Introduction

Since when, at the age of nine, I first set eyes upon Stonehenge, I have had a fascination for Stone Circles and their lonelier cousins, the Menhirs.

As we chugged past (cars were not very fast in the mid nineteen-sixties and, even then, the A303 heading West was always slow) I was struck by the magnificence of that monument.

Even at such a young age, I was already helping my father by moving things on our small-holding and I knew about weight. So, having already read about it, actually viewing Stonehenge filled me with awe. I could only wonder about what must have been the amount of sheer human effort required to get those massive stones into position.

My fascination has never ended and, since then, I have always visited any neolithic monument that I could find.

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We had a couple of weeks of holiday and, not really having the urge, for once, to head off to somewhere distant, we decided to spend some of it comparatively locally.

I had discovered during my time in Prague, that there were a number of Menhirs both close to and distant from the city. I had visited a few of the nearer ones in the mid nineties, but in a car and with a Czech speaking friend.

I suggested to Lucie that we could revisit some of these and perhaps locate a few new ones. I, for instance, had recently discovered there were actually a few Stone Circles – and one was not very far away, as it was near Plzeň (Pilsen).

Lucie just loves research and, being able to do it in Czech, she rapidly unearthed a plethora, if not a veritable cornucopia, of possibilities.

Then, she went into full blown planning mode !

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Saturday, May 30^th, 2026

Total Distance ridden – 144 Kilometres

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The Petrified Servant (Zkamenělý slouha)

We woke up early to a sunny Saturday morning that already promised a hot day ahead. Because we were going locally, we had no real luggage, just some water and our power bank. We also chose to use our older Harley, the FatBoy.

Our first destination was, almost unbelievably, within the City Limits of Prague and, until very recently, I had never heard of it.

On a quiet Saturday morning, it took less than twenty-five minutes to cross the city, even on the slightly esoteric route selected by Mapy, Lucie’s map program. When we pulled up beside our first Menhir of the day, we had only covered about fourteen kilometres.

Known as the Petrified (as in “turned to stone”, not scared) Servant, this Menhir stands, right beside the road, outside a residential house (Ládevská 542/29, Praha-Dolní Chabry) the front wall of which was, quite literally, built around it. Other, smaller stones were found nearby in 2006.

The GPS is 50.1431814N, 14.4518506E

A sign, helpfully in both Czech and English, gives a brief history of the stone which, it is believed, was originally placed in the fields between 6,000 and 7000 B.C.

Its height, including the part below ground is about three metres and it weighs about a thousand kilograms (one metric ton).

To give readers an idea of the size of each Menhir, I got Lucie to stand beside them.

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Menhir Horoměřice

Waved off (or possibly, away) by the owner of the house, we set off again through the city to one of its outer suburbs, Horoměřice.

This was again a comparatively rapid journey of about twenty kilometres and, even with more traffic (“normal” people going shopping), it took us only around half an hour.

Thanks to Lucie’s map program, we easily located our target, which was located beneath a Lime tree (the Czech National tree), right next to the local school (K Menhiru 1001, 252 62 Horoměřice). Again, we could park almost right beside it.

The GPS is 50.1328822N, 14.3461275E

This Menhir was a small one, only about half a metre tall. It is thought to have been erected in Celtic times, around 300 B.C.

The Menhir is reputed to have originally been around a metre tall with a “roughly sculpted man’s head”. Sadly, it was damaged in 1965 and we guessed that the Lime tree had been planted to protect it.

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The Thousand Year Stone (Kámen tisíciletí)

My lovely wife has quite a sense of humour. The popular conception of a Menhir is some large and lonely stone, erected for reasons we are unable even to guess at, at some point in the distant past. The next stone to which she led me was anything but that.

We re-entered and then left Prague again and headed away in a South Westerly direction along the D5 Motorway towards the town of Beroun.

We passed that, no doubt, excellent town and took exit 14 towards Králův Dvůr. We went through the town, following route 605 but, due to roadworks and road closures, were thwarted in our initial attempts to ride to Černín. We had to retrace our steps and go first to Svatá and then come back down the hill on road 236 before turning left onto road 2362. At least the scenery was breathtakingly lovely.

We came to a point where the road became one-way in our direction of travel, which at least explained why we had not been able to ride up it – and found a rough track on the left, leading up hill (Unnamed Road, 267 51 Zdice (North of 2362)) GPS 49.934233, 13.992802

Maybe if I had owned a Harley Pan-America, we could have ridden up there (certainly, some clown on a dirt bike came down at quite a speed as we were trudging up), but, as it was, we felt it politic to park and walk up. It was about a kilometre uphill, not really that far but it had become rather warm so it felt further, before I spotted an impressive stone against the skyline.

Here is where it is on GPS 49.9330733N, 13.9833189E

But – and this was Lucie’s (first) little joke, this Menhir was erected not in the murky depths of antiquity, but in errrr …. 2004 !!!

As was, perhaps, implied by its name, this Menhir was erected by the nearby ancient village of Černín to mark the one thousand years since its foundation.

Still, it was fairly impressive and the views from the summit were good !

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Menhir Mořinka

We walked back down the slope and I trundled the Harley back to the road. At least, because the curious one-way system began immediately to the left of where it joined the track, we could take the short way back to the road 605 and Králův Dvůr.

We crossed the river Berounka, rode underneath the D5 Motorway and took the little road 116 which wound its way, slightly tortuously to Hostim where, after passing through the town, we took a road to the left (that was minor enough to have no number at all). This took us to Bubovice, Mořina and our destination, Mořinka.

We rode into Mořinka, which is a dead end and parked our bike beside the road. (Just past Mořinka 73, Mořinka). The little yellow hut is a good marker.
The GPS is 49.9415322N, 14.2407192E

To our left, a path led up the hill and the tip of a Menhir was visible against the skyline. If you cannot see it, the GPS of the Menhir is 49.9432428N, 14.2388597E

Another hill for us to trek up, but at least the breeze was cooling. At the summit was another Menhir and another joke from Lucie. This stone was also very recent having been dragged up there (by use of a pulley system) by one hundred local people on the last day of the last Millennium, that is December 31^st, 1999 !

Of course, on the basis that there was not a year zero, I think the last millennium ended on December 31^st, 2000 – but I am not about to dispute that with a hundred people who were strong enough to drag that stone up that hill !

For the sake of interest, the stone itself came from a local quarry and the Menhir (you cannot dispute that it is one) stands three metres tall.

Somewhat strangely there is also, nearby, an armchair called Zděnkovo křeslo (Zděnek’s armchair) that appears to be made of concrete and which, was created by local artist Zděnek Ruffer. Perhaps, even more strangely, it was rather comfortable.

The views were really lovely, but it was very windy up there !

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We completely were “Menhir’d Out” (is that even a term ?) and, as it was after lunchtime, we were both pretty hungry.

Either by good fortune or Lucie’s clever planning (I strongly suspect the latter) we were only a few kilometres from one of our favourite restaurants, “U Máni v Třebani” in nearby Hlásná Třeban (Karlštejnská 328, 26718 Hlásná Třebaň).

It has its own page on this site

https://travelswithmyharley.com/2022/07/03/u-mani-v-trebani/

We love the Prague Ham they cook outside on the grill – it was, as always, truly excellent.

Then we rode the fairly short distance home.

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Four Menhirs down, goodness knows how many left !