Walking tours in Volare and its surroundings

Route 1 - Alley to the viewpoint

From the church, we walk up the street from the tower about 200 metres. On the right, in front of the studio and gallery of Vít Vavřinec Pavlík, is Czesław Podlesny's sculpture ¨Waiting for ..¨, whose name you can try to complete yourself.

After the barn we turn right into the Alley, we have just entered the route of the legendary Golden Trail (see the text on the information board). A walk of nearly two kilometres through the Alley awaits us!

Soon we reach the cemetery of the victims of the May 1945 death march with the tombstones of 95 Jewish women. Their sleep is guarded by a cross in the form of a woman's torso - the most beautiful modern sculpture in southern Sumava. Its author is the academic sculptor Vojtěch Pařík. The memory of the victims is also commemorated by an exhibition in the town museum.

Behind the Jewish cemetery is the Volary cemetery with the chapel of St. Florian. Below it, on the right side of the road, is a wooden white metronome by Ulrika W. Merk. I wonder who sets the pace...? The top of the hill above the cemetery is decorated with a cross and offers a picturesque view of the town.

The avenue continues past the chapel. On a gentle incline, enjoy walking under the canopy of the ancient oaks and ash trees. All are recorded. Here and there along the path are benches, wooden children's climbing frames, even squirrel feeders. After half a kilometre, at the next chapel, another avenue joins from the left. It leads from the former brewery and is also one of the routes of the Golden Trail. According to Pavel Kozák from České Budějovice, the author of the book The Secret Places of Pošumava, the chapel at the crossroads is a strong positive energy point.

Around the gardens we continue up the avenue in an easterly direction. The panorama of Sněžná opens up on the right. This is the name given to the wooded ridge with a plateau where the villages of Horní and Dolní Sněžná used to be located at an altitude of nearly a thousand metres.

But by then we are already coming to the chapel at the foot of Kamenac. It dates back to 1759 and the remains of the statue and interior decoration are on display in the museum. The initials J.O. are carved in the stone three steps behind the chapel.

In the immediate vicinity we can see stone chapels of the individual stops of the Stations of the Cross. There are 14 of them, but some are hidden in the dense vegetation. It is better to continue along the avenue along the edge of the forest. The deep bridleways on the left are preserved remnants of the Golden Path.

After about a hundred metres we reach the top of the climb - and we are at the finish. There is a table with benches in the meadow on the right. The place offers you a spectacular view of the meadow-like Volhynian basin and the massif of the border mountains in the background. Here, the uniform wall of the Třístoličník, Trojmezná and Plechý (1378 m) towers majestically over the Volary Mountains.

We return the same way, downhill. At the crossroads by the chapel under the gardens you can turn right into the alley. This is also one of the routes of the Golden Trail. Along the pasture with herds of cattle we approach the town. The alley winds past the Church of the Epiphany and then along a track to another chapel by the former burgher brewery. By then we are already in the town - and the church is 300 m on the left. But since it would be a shame not to go through the Old Town, we prefer to go right and turn left right at the crossroads below the brewery.