Šumava and Lipno Road Trip from České Budějovice: Treetops, Glacial Lakes and the Source of the Vltava in 3 Days

Šumava, the Bohemian Forest, is the long, wooded range of mountains along Czechia’s borders with Germany and Austria. Its heart has been a national park since 1991: about 680 km², the largest of the country’s four national parks. This loop starts in České Budějovice, the city where the Prague to Český Krumlov trip spends its first night, and a good place to rent a car for the region. It runs down the Vltava past Český Krumlov to Lake Lipno, crosses the high plateau at Kvilda and Modrava, climbs to the glacial lakes above Železná Ruda, and comes back through Kašperk and Prachatice. It makes about 356 km in three days.

The whole loop stays on ordinary roads, so you need no Czech motorway vignette for it. Inside the national park, many forest roads are closed to cars: you park at the edge and walk or cycle to the sights, and the days are kept short to leave time for that.

Day 1 — České Budějovice to Lipno and Horní Planá (99 km)

Pick up the car in České Budějovice and drive south-west on ordinary roads, through Český Krumlov, then follow the Vltava valley past Rožmberk nad Vltavou to Vyšší Brod. Its Cistercian monastery was founded in 1259 by the Rožmberk family. Guided tours show the church, the old library and the picture galleries. The main season runs from May to September; from October to April the ticket office is closed and tours run only on set dates or by booking.

Just west of the town, on the road to Loučovice, stop at Čertova stěna, the Devil’s Wall, a national nature reserve where a sea of granite boulders tumbles down to the Vltava. A short path leads up from the car park by the road. Legend says the devil tried to dam the river here to flood the new monastery, but the cock crowed before he could finish.

Drive on to Lipno nad Vltavou. Lake Lipno, a reservoir on the Vltava, covers about 48.7 km², the largest body of water in Czechia. Above the village stands the Treetop Walkway (Stezka korunami stromů), opened in 2012: a wooden path 372 m long through the treetops to a lookout tower 40 m high; with the ramp inside the tower it is 675 m. It is open 364 days a year (closed only on 24 December) and closes only in extreme conditions, not in ordinary bad weather. In summer the Lipno Express chairlift takes you up from the paid car park at its lower station, and a shuttle bus also runs. Then follow the lake shore through Frymburk, a little town with its square close to the water, to Horní Planá. The writer Adalbert Stifter was born here in 1805, and his birth house is now a small museum. Sleep in Horní Planá.

Day 2 — Kvilda, Modrava and Srní to Železná Ruda (101 km)

Drive past Volary into the national park and up to Kvilda, a village at about 1,065 m on an open, boggy plateau. The source of the Vltava, Czechia’s longest river, lies about 6 km south, at 1,172 m. No road for cars leads there: walk or cycle the asphalt path from the village. Parking in Kvilda is paid.

Continue to Modrava. From here a forest road of about 7 km runs to Březník, an old gamekeeper’s lodge deep in the park. It is closed to cars, so you walk or cycle. Walking to both the source and Březník is too much for one day: pick one, or bring bikes. In summer, seasonal national park buses for hikers and cyclists (cyklobusy) link Kvilda, Modrava and Železná Ruda; check the timetable before you rely on one.

On the road north from Modrava, stop at Rechle, a wooden bridge and weir on the river Vydra. It caught the logs floated down the river and sent them into the Vchynice-Tetov canal, dug in 1799–1801 to float timber around the rocky stretch of the Vydra. The structure you see is a copy of the original. A path follows the canal, about 14 km long, towards Srní. Just beyond Rechle, Antýgl is an old wooden farmstead that is now the heart of a campsite.

At Srní, the national park visitor centre has a wolf enclosure with a raised walkway above it; it reopened in summer 2026 after rebuilding. Then drive over the hills via Prášily to Železná Ruda on the Bavarian border. Its Baroque church stands on a star-shaped plan and was finished in 1732. Sleep in Železná Ruda.

Day 3 — The glacial lakes, Kašperk and Prachatice to České Budějovice (156 km)

Drive up to the paid car park at Špičák pass (Špičácké sedlo). Cars cannot go to the lakes; a marked loop of about 8 km (allow some three hours) leads to Čertovo jezero and Černé jezero, two lakes left by glaciers below steep, wooded walls. Černé jezero is the largest natural lake in Czechia, about 18 ha and some 40 m deep. The two lakes lie on the main European watershed: Černé jezero drains to the North Sea, and Čertovo jezero to the Danube and the Black Sea.

Then drive to Sušice on the river Otava. Matches were made here from 1839 until 2008, and the Šumava Museum on the main square tells the story. Follow the Otava upstream to Rejštejn, a small town that grew up around gold panning on the river, and on to Kašperk. Emperor Charles IV began this castle in 1356 to guard the gold mines and the Golden Trail, a trade route across the mountains. Leave the car at the paid car park about 1.5 km from the castle and walk up. Kašperk is open from April (weekends only) to October, and closed from November to March except between Christmas and New Year.

Drive east to Prachatice. For centuries salt came here from Passau on pack horses along the Golden Trail, and the trade paid for the Renaissance houses with painted and sgraffito fronts around its square. Then drive back to České Budějovice.

Costs

Use the cost calculator to price fuel and nights for your dates. There are no tolls and no vignette on this loop, because it uses no motorways; if you drive in from Prague on the D3 or D4, you need the Czech electronic vignette for those. Budget for accommodation, fuel for about 356 km, car rental, parking at Lipno, Kvilda, Špičák pass and Kašperk, and tickets for the Treetop Walkway, the monastery at Vyšší Brod and Kašperk. Lipno is busy in July and August and again in the ski season, so book a room early. From 1 November to 31 March, winter tyres are compulsory whenever the roads are wintry, and the high roads of the plateau often are.

This trip is also in the free Roadcut trip planner: change the number of days and where you sleep each night, pick your vehicle to see the fuel cost, check the weather on the road, and open each day in Google Maps, Apple Maps or Waze.