Rejvíz - Great Moss Lake and Zlaté Hory - Gold Ore Mills, Czechia (Czech Republic)
This time we visit the Jeseníky mountains in Czech Republic. There are two interesting places located not far from each other: the Great Moss Lake ("Velké mechové jezírko"), located in the center of a national nature reserve "NPR Rejvíz" and the Gold Ore Mills ("Zlatorudné mlýny") - a medieval open-air museum of gold mining, in the form of several buildings on the river Olešnice near the town of Zlaté Hory.
Parking in Rejvíz. The Great Moss Lake
In Rejvíz we can park the car on a medium sized paid car-park (GPS: 50.229462, 17.297938) located on the road 453 (the price: 40 CZK per day). Then we follow the green route ("NS Rejvíz") to the entrance to the reserve. The entrance is paid: adults - 30 CZK, children aged more than 6 years and pupils/students aged up to 26 - 20 CZK, children up to 6 years enter for free. After the charges we continue the walk on green route. We walk on special path made of logs allowing a smooth move over the muddy ground. Then the path forks off into two separate routes (A; GPS: 50.2216025, 17.2850500): the right one is a blue route, and the left one, the green route, leads to the lake. On the shore of the lake (B; GPS: 50.2199003, 17.2868417) we can see a wooden platform for observing nature with relevant information boards. Since 2005, the lake and the nature reserve are a special area of protection ("Natura 2000"). Impressions of the journey are very pleasant - we had only one "bad luck" because we just hit a dry season, so the swamps were really small.
The Gold Ore Mills
The Gold Ore Mills open-air museum is located only about 7 km from the Rejvíz village. We drive the 453 and 454 roads, and then turn to the 457 road. We leave the car on the parking lot (GPS: 50.2558511, 17.3673014) and then walk approx. 500 meters on foot through the woods. The open-air museum (C; GPS: 50.251328, 17.366675) consists of several buildings located on the river Olešnice. The gold was mined here since thirteenth century and the place was closed very recently, in the late 80s of the twentieth century. The buildings were built from scratch with wood in order to show old ways of obtaining gold. It was done in a mill driven by hydropower from the nearby river Olešnice. The entrance to the buildings and the guide service cost 30 CZK for adults, children aged more than 6 years and pupils/students aged up to 26 years pay CZK 20, and children under the age of 6 years enter for free. You can also try yourself to wash out lighter sand from very small parts of gold in the gold ore. However, don't expect that one visit in the museum will allow you to get rich: in one tone of a typical ore there are about 20 grams of gold :)
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