AT A GLANCE
Why go?
The Val Lookout Tower (Rozhledna Val) is a slender steel observation deck on the 788-metre hill of Val, about three kilometres east of the small East Bohemian town of Králíky. Built in 2002 as a mobile-phone transmitter and opened to visitors the following year, it gives the public a free, year-round climb to a 22-metre platform with one of the broadest 360-degree panoramas in this corner of the Czech Republic.↗↗↗
From the top you sweep across the Králický Sněžník massif—the third-highest range in the country—the Jeseníky peaks, the Orlické hory, the rounded uplands of the Hanušovice Highlands and, close at hand, the baroque pilgrimage monastery crowning Hora Matky Boží above the town. It is a compact, easy outing that rewards a short climb with a genuinely big view.↗↗
A Tower With Two Jobs
The tower on Val was never planned purely as a viewpoint. In 2002 the operator Český Mobil erected a steel lattice transmitter on the hilltop, and the town of Králíky made one condition: a publicly accessible observation gallery had to be built into the structure. Before a single beam went up, engineers famously hoisted a high-reach platform to the intended height to study how the silhouette would look from different directions toward the town and the nearby monastery.
