Pravčická brána

Where it sits. Pravčická brána — Prebischtor in German — is a sandstone arch in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains of northern Bohemia, about three kilometres northeast of the village of Hřensko on the German border. It is the largest natural sandstone arch in Europe: the span measures 26.5 metres, the clearance beneath is 16 metres, the rock bridge is up to eight metres wide and about three metres thick at its thinnest point. The arch stands at the heart of Bohemian Switzerland National Park, on the Czech side of a sandstone plateau shared with Saxon Switzerland in Germany, and it is protected as a national nature monument.

The story behind it. The rock is Cretaceous quartz sandstone, deposited in a shallow sea and later cut by rivers and frost into towers, gorges and mesas. The arch is what remains after weathering removed the softer material beneath a harder cap bed. Tourism arrived early: an inn was built beside the arch in 1826, when Romantic-era travellers were already coming to the Elbe sandstone country in the wake of artists such as Ludwig Richter and composers such as Carl Maria von Weber, who set Der Freischütz in these rocks. In 1881 Prince Edmund of Clary-Aldringen replaced the inn with the Sokolí hnízdo hotel — Falkennest, the Falcon's Nest — a fifty-bed timber and stone lodge whose terraces still frame the classic view of the arch. The building now houses a restaurant and a small exhibition, and the site has been in private hands since the hotel was privatised after 1989.

On screen. Several landscape scenes in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) were filmed here. The production shot in the Czech Republic after its 2004 Christmas break, working in Prague and in the national park before wrapping in February 2005. The detail that matters for anyone comparing the film with the place: the shots in which characters appear to run across the top of the arch were created in the studio and composited, because climbing on the formation has been prohibited since 1982. The rock had been eroding badly under the boots of visitors, and the ban is strictly enforced — the arch is admired from the viewing terraces below and from the Falcon's Nest, not crossed.

What you actually see today. The approach is a walk rather than a drive: the shortest route climbs about 45 minutes from the Elbe at Hřensko through beech and spruce forest, with the arch appearing suddenly above the treetops near the top. Entry to the site is ticketed and seasonal, with shorter opening hours in winter. Wooden staircases and railed terraces lead to a series of viewpoints, one directly beneath the span and others looking out across the plateau to the sandstone towers of the Saxon side, the Růžovský vrch volcanic cone and, in clear weather, the Lusatian Mountains. The Falcon's Nest itself is worth a slow look: a piece of Habsburg-era mountain architecture with carved timber galleries, built when a hotel on a cliff edge was a statement of ambition rather than a logistics problem.

Around it. The arch is one stop on a much larger walking network. The Kamenice gorge below Hřensko is traversed by punt through a rock ravine with boatmen poling the flat-bottomed craft between vertical walls. Rock castles at Šaunštejn and Falkenštejn occupy pinnacles once used by robber barons watching the trade routes. Viewpoints above Jetřichovice — Mariina skála, Vilemínina stěna, Rudolfův kámen — string along a long day's circuit. The long-distance path from Eisenach to Budapest passes the arch, and the border crossing at Hřensko puts Saxon Switzerland's Bastei within an easy day trip. Malá Pravčická brána, the small arch a short walk away, gives an idea of what the main span looked like earlier in its life, before weathering opened it to its present width.

Getting there and timing. Hřensko is about 30 kilometres from Děčín and roughly two hours from Prague by car or by train and bus via Děčín; buses run along the Elbe and up the Kamenice valley in season. Parking in Hřensko is limited and the village road is narrow, so early arrival helps. May to October is the walking season; July and August bring the largest crowds, while October gives colour in the beech forest and morning inversions that leave the arch above a sea of valley mist. The park has been hit by wildfire — some 1,000 hectares burned in July 2022 — and sections of trail may be closed for restoration, so check the park authority's current closures before setting out. Footwear with grip matters: sandstone steps polish smooth and stay slippery long after rain.