influx of tourists - this was already some 150 years ago. Some of the hiking tracks here were put on the maps more than a century ago - and they have not lost anything from their beauty since, even if the steps, carved in the sandstone rock, are often so worn out you can hardly discern them!

Views of the landscape here, the magnificent sandstone towers standing out of the woods like giant organ, the old traveller's lodges or the pre-war Czechoslovak fortifications dotting the map along the former border with Germany, all of this made this holiday worth remembering. We made some 450 photographs (we had to do some search before we could find a photo album which could accommodate all this) and really enjoyed every bit of it - particularly those evening moments of joy, when we were safe under the roof of our small tourist cottage, while the rain battered the tin roof.
Czech and Saxon Switzerland
Our summer holiday in the north of Bohemia
It was soon after we bought our Land Rover that we concluded that our hiking holiday in north Bohemia could include some serious classic motoring instead of the romantic transportation by trains. After the first trips it was finally decided and on the 30th June 2007 we set off towards Prague, Melnik, Ceska Lipa, Decin and our final destination - the campsite at Vysoka Lipa.

After some price considerations regarding the choice of accommodation we agreed that our original decision to sleep in a tent could not be the wisest as the weather was not quite predictable. We were soon to realize that this had been the correct decision as there were some serious downpours during the week to come.

We were amidst one of the most beautiful regions of the Czech Republic, the "Czech  Switzerland". At the time when the Czech Switzerland and its cross-border neighbour Saxon Switzerland were one, the region was one of the first to witness a huge