Along EuroVelo Cycling Trails to Czech Culture, Nature and History The European network of cycling trails, EuroVelo, includes 15 long-distance European cycling trails and connects all European countries with 70,000 kilometres, see www.eurovelo.com. The EuroVelo trails usually run along existing national or regional cycling trails. There are 4 trails going through the Czech Republic: EuroVelo 4, 7, 9 and 13, with a total length exceeding 2,100km. www.eurovelo.cz EuroVelo 13: Iron Curtain Trail History of a divided Europe under the open sky This newly marked trail is the longest EuroVelo trail that runs through the whole continent along the former border dividing Europe into two military and political blocs. The nature in this formerly inaccessible and strictly guarded territory developed without any human intervention. Today, this territory is a year-round open history museum. In the Czech Republic, you can see the memorial to the victims of the Iron Curtain at Svatý kříž near Cheb, or the monument of the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 near Nové Domky, or the divided railway station in Železná Ruda. The cycling trail, part of which follows a former military road, i.e., a signal road, will take nature lovers through the Upper Palatine Forest and Šumava on both sides of the border. Cyclists will definitely enjoy riding along the Schwarzenberg Shipping Canal, through the preserved nature in the Novohradské Mountains with an open-air iron curtain museum in Nové Hrady, or Czech Canada near the Renaissance town of Slavonice. In this part of the Iron Curtain Trail, you enter South Moravia and the Podyjí National Park. Near Čížov, you can see 350 metres of a preserved iron curtain, including a guard tower. In medieval Mikulov, check out the Freedom Trail, presenting the stories of people who tried to cross the Iron Curtain.