Rolava Peat Bogs is a vast highland bog reserve in the Ore Mountains where time seems to stand still. It is one of the last places in Czechia harbouring the critically endangered Rannoch-rush, and capercaillie can still occasionally be heard calling over the wetlands.
The landscape consists of flat, open plateaus at 880-950 m elevation, covered with dwarf mountain pine, heathland and dozens of small pools. In summer the bogs are dotted with insectivorous sundews and the pale flowers of bog rosemary, in autumn the heather turns rust-red, and in winter the area is often frozen and snow-covered well into April - one of the coldest corners of the country. The atmosphere along this Saxon border region feels wild and remote.
How to get thereThis is the only site in the Ore Mountains where the Rannoch-rush still reproduces - elsewhere in the region it has disappeared entirely.