Do Prčic … it’s a funny phrase you learn when you first explore the Czech language. It essentially works out to mean “Oh crap”, “gosh darn it”, or “F*(k” in English. But it literally means “go to Prčice” a small village in the southeastern part of Central Bohemia. Besides being the namesake of a crazy, fun, torturous hike from Prague that takes place about this time in May every year, the area around Prčice is fun for day-walking and exploring.
I was just there last weekend and got to wear out my legs and take in springtime in the rolling hills of this area. It offers everything from sweet-smelling apple groves, to overabundant fields of rapeseed plants, on to nonplussed herds of cattle (Herefords, Charolais and Simmentals) grazing in newly vernal pastures. I love the area because it offers quiet, beautiful walks through fields and forests that are interspersed with ponds and lakes and sometimes the occasional horse farm.
The area is also beautiful because of the varied sites the villages have to offer: the colorful facades of homes and farms decorated in the village baroque (selské baroko) style or the animals, usually chickens, ducks or geese, who come to greet you as you pass the gates to their yards. Oftentimes tourist paths lead you alongside cool, babbling streams where frogs sing and make their homes or where ducks have recently begun to raise their young.
In the fields near Prčice, Javorová skála and Vojkov/Podolí, you can sometimes catch sight of deer as they make their way to the fields to seek food at dusk. Or, if you walk quietly, in the adjacent forests, you might happen across a random doe or buck, as they return to their herds in the nearby fields. Other times, you come across discoveries that can be less pleasant for certain hikers: like a mother garter snake protecting her nest of babies.
My favorite sites in the Prčice area include the climb up to Javorová skála to see the old post office that someone transplanted from the Czech Republic’s highest peak Sněžka to this random hilltop in Central Bohemia. Of, if you go a little farther, you can climb on top of Čertovo břemeno (which translates as the devil’s burden/load) which is rumored to be a huge boulder that that devil had been carrying to drop atop, and destroy, a newly-built village church before it’s consecration. Luckily, the devil was late in his mission and the church was consecrated before he could destroy it. So, he dropped the boulder in shock (or perhaps disappointment), leaving it perched atop a nearby hill.
Most recently, I took time during a hike to enjoy the teaching trail (naučná stezka in Czech) that is named after Sidonie Nadherná of Borotín, a Bohemian baroness who is famous for hosting literary salons and is known to have corresponded with German poet Rainer Rilke. The trail takes you through a newly-restored horse farm and riding school in another village called Podolí. It’s such a beautiful area, I took the opportunity to each my lunch under a lovely oak grove while I watched the farm’s owners lead their horses to and from the fields and exercise them. There are so many hidden gems in villages of Central Bohemia, so I as close this text, I can definitely advise … go to Prčice (or any of the villages nearby).
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