~derf / interblag / entry / Hiking vacation in the Giant Mountains (Krkonoše / Karkonosze): arrival, Karpacz itself, and departure

In early August 2025, dm2lct and I spent a few days in the Giant Mountains (Krkonoše / Karkonosze) at the Czech/Polish border. Specifically, we booked a room in Karpacz, a town at the foot of the Sněžka, which happens to be the highest summit of the Giant Mountains (and also of the Sudetes mountain range and of the Czech Republic).

The Giant Mountains are absolutely worth a visit – we've been there for four days and I feel like we've seen quite a lot, but certainly not all of the diverse landscapes and views they have to offer. Just note that, unless you want to take one of the few lifts scattered throughout the mountain range, you'll have to climb 700 to 1,000 metres each day depending on where you are staying and where you are going.

© OpenStreetMap Contributors, ODbL 1.0

I'll write separate blog post for each of the four days (i.e., for each of the four summits / parts of the mountain range that we visited during our stay). This one just serves as a documentation of arrival, departure, and some notes on Karpacz and the Karkonosze National Park (Karkonoski Park Narodowy / KPN) in general.

Arrival

There is a connection from Dresden to Karpacz every other hour, and the entire trip takes about four hours when everything goes well. In our case, we started with a delayed bus to Bautzen, thus leading to a far longer layover in Görlitz than anticipated. Görlitz is absolutely worth a visit though, so no harm done.

  • Trilex RE1 Bautzen (11:16) → Görlitz (11:50)
  • KD D19 Görlitz (13:39) → Jelenia Góra (15:15)
  • KD D62 Jelenia Góra (15:32) → Karpacz (15:56)

Karpacz

Karpacz looks like a pretty typical Polish tourist town. It offers plenty of hotels, pensions, and more simplistic renting options, and also plenty of restaurants and kitsch. There are two supermarkets close to the train station, and a few more scattered throughout the remainder of the city. Note that most restaurants close between 20:00 and 22:00, so you should not wait too long in case you still want to have a warm meal after a day of hiking up and down the mountains.

On the language side, learning some Polish beforehand is a good idea. In our case, some remnants of school Polish and a dictionary on the smartphone were sufficient most of the time. At least a few people also speak at least a little bit of English; we didn't try German.

Karkonoski Park Narodowy (KPN)

The entire Polish side of the giant mountains is covered by a national park, entry to which costs 8 to 11 Złoty (about 2 €) per day and person, depending on whether you buy a single-, two-, or three-day pass. Especially on the popular tourist trails, you will find staff selling tickets at one of the entrances to the park – of course, you can pay by card, even at 1,000m above sea level. You also have the option of buying day passes online and then presenting those on your smartphone or as a print-out. The trails inside the park are mostly well-kept and seem like the upkeep isn't that cheap, so overall, I'd say the fee is justified.

We did not encounter any ticket checks inside the park or on the way out, and there were also no ticket checks (or sales) on the ridges and peaks, which frequently criss-cross between Poland and the Czech Republic. So, if you're entering the Giant Mountains from the Czech side, you probably don't need a ticket even if you enter KPN area every now and then.

Departure

Due to several Nazi demos in Bautzen, we were not too keen on taking Trilex RE1 on the way back. As the line to Tanvald / Liberec was closed as well, we instead opted for the long way round: Karpacz → Sędzisław → Trutnov → Praha → Děčin → Bad Schandau → Dresden. This took the better part of the day and was absolutely worth it.

  • KD D62 Karpacz (06:52) → Jelenia Góra (07:15)
  • KD D6 Jelenia Góra (07:22) → Sędzisław (07:49)
  • KD D26 / Os 25425 Sędzisław (07:58) → Trutnov střed (08:45)
  • ČD R10 “Krkonoše” Trutnov střed (08:47) → Praha hlavní nádraží (11:42)
  • ČD R20 “Labe” Praha hlavní nádraží (14:45) → Děčin (16:33)
  • RB U28 Děčin (16:41) → Bad Schandau (17:11)
  • S1 Bad Schandau (17:14) → Dresden Hbf (17:58)

The whole endeavour cost us about 60 € (about 30€ per person):

  • Karpacz → Jelenia Góra: – (vending machine was broken and the conductor didn't know how to sell cross-country tickets, so we got to travel for free)
  • Jelenia Góra → Královec: 40 PLN (about 10€)
  • Královec → Trutnov: 102 CZK (4.20 €)
  • Trutnov → Děčin: 999 CZK (41.13 €)
  • Děčin → Schöna: 80 CZK (about 4 €)
  • Schöna → Dresden: Deutschlandticket

Also, I'd like to note that the official České Dráhy app (Můj vlak) is easily the best official railway app I've ever used. It has detailed and up-to-date information about trains, free/reserved seats, delays / disruptions / construction sites, and anything else you need. Also, despite booking a conventional day ticket for two adults that was not even bound to specific trains, we were able to reserve seats on R10 and R20 free of charge. Rail travel in Poland doesn't even come close.

Sędzisław → Trutnov

We did not look up the rolling stock beforehand, and were positively surprised when we encountered a ČSD M 152.0 (“Brotbüchse”) on the cross-border line from Poland to the Czech Republic. It's a single-carriage Diesel train, using a conventional omnibus motor, and was pretty empty – at least on the early Sunday morning at which we were travelling. It's not exactly modern or fast, but does its job and got us to Trutnov almost in time. From a nostalgia point of view, this was quite the jackpot.

Luckily, the layover in Trutnov střed happens before a single-track segment, with the train from Sędzisław coming from the segment that the R10 to Praha has to pass after departure. hence, although our train from Poland had two minutes of delay, the R10 was waiting for us on the same platform and we could still board it. I have no idea whether this connection always works that well.

Praha → Děčin

Our ticket would have allowed us to take a EuroCity, but dm2lct specifically suggested the R10 line. As of 2025, its rolling stock still includes a luggage wagon that contians four 8-person compartments – and features windows that you can actually open. You hardly ever see that anymore these days, so taking this train on the way back also was quite a treat. The noise at an open window can be deafening at times, though – both the wheels and the brakes are anything but quiet, especially when walls or rocks next to the tracks reflect their noise back towards the train.