A short walk past the Milovice Nature Reserve, with its herds of prehistoric wild animals: 4 km

• The former military training area near Milovice, located some 50 km northeast of Prague, received its first herd of wild horses in 2015, sourced from the UK’s Exmoor National Park. The idea was to convert the reserve into a steppe landscape resembling the environment before found before the domestication (and then virtual extinction) of the herds of wild animals that roamed central and northern Europe after the last Ice Age.
• Today, the Milovice Nature Reserve has herds of wild aurochs and bison, in addition to the Exmoor horses. The collection is unique in Central Europe. The reserve cannot be accessed by the public, but there is a long perimeter fence with a couple of observation posts. It can occasionally be difficult to spot the animals, but it is an interesting initiative worth supporting.
• There is an asphalt pedestrian path starting close to the Milovice train station which runs along the southern edge of the reserve for 1 km (parallel to the asphalt track there is also a footpath directly next to the reserve fence – which is no more than a normal pasture fence).
• Start and finish the walk at the train station (there are direct connections with Prague main station and a large free parking area). At the station, there is a trendy café-bistro, Milovická Nádražka, which is definitely worth a stop after the short walk (note – it is usually closed on Sundays).
• If travelling in the area and having extra time, consider combining the visit to Milovice with a stop in nearby Lysá nad Labem (the next stop along the train line). The town has an interesting history and a large chateau park, which is also worth exploring.

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 at the train station, head northwards (away from the town center) for 200m to reach the RED hiking trail
• Turn right onto the hiking trail, which shortly becomes an asphsalt pedestrian path running beside the reserve (the footpath directly beside the fence can be accessed at various points)
• If the animals are difficult to spot from the main path along the southern edge of the reserve (or from the lookouts), follow the RED trail for a further 500m when it takes a bend along the eastern side of the reserve (map point 4 is a good observation spot!)