"Recently, I have fallen in love with the Louny hills with the sacred mountain Oblík – at least that's what I think Oblík used to be called..."

Emil Filla (August 1951)

If last year we set out on a May journey across the Bohemian Central Mountains from Teplice in the footsteps of the German romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich, this year we will set off to the Bohemian Central Mountains from another important cultural center of this remarkable landscape, the town of Louny, which lies in its southeastern part. This time we will follow in the footsteps of two leading Czech painters of the 20th century – Emil Filla (1882-1953) and Zdeněk Sýkora (1920-2011). Louny, uniquely situated in the meander of the Ohře River on the southern edge of the České středohoří Protected Landscape Area, rises with the rugged silhouette of its late Gothic church of St. Nicholas to the peaks of volcanic hills – dominated by Oblík – that line their panorama on the northern horizon. In the past two centuries, a number of leading Czech writers and poets (J. Vrchlický, K. Biebl, K. Konrád, E. Juliš), architects (K. Hilbert, J. Mocker), but above all great painters were born or worked in Louny. We will recall three famous creators, classified in the context of the so-called Louny landscape school: Zdeněk Sýkora, Vladislav Mirvald and Kamil Linhart. Their works are in the collection of the Benedikt Rejt Gallery in Louny, which we will visit. While wandering along the Ohře, we will remember the pioneer of geometric abstraction, the painter Zdeněk Sýkora, who depicted this still preserved original river landscape in dozens of his paintings in the 1950s to 1970s, especially around Počedělice; and during our further journey to Slavětín, Peruc and Libochovice, we will get to know the final stage of the work of the cubist painter Emil Filla (1940s and 1950s), which was characterized by the artist's personal philosophical contemplation of the landscape of the Bohemian Central Mountains - from Oblík through Házmburk to Lovoš - which he perceived as the landscape of his soul.

Saturday 6. 5.: Prague – Louny, Ohře Valley, Počedělice, Kystra, Slavětín, Peruc (20 km)

We will meet in Prague at the main train station, from where we will depart by train at 6:45 to Louny, arriving at 8:56. From the Louny train station, we will head to Mírové náměstí and first visit the beautiful hall church of St. Nicholas by architect Benedikt Rejt (1517-1538), one of the masterpieces of Czech late Gothic with a geometric lattice vault. Then we will see the unique modern architecture of the Benedikt Rejt Gallery, which was created by rebuilding the original brewery building according to the design of architect Emil Přikryl; this work is today considered the best Czech modern architecture of the 1990s. We will talk a little about the history of the gallery and its collection and look at the current exhibition "Beauty". Then we will set off across Louny in the footsteps of one of the most important Czech painters of the 20th century, Zdeněk Sýkora, who placed his pioneering work in the broader context of world art. We will first visit the so-called Piazzetta, a black and white mosaic based on Sýkor's early composition from 1962 in front of the Vrchlický Theatre in Louny in 2019. Then we will go down to the bank of the Ohře River to Pod šancemi Street and walk along its course and across its meanders to Vrsovice below Velký vrch; from here we will head along its left bank to Počedělic.

"For me, painting in nature is a fulfilled need for free space. It is a form of painterly contemplation and a source of strength." "I stand on an open plain, all directions are free, light and wind come from all sides." "My first strong impressions from childhood include the sight of clouds moving by. And I was also fascinated by the horizon - as a place where the landscape ends and beyond which something continues. I have a desire for distance encoded in me, and when I am closed somewhere, I suffer."

Zdenek Sykora

In the 1950s and 1960s, Zdeněk Sýkora traveled along the meanders of the Ohře River on his bicycle in pursuit of his early landscape motifs, and the place he loved the most at the time and where he felt the happiest and most relaxed was Počedělice. He painted many pictures here and also brought his friends here; he organized painting plein airs here and regularly returned here in later years. “He loved open space, the river, clouds, silence and peace, and he always found all this in Počedělice…” (Lenka Sýkorová)

From Počedělice we will continue along the red trail to Slavětín, the birthplace of the poet Konstantin Biebl; on the way we will visit the famous Baba menhir and the Chapel of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary. From Slavětín we will set off along the Konstantin Biebl Nature Trail through the Bytín Forest to the now-defunct Déberský dvůr and from there continue along the red trail to Peruc, at Emil Filla Square and Peruc Chateau. We will spend the night under the Oldřich Oak.

"Distance - what is distance other than the poetry of being, desire without will, dreaming without a dream, thinking without a thought, moving away without distance, enduring in the flow... Distance attracts and attracts, brings together, the most distant distance is the coexistence of the moment with eternity. Distance is liberation from the panic of fleeing things, from the feeling of panic of running towards the goal of extinction. Distance is the promise of the constancy of youth, strength, the reversibility of time. Distance is the bliss of merging infinity with the present..."

