Vltava hike close to Prague - Svatojánské proudy

Text based on two visits (Oct 10 and Sep 14). This 8,5 km along river Vltava claims to be the oldest marked trail in the Czech Republic (the other one claiming to be the first is red marked 15 km trail from castle Karlštejn to Beroun which is also beautiful and still waiting for my post:). It is definitely worth visiting any time of the year but now (in the autumn), you can also find many mushrooms there and see rare animals, salamandra salamandra. It is an easy trail, not many ups and downs but you can make it longer. "Svatojánské proudy" got its name from St. Jan, whose statue is in the end of the trail, and "proudy" refers to wild rapids that used to be there until 1938.

Tourist map is here: http://mapy.cz/s/de2E - it is the yellow and green trail from Štěchovice to Třebenice. 

You can get easily to Štěchovice from Prague, it is 37 minutes from Smíchovské nádraží by bus no. 338, 390, 361 (in these buses, you have to pay at the driver - no matter if you have or don't have Opencard). Be in time at the station as these buses are usually quite full. 

Marked trail starts directly at the bus station in Štěchovice however you can first start with breakfast in one of the cafés there. First follow blue mark but later you will follow the special white and green square sign. You will go across local water power plant, continue along the river with some beautiful views and finish the river part of the trail at Slapy dam. Along the way, there are some educational boards - unfortunately in Czech only - but there are some interesting old photos how the place looked like before people completely changed river Vltava with a system of river dams. 

Also you can notice dozens of not easily accessible wooden little cottages. They are part of "tramps' settlements" (the oldest one being established here, at Svatojánské proudy) and often bear USA-inspired names. History of Czech tramps is extremely interesting; you can find some more information here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_tramping and here http://domov-trampu.home.comcast.net/~domov-trampu/Tramping.htm ; very detailed text (A century of Czech tramping by Mr. Pohunek) here: http://prebral.net/dok/trampflk.pdf ; more about specific tramp music here http://www.radio.cz/en/section/panorama/sing-when-youre-tramping-the-art-of-the-czech-wandering-song

When you reach Třebenice, take bus no. 390 back to Prague or hike back to Štěchovice (it is more up the hill) following blue marked trail (or blue and later red). Nothing special there to see but it is a nice app. 5 km long walk:) If you feel up to a really long hike, follow blue trail from Třebenice further to the south across river until you reach yellow trail and you can see some famous Vltava views (this hike is described in another post:). 

Day trippers around year 1900 - it was very popular destination for trips from Prague