Views worth climbing the stairs for.
Lookout towers3.8 kmA steel lookout tower almost thirty metres tall above Oloví, with an onion-shaped viewing gallery. After 129 steps you can see the Kraslice area, the Ore Mountain ridges, Klingenthal in Germany and the Sokolov basin. Open all year and free; from the car park it is about a kilometre uphill along the green trail.
Lookout towers15 kmQuartzite rock towers above Kraslice with a viewing platform reached by an iron footbridge and a railed staircase. From 774 m you look far across the Kraslice area and into neighbouring Saxony. An easy walk through the woods, fine with children too.
Lookout towers14 kmA stone lookout tower from 1897 on the summit of Tisovský vrch above Nejdek, protected as a cultural monument. The gallery offers an all-round view of the Ore Mountains, Klínovec and the Karlovy Vary area. Open all year and free, reached by marked trails from Tisová or Nové Hamry.
Lookout towers9.3 kmA stone lookout tower on a hill above the historic centre of Sokolov, a faithful copy of the original tower from 1907. It overlooks the town, the lakes left by coal mining and the Ore Mountain ridges. The tower is often locked and the key can be borrowed nearby – see the notice on site.
Lookout towers20 kmA funicular runs from the Grandhotel Pupp in the centre of Karlovy Vary up through the forest to the Diana lookout tower in a few minutes. At the top you'll find a view over the whole town, a butterfly house with exotic butterflies, a mini zoo with goats and ponies and a restaurant with a terrace. The tower itself is free.
Lookout towers17 kmA 32-metre lookout tower from 1999 on the Aschberg (Kamenáč in Czech), just fifty metres across the border above Bublava and Klingenthal. From the platform at almost 27 metres there's a far view over the Czech Ore Mountains, the Kraslice area and the Saxon Vogtland. A marked path of about 1.5 km leads here from Bublava. Entry is through a coin turnstile, so bring a few euro coins.
Lookout towers16 kmA steel tower on the summit of Krudum (838 m) in the Slavkov Forest, whose viewing gallery at about 30 metres is open to all year round. After 150 steps you see the whole Slavkov Forest, the Ore Mountains and the Fichtel Mountains in Bavaria. The shortest way is the yellow trail from Hrušková; longer hikes from Loket or Krásno are over 9 km. The tower is also a monitoring station, so switch your phone off before you climb.
Lookout towers21 kmA 21-metre lookout tower from 1913 on the summit of Blatenský vrch (1,043 m) above Horní Blatná. Its two viewing platforms give an all-round view of the Ore Mountains with Klínovec, the Kraslice area and far into Saxony. The nicest way up is from Horní Blatná past the Wolf Pits, and there's a snack bar below the tower. Open daily from May to October and at weekends in winter; admission is a token fee.
Lookout towers30 kmA stone lookout tower on the highest summit of the Ore Mountains (1,244 m). The original 19th-century tower was so badly damaged that it was taken apart stone by stone and rebuilt, reopening in 2013. The gallery at 14 metres offers an all-round view of the Ore Mountain ridges, the Doupov Mountains and the Fichtelberg in Saxony. In season a chairlift brings you up, and in winter it goes well with a day's skiing.
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