A walk in the historic gold mining landscape around Nový Knín – 10 km

• The small town Nový Knín, situated between Dobříš and the Slapy reservoir, is one of only four royal gold mining towns established in the Middle Ages. It is an ancient town, first known in history as the location where the Knínský Peace Treaty was signed in 1186, which bound the territory of Moravia to the Bohemian crown lands.
• The river Kocába runs through the town the town and it was presumably through panning for precious stones in the river that the presence of gold in the low hills around the river was discovered – possibly by the Celts towards the end of the first millennium BC.
• An interesting educational trail starts from the attractive main square in Nový Knín and circles around the pleasant farming and mixed forest landscape where the mining took place. There are 11 information boards (in Czech and English) highlighting the successes and failures of the mining activities in the area, which took place over at least eight centuries. In the town square, in one of the splendid Baroque houses, the town museum has an exhibition covering the gold mining activities in the area.
• The suggested route starts along the river Kocába, then climbs into the hills (this section is partly on a public road) and then traverses the hills area before returning back down to Nový Knín. All the paths are easy, partly farm tracks and part forest path. The route totals 10.3 km, with 210m of height to climb-descend. There is a small parking area in the main square or if taking public transport, there are regular buses from Smíchov train station in Prague. There are two restaurants for refreshments in the town.

Note: click ‘Show on Mapy.com’  to go to a full screen version of the route directly on the mapy.com site. This can be used for on line navigation, saved or exported as a GPX file.

Directions

• Starting in Nový Knín main square, follow the red-white diagonal marked nature trail, past the church. Thses trail markers are followed throughout the whole route
• After 200m , take the left hand fork which follows the river (the right hand branch is the return route)
• The section along the river runs for 3.8 km, through sheep pastures, to reach the village of Za Kocábu
• The trail then turns sharply right and follows the public road for 1.9 km, turning right just outside the village of Krámy and continuing for a further 800m into the village of Zadnice
• In Zadnice the trail leaves the road and takes a farm track into the hills and forest area. This section lasts for 3.4 km, finally descending back to Nový Knín