectare game park is fenced in and is not open to the public. It serves in particular to protect pure-bred game (deer, fallow deer, mouflons and sika deer). The idea of arranging hunts for distinguished guests was also one of the reasons why Lány was chosen in 1921 as a country seat for the Head of the Czechoslovak State.
After point 14 the ride was without major challenges, maybe with the exception of path around point 24. You must not pay attention to the sign “Nepovolaným vstup zakázán” (entrance forbidden to those who were not called), because obviously you were called to follow red marked tourist sign.
https://en.mapy.cz/s/luzuberero 38 km 638 m elevation gain
