Routes around the historic town of Ostrov, in the foothills of the Ore Mountains: 2 km to 12 km

• Ostrov nad Ohří (to give the town its full name) is a curious place: almost like two worlds that accidentally collided together, both unsure how to live with each other. The center of the town and the chateau area is classic Bohemian Baroque, full of crimson hued architecture and weathered statues. Walk 500 meters in any direction from the center, and the town transforms into the gray shades of Communist Czechoslovakia. Both are important periods in the history of the nation, but that makes creating a representative walking trail something of a challenge.
• The challenge is also increased by the town having created three interconnected ‘educational’ trails: one long one (up to 26 km) following the ‘old roads’ of the town, and two shorter ones; one dealing with the mining history of the town and one with the attractive fishpond area, some 2 km to the north of the town centre. Unfortunately, none of the routes have trail markers and the many information boards are in various stages of readability (due to age, vandalism and occasional lack of maintenance).
• So, for that reason the route shown below is something of a hybrid between the three official routes. The ‘old roads’ route does have some quite scenic sections out of town (which are not included in the proposal below – mostly because the route mostly follows public roads and there are not many real ‘highlights’ outside town).
• For most visitors, a 2 km tour around the historic center and the lovely chateau park area will be enough to get a flavor of the place. In this area, there are well done (new) multilingual (De/En/Cz) info boards that help explain how Ostrov was transformed from a royal border defense settlement in the 13th century, to a Renaissance mining town famed for its silver deposits, which were discovered in the early 16th century in the hills around Jáchymov, just to the north of Ostrov.
• At the time, the land was owned by the Šlik family who proceeded to dig the mines, started up their own mint and became extremely wealthy. Unfortunately, the leading members of the family (who were Protestant, like much of the Bohemian nobility at the time) joined a rebellion against the new Habsburg rulers (the Estates’ Revolt of 1547). The rebellion failed and the Šlik silver mines were confiscated by the Crown. The family managed to hold onto the Ostrov estate, but then lost it after once again rebelling against the Habsburgs in the early 17th century.
• The head of the family was Count Jáchym Ondřej Šlik who played a leading role at the start of the Protestant Estates rebellion (which led to the 30 Years War and the infamous Battle of White Mountain in 1620). Count Šlik was captured and finally executed together with other leaders of the rebellion in Prague’s Old Town Square on 21 June 1621. He was the first to be beheaded.
• The Ostrov estate was acquired by one of the Catholic commanders at White Mountain, Julius Henry of Saxe-Lauenburg, who made Ostrov his family seat. He rebuilt the Šlik Renaissance period mansion into a grand Baroque chateau with a fabulous garden and park area – considered to be one of the finest in the Habsburg Empire at that time. The estate was subsequently acquired by the Tuscan branch of the Habsburg family, who converted the park area into its current ‘English style’ appearance in the 19th century.
• The Tuscan Habsburgs were also responsible for the industrial development of Ostrov during the 19th century, which was then taken to a new level in the Communist era after the discovery of uranium in the same mines that funded the Šlik family fortune. Unfortunately, Ostrov was chosen as the location for uranium Ore processing for the whole country. The infamous Red Tower of Death was the main sorting plant and was attached to the most notorious of the forced labour camps, manned primarily by political prisoners. The camp was code-named “L” (for Liquidation).
• The Red Tower (one of 22 named sites in the UNESCO World Heritage listing for the Ore Mountains) is located next to a fully operational prison, so is only open at weekends for visits. It is marked at map point 8 – it is probably only worth walking to the tower if planning on taking the tour, as access is blocked when the tower is not open.
• A complete contrast to the Red Tower (and prison complex), the Borecké Ponds area is an attractive wetland area of interconnected ponds. It is worth extending the walk out of the historic center to visit the ponds.
• The full route (if starting at the train station) is a little over 11 km, including the walk out to the Red Tower. It is much shorter if skipping the tower and parking in the center of town. For refreshment, there a couple of good cafés in the center, of which the Kavárna Caffíčko is probably the nicest and is located in the Gothic-Renaissance town hall on the main square. The route is essentially flat and can be managed with a stroller.

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

• If starting at the train station (which has direct trains from Prague), join the RED hiking trail to head into the town center, reached in just over 1 km
• Explore the center and park area and then if planning on visiting the Red Tower and/or Pond area, head out of town along Jáchymovská street
• At the Dolní Žďár – bus junction (reached after 2 km) either continue along the road out of town to reach the Red tower (reached after a further 1.6 km) or head back towards the train station through the Pond complex following the YELLOW trail