Fourteen nights across three bases and not one set of car keys, so book a rail only trip to the Bohemian uplands

What comes out, and what goes in

The hire car is the part that goes, and nothing takes its place. In the house shape the car is what buys back the afternoon: you change your mind at two o'clock and you are still home by six. Here you change your mind at two o'clock and then read a printed sheet, and the answer is 15:11 or nothing until 17:04. Two other parts move with it. The single base becomes three, so you pack twice more than usual, and eight nights become fourteen, because three towns inside eight nights is a week of luggage with a holiday somewhere underneath it. The two hours from the airport become four, nearly all of it seated, with one change in a city of about 180,000 that has a decent hour to spare in it. The rest holds. Shoulder season, two people, out most days and back to a bed you already know, just three of those beds across the fortnight rather than one.

Three bases instead of one

The chain runs west to east and is set by the rail map rather than by scenery. Five nights at the head of the western valley at about 750 metres, in a small town where the line stops and the walking starts within twenty minutes of the platform. Then four nights down on the Otava at 465 metres, in a working town of eleven thousand with a square, a river beach and a former match works, where the shops are open in the evening and the mornings are a few degrees warmer. Then five nights on the eastern side, in a town of seven thousand under a castle, from which the southern hills and the upper river are both reachable before nine. Moves take 90 to 150 minutes with one or two changes, always mid morning, never on the day you arrive or the day you leave. Bags travel with you. There is a lift at one station of the three and steps at the other two, which is the commonest reason people ask us to cut the third base.

Trains, and what a timetable does to a day

Regional services on these branches run about every two hours, and on two of the lines the last useful working back leaves before six in the evening. That one fact shapes the day more than the walking does. You start earlier than you would at home, you eat lunch out of a bag rather than at a table, and you leave a slack hour at the far end, because a nine minute change becomes a two hour change if the first train sits. The compensation is that the trains reach places the roads do not: the highest station in the country stands at 995 metres and puts you on a ridge path without a metre of ascent, and the branch along the upper river sets walkers down at halts with four houses and a shelter. Rolling stock is mostly two car diesel units, unreserved, warm and quiet enough to read in. In the shoulder they run half empty on weekdays and fill on Saturday mornings with walkers who all get off at the same stop.

The ground, and what late September does to it

The uplands are old and rounded rather than sharp: broad ridges between 1,000 and 1,400 metres, the highest point on this side reaching 1,378 metres, with long flat saddles and very few edges. What makes the walking distinctive is the peat. Whole plateaux are bog, crossed on plank walkways, and one of them is a frost hollow cold enough to have recorded air frost in every month of the year. Typical days run 12 to 18 kilometres with 300 to 600 metres of climbing, on stony tracks and soft moor, comfortable rather than technical. In late September the first frosts arrive at 1,000 metres and the moor grass turns rust and straw. Expect two or three wet days in fourteen, cloud sitting on the ridges until eleven, and daylight that is useful from roughly seven to seven. In May the same ground is wetter underfoot and the seasonal minibuses to the highest trailheads have not started. Neither month is warm at height; the valley towns can hold fifteen degrees while the saddles hold six.

The number, and what sits outside it

From $3,350 for two people covers the fourteen nights across the three bases, rooms with breakfast in small family run houses rather than anything with a lobby, every scheduled rail and bus ticket inside the country including the moving days, and a bag transfer on each of the two moves so that a fortnight of luggage does not go up a station stair on your shoulder. It also covers the part that is actually work: a printed day by day sheet carrying the departure times that matter, two or three alternatives for each day, and the walk out and walk in times at each halt. Outside the number sit your own flights, which stay yours to arrange in your own name; lunches and dinners, which run 250 to 450 crowns a head in these towns; entrance to the castle and the reserves; and anything you decide to hire on the spot. The figure assumes shoulder dates and two people sharing. Single occupancy adds roughly a quarter. Final amounts are confirmed by each supplier at the time of booking.

Who this suits, and who it does not

It suits people who read timetables without irritation, who would rather have four days in a town than one, and who are content to let a printed sheet settle the afternoon. It suits walkers of ordinary fitness; nothing here is exposed and nothing needs a rope. It suits a fortnight taken in one piece, because the third base only earns its keep if you are still there on the fifth day. It does not suit anyone travelling with someone who tires late in the day, because the return is fixed and the last one is early. It does not suit a first visit to the country if you also want the capital and the spa towns: that is three holidays, and most of the third would be spent seated. And it does not suit anyone who wants the same address every night for a fortnight. That is the house shape, and it is still there.

Awkward questions about this change

Do you arrange the flights?

No. This office arranges no flying and no sailing, and carries no carrier contract of any kind, so your own flights stay yours to book, in your own name, on whatever terms suit you. What we do is work backwards from the arrival hour you give us. Land before two in the afternoon and the same day carries you to the first base with daylight left over. Land after five and we hold the first night near the airport city instead, and start the count of fourteen the following morning.

Could we do this in eight nights instead?

You could, with two bases rather than three, and we would rather you did that than compress three into eight. Fourteen nights across three towns leaves about four working days at each, once you subtract the two half days lost to moving and the one day in three that the weather takes back. At eight nights with three bases the arithmetic collapses: two moving days, one wet day, and you have mostly visited a laundry. If eight is fixed, we drop the third base and lengthen the other two, which moves the price rather less than people expect.

Can we add a hire car for part of it?

Yes, and it is worth knowing what it undoes. Take one from the second base for four days and the bogs, the old growth reserve on Boubin and the upper river all come within a morning of each other, which the timetable will not do. Against that: parking above 900 metres is thin, several valley roads are closed to private cars in season, and the car sits idle on the two moving days because you cannot leave it behind. Most people who ask end up taking it for three days in the middle and none at the ends.

What happens when a connection fails?

On these branches a missed change usually costs two hours rather than a day, because the pattern repeats until early evening. The awkward ones are the last services: on two of the lines the final working back leaves before six, and missing it means a taxi over a hill road at roughly 900 to 1,400 crowns. Engineering work is published weeks ahead and covered by buses that are twenty minutes slower and unkind to luggage. We read that calendar before the itinerary goes to the houses, and again a fortnight before you travel, and shift a day if it lands badly.

Is anything paid to this office?

Nothing moves through us. Each supplier collects from you on its own terms, at its own counter, and settles with us afterwards out of its own margin, which is why no fee of ours appears on your bill and why we hold no card details at any point in the fortnight. It also means the figure on this page is the supplier's figure and not a mark up. If a supplier moves its price between the quote and the booking, we tell you the new one and the reason for it, and the decision is yours.