A short walk to the the ancient ruin on Břístevská hůra, near Přerov nad Labem: 3 km

• At first glance it looks like the ruined bailey of a medieval fortress, cracked open by some cataclysmic event. The striking ancient ruin that is perched on Břístevská hůra, a steep sided hill close to the D11 highway that runs eastwards from Prague towards Hradec Králové, attracts quite a few curious visitors.
• Those that make the short (but occasionally slippery) ascent starting in the nearby village of Starý Vestec are rewarded with a fine view of the Labe lowlands and the discovery that the ruin is the remnants of a Baroque chapel, originally constructed in 1714. The chapel was struck by lightning on at least three occasions over the next two centuries and was finally abandoned in 1878.
• Břístevská hůra is one of three so called ‘witness hills’ in the area around the village of Přerov nad Labem. These prominent hills are relics of the time when the low lying Bohemian basin was flooded with a tropical sea during the Cretaceous period, some 90 million years ago. The hills are formed from sand and silt deposited on the bottom of the shallow sea and compressed into hardened sandstone and marlstone layers. The surrounding layers were eroded away over leaving these hills isolated in the otherwise flat floodplain of the Labe river.
• The other two ‘sister’ hills (Semická hůra and Přerovská hůra) were clearly settled in prehistoric times (with the latter having been strongly fortified in the Celtic period). So far, there is little evidence for prehistoric settlement on Břístevská hůra, but it is not improbable that the Celts had a watch tower or other monument on the summit of this hill. Indeed, it is not uncommon to find chapels built on the sites of much older (non Christian) monuments.
• Whether or not its history pre dates the 18th century, the hill top is still an evocative spot. It is reached by a short (not particularly scenic) walk along the road through the village of Starý Vestec (where there are bus connections and a few parking places) and then across a field. The walk to the ruin and back to the village center is just less than 3 km, with some 50m of height to ascend-descend. The top section of the

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Directions

• Starting at Starý Vestec bus stop, walk along the main street for 500m. The path, now marked with YELLOW hiking trail markers, turns right heading across the fields towards the hill
• The route to the summit is marked from the edge of the field
• Return back the same route