You probably know everything there is to know about Stonehenge, but I am almost certain that you’ve never heard about the Mysterious stone arrays of Kounov in Czech Republic. According to one of the theories, these arrays could have been used for the same purpose as the structures of Stonehenge. You will be able to explore them at point 4. As you see in the pictures below, the arrays are made of much smaller stones than the structures in England, and they were collected locally, and not transported from far away as menhirs in Britain. Anyway, nobody really knows how and why these arrays were built, so you can come up with your own theory.
These arrays were our primary target and we incorporated them into our ride through beautiful forests around Domoušice. We explored the ruin of the Castle Pravda (The Truth) earlier on foot and you can add this to your trip – just follow the map from our earlier blog.
We started at the tiny parking lot in the middle of Domoušice. Even though it was Sunday and the weather was warm and sunny, we did not meet any tourists or bikers on our ride. So, if you prefer a very quiet ride through nature with minimal use of paved roads, this may be a good choice for you. Don’t try this with a regular bike, a MTB is a must. There are parts where the level of “bumpiness” is very high.
Most of the time we felt a similar vibe to our trips through forests of Šumava or Beskydy. However, there were challenging parts. The original plan of following the yellow tourist mark from point 4 was nixed by the fact that we did not carry a chainsaw with us, as you can see from the picture. The stretch from 8 to 9 is a very narrow downhill path with the edge covered with a deep slippery layer of dry leaves, so, be very careful, or just walk your bike. You will have to climb over several fallen trees anyway. You can avoid this part by turning to the right at point 7 and following the road to rejoin our map at point 10.
The map shows some stone formations after point 10, but these features are not very impressive. Just look at the picture of Polly trying to figure out how to interpret the “pavement” formation. A possible semblance we found with “a little elephant”, but it was a stretch of the imagination. Between 16 and 17 you will end up pushing the bike uphill for a bit. We were really appreciative of the “walk” function of our Apache E-bikes! And the map is actually not showing the path correctly, so just follow the blue tourist mark up to point 17. If you want to avoid this exercise, you can ride from point 16 to 20 on the road through Solopysky village.
https://en.mapy.cz/s/kulemupufe 30 km, 588 m elevation gain. To see this ride in context, check our interactive maps.
