Hřensko

Hřensko began as a riverside tavern serving the raftsmen who floated timber on the rivers; it is first mentioned in writing in 1488, and its name comes from that inn below the Hornichen hill, Horniss Kraczmer in the old German, distorted over time into Hřen- with a Czech place-name ending. Other settlers arrived from the 16th century, and it grew as a trading post at the point where the Kamenice reaches the Elbe. The late Baroque church of Saint John of Nepomuk was built in 1786–1787.

The village's modern character came from tourism under the Clary-Aldringen family. An inn was built beside the Pravčická brána in 1826, and Prince Edmund Clary-Aldringen added a new building there in 1881. In 1877 five adventurers bet that they could ride a wooden raft through the Kamenice Gorge; from the 1880s the prince paid for Italian experts and two hundred workers to cut paths and tunnels into the sandstone, and boat sections opened in 1881, 1890 and 1898. By the early 20th century about 160,000 people a year visited the gorge, and one of the first mountain clubs in the Czech lands was founded in Hřensko.

Before the Second World War the village was almost entirely German: of 579 inhabitants in 1921, 540 were Germans. After 1945 the German population was expelled, as elsewhere in the borderlands. The area was protected as a landscape area from 1972 and became part of the Bohemian Switzerland National Park in 2000. In July 2022 a large fire burned about 1,000 hectares of the park around the village, and a smaller fire followed in April 2026.

Hřensko's culture is that of a border resort. For more than a century visitors have arrived by river, road and rail to walk the sandstone hills, and the village still faces both ways: two border crossings, by road to Schmilka and by river to Schöna, link it with Saxon Switzerland, the German half of the same landscape.

The sandstone itself shapes local life and identity. The gorges are worked by ferrymen who steer the boats with a tiller and tell stories as they go, a tradition dating from the late 19th century, and the long-distance mountain path from Eisenach to Budapest passes the Pravčická brána. The arch reached a wider public when it appeared in the film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; because climbing on it is no longer allowed, the scenes of the actors running across it were filmed in a studio.

Respect for the national park's rules is part of the local etiquette, and after the 2022 fire bans on open flames and closures of paths in dry weather are taken seriously.

About 250 people live in the municipality, which consists of Hřensko itself and the small settlement of Mezná. At 130 metres above sea level it is the lowest municipality in Czechia, and the lowest point in the country — 115 metres — is on the Elbe where it crosses into Germany within its territory.

Almost everything here depends on visitors. The village has a national park information office, restaurants, shops and guesthouses along the I/62 road, which carries cross-border traffic between Ústí nad Labem and Saxony. Life follows the seasons: in summer coaches, buses, hikers and cyclists fill the narrow valley, and the gorge boats run all day; in winter the village grows very quiet.

Most residents rely on Děčín, about 11 km to the south, for schools, healthcare and larger shops. The fires of 2022 and 2026 and recurring summer closures have become a pressing concern, both for the forest and for a village whose income depends on the paths staying open.

Meals in Hřensko are the hearty Czech cooking found across Bohemia: roast pork with bread dumplings and sauerkraut, known as vepřo-knedlo-zelo; svíčková, marinated beef in a thick sauce of carrot, parsley root and celeriac, served with dumplings, cranberries and a slice of lemon; guláš, a stew of beef, pork or game with onions and spices; and roast duck with dumplings and braised red cabbage. Smažený sýr, a slice of Edam-type cheese breaded and fried, is a standard choice for walkers, and bramboráky, fried pancakes of grated raw potato, make a quick snack.

Lager is the usual drink. Northern Bohemia has its own breweries, among them Svijany near Liberec, and the Saaz hops grown around Žatec are used in Czech lagers. Fruit dumplings filled with plums, apricots or strawberries and koláče, yeast pastries with fruit, poppy seed or sweet curd cheese, are common sweet choices, and Litoměřice, upriver on the Elbe, is the centre of a wine subregion.