Děčínský Sněžník

The largest table mountain in the country, 723 m, capped by a stone lookout tower from 1864 — one of the oldest in Bohemia — with views from the Krušné hory to the sandstone country across the border.

Děčínský Sněžník is the largest table mountain in the Czech Republic: a flat sandstone plateau at 723 m whose rim drops away in cliffs on nearly every side. The top carries a scatter of buildings, a road, and the reason most people climb it — a 33 m stone lookout tower built in 1864 for Count Franz Anton Thun, which makes it one of the oldest stone lookout towers in Bohemia. It began as a survey structure: Austria, Saxony and Prussia needed a triangulation point above the trees, and Thun answered with a tower designed by a Dresden architect rather than a cleared summit. One more historical footnote — in 1936 the first television signal received in Bohemia was captured up here, footage from the Berlin Olympics.

From the gallery, 153 steps up, the view runs over the Krušné hory to the west, the Elbe sandstones on both sides of the border to the north, and the cones of the České středohoří to the south — the plateau rim itself offers wide views even before you pay for the tower.

The tower is open to the public for a small fee; there is a restaurant on the summit.