The Ore Mountains might not be the most dramatic range in Central Europe, but they have a character all their own — wide open plateaus, ancient mining towns, and a sense of wild remoteness that is surprisingly easy to reach. Stretching over 130 kilometres along the Czech-German border, this is a region where every hilltop seems to whisper stories of silver, tin and uranium.

The landscape here is defined by gently rolling ridgelines cloaked in spruce forests, boggy moorlands that act as natural water reservoirs, and deep river valleys cutting through the massif. The Eastern Ore Mountains offer slightly more varied terrain with pronounced peaks and broader panoramas — on clear days you can see all the way to the Bohemian Basin to the south and the Saxon lowlands to the north. The bogs alone are worth seeking out: eerie, beautiful and ecologically precious.

Highlights:

• Klínovec (1,244 m) — highest peak on the Czech side, with a viewing tower and ski infrastructure
• Fichtelberg (1,215 m) — highest point in Saxony, just over the German border, home to a meteorological observatory
• Jáchymov — a spa town built on radioactive springs, once a powerhouse of silver and uranium mining
• Cínovec — a border village with deep tin-mining roots and one of Europe's largest known lithium deposits

Practical info:

• Best season: May–October — trails fully accessible, moorlands and forests at their finest; winter skiing December–March
• Base towns: Jáchymov, Chomutov (Czech side); Oberwiesenthal (German side)
• Trail difficulty: mostly easy to moderate — no technical terrain, great for families and leisure hikers
• Getting there: by car via Chomutov or Most (road E442); by train to Chomutov, then regional bus into the mountains

Here is a remarkable footnote to history — the element radium was discovered using ore from Jáchymov, and Marie Curie herself studied uranium samples from these very mountains.