Adrspach

The marked loop runs about 150 minutes over a mix of ladders and steps. A large pack jams in some of the gaps and stays at the entrance instead.

Water filled an old quarry and now reads green against the rock. A small boat carries you a short way between the cliff walls.

Partway round, a sluice is opened to send the water down all at once. It runs at set times, so the board at the entrance is worth reading.

The neighbouring rock area, rougher underfoot than Adrspach. A forest path joins the two, and some walkers take them in one go.

The rock is soft, so metal protection is banned and only knots are placed. For two days after rain the sandstone weakens and climbing stops.

Two pillars lean until their tops appear to touch. Looking up from below leaves the sky as a narrow line.

The thickest pillar carries its own name and stands close to 100m. Only when trees are in the frame does the scale register.

In winter water seeping from the cracks freezes into columns of ice. The path turns slippery, and spikes on the boots are required to enter.

A small station sits right at the entrance, which makes arriving without a car simple. Few trains run each day, so the return time is checked first.

Climbing to the ridge above puts the pillar forest below you. Few take it, so it works as an escape when the main loop is packed.

Benedictine monastery rebuilt in the early 1700s by the Dientzenhofers, father and son. Tours visit a library stacked to the ceiling with old books, and the abbey church keeps a full-size copy of the Shroud of Turin. Adrspach is a brief drive west.

A long sandstone ridge edging the Broumov basin, with rock lookouts one after another. On the crest stands a Baroque chapel laid out as a star, hence its name Hvezda. Adrspach pulls the crowds, so this ridge path stays quiet for hours.

A flat-topped sandstone hill whose summit is a maze of rock passages. Short loops squeeze through narrow clefts, easy for families to finish within half a day. Smaller than Adrspach, it draws far fewer people.

Each village around Broumov has a Baroque church built by the Dientzenhofer family. The churches are large and lavishly curved for such small farming villages. The villages sit close together, so a bike ride can link several.