Sumava is the largest national park in the Czech Republic and one of the largest forested areas in Central Europe. It covers 685 square kilometres along the Bavarian border in southwestern Bohemia, and it connects with the Bavarian Forest National Park across the border to form a transboundary protected area of nearly 1,500 square kilometres. The combined area is sometimes called the Green Roof of Europe.
I came to Sumava expecting a conventional forest park and found something more complex. The landscape here carries the weight of history in an unusual way — this was the Iron Curtain border zone for forty years, which meant the forests were left almost entirely undisturbed while the rest of Central Europe was being logged and developed. The result is a patchwork of ancient stands, recovering forest, and some genuinely wild terrain that feels different from anything else in the country.
The Landscape: What You Will Actually See
Sumava is not a dramatic landscape in the way that Bohemian Switzerland is. There are no rock arches or deep gorges. The terrain is gentler — rolling hills covered in spruce and beech forest, open peat bogs on the plateau, and a series of glacial lakes that were formed during the last ice age. The highest point, Plesna, reaches 1,378 metres.
The glacial lakes are the most distinctive features. Certovo jezero (Devil's Lake) and Certovo jezero (Black Lake) are the two most accessible, and both are genuinely beautiful — dark, cold, and surrounded by old forest. Certovo jezero is the deepest lake in the Czech Republic at 40 metres. The trail connecting the two lakes is one of the most popular in the park and can be done as a half-day loop from Zelezna Ruda.
The Peat Bogs: A Specialist Ecosystem
The peat bogs of Sumava are among the most ecologically significant habitats in the park. They formed over thousands of years as sphagnum moss accumulated in waterlogged depressions on the plateau. The moss grows slowly — a few millimetres per year — and the bogs now contain peat deposits several metres deep that store enormous amounts of carbon and water.
Walking through a peat bog is a strange experience. The ground is soft and springy underfoot, the vegetation is low and open, and the silence is different from forest silence — more complete, somehow. The specialist plants are fascinating if you know what to look for: sundew (which catches insects), cotton grass, and various sedges that grow nowhere else in the region.
Several bogs have boardwalk trails that allow access without damaging the vegetation. The Chalupská slat near Borova Lada is one of the best, with a 2-kilometre loop that takes about an hour and passes through several different bog habitats. It is accessible to most visitors and gives a genuine sense of the ecosystem.
Ecotourism Principles in Sumava
Stay on marked trails — the bog vegetation is extremely fragile and takes decades to recover from trampling
No fires outside designated areas
Dogs on leads in the national park zone
Some core zones are closed to all visitors — check current restrictions at park information centres
The park has a network of information centres at Kašperské Hory, Srní, and Kvilda
The Controversy: Natural Processes vs. Management
Sumava has been at the centre of a long-running debate in Czech conservation about how national parks should be managed. The park administration has pursued a policy of allowing natural processes — including bark beetle outbreaks — to run their course in core zones, rather than intervening with logging. This has resulted in large areas of dead standing timber that are now being colonised by new forest growth.
The debate is genuinely complex. Some ecologists argue that the dead wood habitat is ecologically valuable and that the new forest growing up through it is more diverse than the monoculture spruce stands it replaced. Others argue that the bark beetle spread was exacerbated by poor management decisions and that the dead forest is an eyesore that deters visitors.
As a visitor, you will see both perspectives on the ground. Some areas of the park look like a conventional managed forest; others have extensive stands of dead trees with young birch and rowan growing through them. The latter is actually more interesting ecologically, even if it looks less conventionally beautiful.
Long-Distance Routes
The Sumava trail network is extensive — over 1,000 kilometres of marked paths. The most significant long-distance route is the Sumavska magistrala, a 200-kilometre trail that runs the length of the park from Zelezna Ruda in the west to Lipno nad Vltavou in the east. It can be walked in sections over multiple visits or as a continuous route taking about 10 to 12 days.
The section through the Vltava headwaters area is particularly good — the river is narrow and fast here, nothing like the broad waterway it becomes downstream, and the valley has a remote feel despite being accessible by road.
Cycling in Sumava
Sumava is one of the best cycling destinations in the Czech Republic. The terrain is gentler than Krkonose, and there is an extensive network of dedicated cycle paths that follow old railway lines and forest roads. The Greenways route from Zelezna Ruda to Cesky Krumlov is particularly good — it covers about 100 kilometres through varied terrain and passes through several attractive towns.
Bike rental is available in Zelezna Ruda, Kasperske Hory, and Cesky Krumlov. The park information centres can provide route maps and advice on current trail conditions.
Getting There
The main access points are Zelezna Ruda in the west (accessible by train from Plzen, which connects to Prague) and Cesky Krumlov in the east (accessible by bus from Ceske Budejovice). The park is about 200 kilometres from Prague by road — roughly two and a half hours.
Within the park, public transport is limited outside the main towns. Having a car gives you much more flexibility, though cycling between villages is a realistic alternative in summer. The park website at npsumava.cz has current information in English, including details of restricted zones and seasonal closures.
Where to Stay
Accommodation options range from basic forest huts (chaty) to comfortable guesthouses in the park villages. Kasperske Hory, Srni, and Modrava are good bases for different parts of the park. Modrava in particular has a remote feel despite being accessible by road — it sits at 1,000 metres on the plateau and is surrounded by some of the most intact forest in the park.
Booking ahead is essential in July and August. The park is popular with Czech families and cyclists, and accommodation fills quickly in peak season. Shoulder season — May, June, and September — offers much better availability and, in my experience, better weather for walking.