Emil Filla

Emil Filla discovered the landscape of the Bohemian Central Mountains around Louny in 1930 thanks to his friend from Louny, the doctor and collector of modern art, MUDr. Vlastimil Juren. This region literally captivated him. However, he only managed to depict it in painting when he returned from the Buchenwald concentration camp after 1945. It was there that the image of the Bohemian Central Mountains began to come to life in Filla's dreams as the embodiment of the beauty of his home and as a landscape that bears witness in every river, cloud, shape and color "about one's inner nature - about freedom"After his return, he wrote about her: "It is the landscape of my soul, of my heart, and when I paint it, it is not without humility and a certain fervor."" And he added his vision: "It is a region where all our young people should go to become poets, artists and philosophers. Hopefully the future will understand that this region will become the cradle of our future culture".

Vlastimil Juren also discovered Peruc Chateau for Emil Filla, and the Czech state lent the painter its southern wing to use as a summer studio. Filla installed his collection of old Chinese and Japanese ink paintings here and wrote a monograph there in 1947-49. Jan van Goyen – Reflections on Landscape Painting. In 1949-1952, he created a cycle of paintings in Peruc based on the motifs of bandit Moravian and Slovak folk songs and an extensive cycle of ink paintings dedicated to the landscape of the Bohemian Central Mountains, whose forms he captured from Oblík to Lovoš, from Peruc to Hradišťany; this is the largest artistic tribute to this landscape in Czech art to date. In 1958, the Emil Filla Memorial Hall was opened in the southern wing of the Peruc castle, which, together with Filla's legacy, was entrusted to the B. Rejt Gallery in Louny; the painter's work was exhibited there until 2011. After the theft of the paintings, the Emil Filla Memorial Hall was temporarily closed and since 2020 there has been a legal dispute over its premises between the B. Rejt Gallery in Louny and the new owner of the castle.

Sunday 7.5.: Peruc, Stradonice hillfort, Poplze, Libochovice, Házmburk (22 km)

In the morning we will walk through Peruc - the castle park, visit Boženina studánka and Oldřich's oak (we will remember why the Přemyslids did not perish by the sword). Then we will set off along the Perucko nature trail to the Beautiful Viewpoint, which was often visited by the poet Svatopluk Čech; it is located near the V Hluboké natural monument, where rare thermophilic plants are protected (e.g. the thermophilic pěchava). From there we will continue to the area of the former large Celtic hillfort Stradonice (550 - 450 BC) with a lookout tower that functioned until the early La Tène period. From Stradonice we will go through the Dolní Poohří Nature Park above the Ohře River to Poplz, on the eastern edge of which there was a prehistoric hillfort, settled already in the Neolithic, the most intensive phase of which fell on the Late Bronze Age (Unětic and Knovíz cultures).

"Nature will save you. Read that Bible!"

Svatopluk Cech

From Poplza we cross the Ohře River into Libochovic, on the edge of which, right at the bend of the river, there is a beautiful, generously designed Baroque chateau with a large chateau park. Originally a Renaissance chateau, it was rebuilt in the Baroque style in 1683-1690 by a famous Italian architect Antonio della Porta, who also designed its garden parterre modeled after the Palace of Versailles. After 1814, the garden was further transformed into the so-called English style and subsequently further modifications were made by the architect J. Blecha (construction of greenhouses for tropical and New Zealand plants). The castle has a memorial hall of the famous Czech naturalist and physiologist Jan Evangelista Purkyně (1787-1869), who was born here; his monument is located in front of the castle building. We will explore the castle park and then head to the castle ruins Hazmburk, which rises on a basalt hill above Libochovice.

We will set off on the Golden Trail of the Land of Castles to this unique dominant feature of the Lower Poohří landscape. Even though it is Hazmburk, originally called Flap, only 418 meters high, stands out in the panorama of the Bohemian Central Highlands as one of its most striking and far-reaching dominants. This is due to two massive stone towers – the prismatic 26-meter-high White Tower and the oval 25-meter-high Black Tower – which rise on the top of the basalt mountain as a landscape sculptural composition. The foundations of this castle were laid around the middle of the 13th century by the Lichtenburg family (White Tower) and in the 14th century it was expanded with the Black Tower, other buildings, walls and gates by its new owner Zbyněk Zajíc (German "Hase" from Valdek), who named it Zaječí hrad, Hanžburek, later Házmburk. The castle seemed to have had primarily military significance, it was considered an impregnable fortress that even the Hussites failed to conquer. In the 16th century, it gradually fell into oblivion and was only discovered in the 19th century by the romantic poets Karel Hynek Mácha, Svatopluk Čech and others.

However, the castle hill was already inhabited in prehistoric times: archaeological findings prove its Neolithic settlement, tools from the Late Bronze Age, Hallstatt pottery and finds from the La Tène culture were found on the slopes of the mountain; in the 8th century it was settled by the Slavs, who built an early medieval hillfort here. In 2011, the slopes of Házmburk were declared a natural monument Házmburk Hill, which primarily protects the endemic subspecies rock locust and comfrey and other species. We will explore the castle and spend the night at its foot.

