THE GORGE BOATS
The Kamenice Gorge Boats: Edmund and Wild
The poled wooden punts, the ferrymen and their patter, the lengths and times, the century of history, and the post-fire rules.
See Bohemian Switzerland tours on GetYourGuide ↗The signature experience of the day
If the arch is the day's postcard, the gorge boats are its heart. The Kamenice river has carved two flooded gorges reached from Hřensko — the Edmund's Gorge, originally called the 'Silent Gorge', and the Wild Gorge further upstream — where sandstone walls rise as much as a hundred metres above a narrow, emerald river. Small weirs keep stretches of the river deep enough to float a boat, and gliding between those walls, out of the sun and into the cool green hush, is the moment most people remember longest.
Poled by a ferryman, as it's always been
The boats are flat-bottomed wooden punts holding around twenty-five people, and there's no engine — a ferryman in traditional dress poles you along, giving a running commentary of jokes, legends and the names of the rock shapes in the cliffs. It is pure old-fashioned theatre, and it's genuinely old: punts have run this gorge since the 1890s, and by the early 1900s something like 160,000 people a year were coming to ride them. You're taking part in a tradition well over a century deep.
Two gorges, two short legs
The main ride, through the Edmund's Gorge, covers about 960 metres and takes roughly twenty minutes; the Wild Gorge upstream adds a shorter leg of about 450 metres and fifteen minutes. Between them you walk — a couple of kilometres up from Hřensko to the first boarding point, then a further stretch to the second. It's worth knowing the boat legs are short and punctuate the walk rather than replacing it; the day is a hike with two lovely floating interludes, not a boat trip.
The post-fire rules
The gorge boats were the part of the park hardest hit by the 2022 fire's aftermath, closed for nearly three years before the Edmund's Gorge trips reopened on 19 July 2025. They came back under new rules — a daily visitor cap, in-person ticketing at Hřensko, guided access and ongoing rockfall monitoring — designed to manage both crowds and the cliff rock the fire loosened. The practical upshot is that on a busy day the boat can sell out to walk-in visitors, which is exactly why a tour with an allocated seat is the reliable way to be sure of the ride.
When they run
The punts are seasonal, operating roughly from April to early November and not at all in winter, high water or freezing conditions, when the river ices or floods make poling unsafe. Late September and October are the loveliest time to ride them, with autumn colour glowing off the water between the walls, and the shoulder-season crowds thinner than in high summer. In deep winter you can sometimes still walk the gorges, but the boats are put away until spring — so if the ride is what you're coming for, plan for the boating season.
More things to do nearby
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