Vydra river

It is said that those who didn’t see the beauty of the Vydra river, don’t know how beautiful Šumava really is. May I invite you to go for a walk with me and see how true these words are?

The building you can see in the back of the first photo is “Antýgl”, which is a former homestead originated at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries. There used to be glassworks for several hundred years. Nowadays there is a camp situated there, we were staying in it during our trip to the southern part of the Šumava National Park.

About 200 metres from Antýgl a nature trail begins which leads through a wooded valley, along a wide and comfortable path where wood used to be transported. The area is protected as a nature reserve called “Povydří” (Vydra valley).

The path follows the riverbed so along your way you can watch big stones of many shapes and sizes, waterworn and partially moss-grown. Sometimes you just shift the level of the viewfinder of your camera, and you can see quite a different picture. And as you go through the forest all the time, the path is quite dark and a bit cold but when the sun starts shining, the scene changes significantly. The play of light and shadows is quite impressive.

You might have noticed the dark rust colour of the water. Streams supplying the river flow through large areas of peatland and the peat colours their water and subsequently the river.

The river has many faces and you can watch sections of both still and wild water. There wasn’t much water in the river at the time of our visit so the river was quite calm but it must have enormous strength when large amounts of water are driven among and over the stones.

“Vydra” means “otter” in Czech and the river got its name in relation to occurrence of the European otter. I read that otters occur in Šumava but we didn’t see any one here.

You didn’t see anybody in my photos but in fact, the path is quite crowded. Nevertheless, it’s open just for walking people, bicycles let alone cars are not allowed.

We didn’t go the whole length of the nature trail but enjoyed what we saw enormously.