Monday 8.5.: Házmburk, Třebenice, Košťál, Boreč, Lovoš, Lovosice (23 km)

In the morning we will set off from Házmburk via Sedlec to Třebenice. This town is home to the Museum of the Czech Garnet, which displays the largest Czech garnet and a collection of jewelry from the local noblewoman Ulrika von Levetzow, the last love of the German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe. From Třebenice we will head to Košťál Hill (481 m), on the top of which there are ruins of the medieval castle of the donjon type Košťálov from the 14th century. Unlike the surrounding rather rounded hills, Košťál has a distinctive and far-visible peak with steep rocky escarpments, which was admired by many artists - from KH Mácha and FA Hebera to Emil Filla and Konstantin Biebl. It is home to rare thermophilic flora.

"I look forward to seeing our region again in the summer, to getting to Třebenice again and from there to those mysterious and magical hills, and to discovering new beauties again. Greetings from us to Košťálov..."

Emil Filla, from the last letter to his friend Ladislav E. Drahoš (February 9, 1953)

From Košťál we descend along the red trail into the valley below. Over a bare hill (458 m) and below Sutomský Hill (505 m) we will continue until the village Borec with the castle of the same name. From here we will head along the green to the hidden preserve of a seemingly ordinary mountain Borec (449 m), which, with its low relief, loses a bit in the context of the surrounding high-altitude hills, such as Sutomský vrch. It is nevertheless an exceptional mountain, a mountain that is, one might say, alive. Boreč, from whose mysterious vents steam rises and on which rare local liverworts and bright green mosses grow even in winter, is a distant reminder of the Tertiary volcanic past of this landscape. As Professor Jan Krejčí found out, this bell-shaped hill is essentially a hollow mountain, penetrated by a large number of cracks, which functions as a large heat accumulator: in winter, it sucks in cold air in its lower part, which warms up through the cracks inside the mountain on its way up and is blown out at a temperature of 9-10 degrees Celsius at the top. The places of these exhausts are called ventarolesThe steaming, humid Boreč is home not only to rare liverworts, but also to ground beetles, cold-loving spiders and many species of mollusks.

"During the freezing winter days, Boreč smokes non-stop. It smokes day and night... The breath of the mountain is so warm that wherever it breathes, it conjures up spring in the bitter cold."

Dr. Rudolf Schwarz

From Borč we will head to Režného Újezdu and from there follow the yellow sign under the D8 highway to the top Lovoše (570 m). This beautiful hill, which rises above the meanders of the Elbe and whose name is, according to legend, derived from the name of the Old Slavic tribe of Lovoš, who lived in this region, is, like Mount Bezděz, a double mountain. It consists of its own peak, Lovoš, and the neighboring peak Fans (486 m), on which are located Virgin stones, three tower-like rock formations that we will visit on the way to the top; we will also come across a protected memorable tree rowan boxwoodBoth peaks are composed of different rocks: Lovoš from olivine nephelinite and Kibička from sodalite trachyte. This diverse geological subsoil determines a great degree of diversity of vegetation in the area of both peaks, on which a national park was declared in 1948. Lovoš National Nature Reserve. The most represented communities are deciduous forests, which occupy 80% of its territory: mainly rubble forests and Hercynian oak-hornbeam forests; and also crevice vegetation of rocks and screes (for example, stinking sedge). The black stork, the wood tit, and the hazel grouse also nest here. From the cottage on the top of Lovoše there is a magnificent view of the surrounding landscape in all directions.

From the top of Lovoš we will descend along the green tourist trail to Lovosice, from where we will return by train to Prague and home.

Connections

Train Prague → Louny on Saturday, May 6th

• Prague: main railway station: departure 6:45 – Lovosice: arrival 7:58 departure from Lovosice 8:02 – Louny: arrival 8:56
• Prague, Masaryk Station: departure 8:12 – Kralupy nad Vltavou: arrival 8:45 departure from Kralupy nad Vltavou 8:54 – Louny: arrival 10:17

Train Lovosice → Prague on Monday, May 8

• Lovosice: departure 14:30 – Prague, Masaryk Station: arrival 16:16 Lovosice: departure 15:59 –Prague, main train station: income 17:12
• Lovosice: departure 16:30 – Prague, Masaryk Station: income 18:16 Lovosice: departure 17:12 – Prague, Main Railway Station: income 19:12

Contacts

• Jiří Zemanek, email: sarvanga@centrum.cz, mobile: 777 117 466
• Tomas Hruza, email: tomashruza@gmail.com, mobile: 775 052 607
• Barbora Kinkalova, email: b.kinkalova@seznam.cz, 776 123 969

"I believe that a lot of good would come from a change in attitude if tourists became pilgrims again."

Rupert Sheldrake