Czech Greenway Trail

The Czech Greenway connects Prague to Vienna via a series of roads and trails passing through villages and culturally important places that will let you see more of what the Czech Republic is in seven days than staying in Prague for a year would! The Greenway is a bit rough for a road bike, and not quite rough enough for fat knobbies, but is ideal for a fat-tired tourer, cyclo-crosser, hybrid, or mountain bike with some 2" tires without too aggressive a tread.

The Czech Republic Greenway connects Prague to Vienna via a series of roads and trails passing through villages and culturally important places that will let you see more of what the Czech Republic is in seven days than staying in Prague for a year would! The Greenway is a bit rough for a road bike, and not quite rough enough for fat knobbies, but is ideal for a fat-tired tourer, cyclo-crosser, hybrid, or mountain bike with some old 1.95 semi-slick tires.

Check out the Greenway's official web site for reports from other travellers, a list of towns along the trail, and much more. Look for pages specific to bicycling and organized tours.

Prague-Vienna Greenways Route Guide says that they are at work on a Prague-Vienna Greenways guide for bicyclists. The site will provide Google map overlays, cue sheets, and downloadable GPX files for the entire Prague-Vienna Greenways system. That will be great. Portions appear to already be done.

Another map of the greenway and an itinerary by the Greenways Travel Club. Not detailed, but gives a good overview, kind of like a subway map.

Roger Högström and Daniel Backgård walked from Prague to Vienna on the czech Greenways in 17 days in 2008. Check out www.greenways.harnosand.org for photos and a write-up from their trip.

Download free Czech language and German language phrase guides to help you out on your trip.

Greening of the Czech Republic
Taken from National Geographic magazine.

A PASSION FOR HIKING has long kept Czechs on the move - their national hiking club dates from 1888. Partly inspired by our [National Geographic magazine] June 1990 article "Greenways: Paths to the Future," Czechs and Austrians have created the Czech Greenway, a 250-mile-long network of trails between Vienna and Prague.

Traversed by foot, bicycle, horseback, or canoe, the system connects medieval castles and towns with the countryside. Inviting summer visitors who crows big cities to wide-open spaces, it winds through Moravian wine country and Bohemia's beer gardens. Czech history and culture survived decades of communist rule; now, as capitalism emerges, preservation is one of the project's goals. "We're telling the local people. 'Your towns and villages can serve as alternatives to cities drawing masses of tourists,'" says Lubomir Chmelar, director of Greenways/Zelené Stezky. This month the nonprofit group will again offer its tours; last year several hundred hikers took part, many hoofing it for eight days.