We spent a few days during our “expedition break” in Mosty u Jablunkova in the Moravian-Silesian Region, about 46 km southeast of Ostrava. It lies in the Jablunkov Pass of the Beskydy Mountains in the historical region of Cieszyn Silesia on the border with Slovakia. The highest peak is Severka Mountain, 945 m above sea level.
The village was founded between 1545 and 1577, during the reign of Duke Wenceslaus III Adam. After the Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire, a modern municipal division was introduced in the re-established Austrian Silesia. After World War I, Polish–Czechoslovak War and the division of Cieszyn Silesia in 1920, it became a part of Czechoslovakia. Following the Munich Agreement, in October 1938, together with the Trans-Olza region, it was annexed by Poland. Nazi Germany annexed the municipality at the beginning of World War II. On 25–26 August 1939, a group of German Abwehr armed agents attacked the rail station in Mosty. It is known as the Jabłonków incident.
We hiked in Šance around one of the vital evidence of fortress construction in the mountains, part of the system of fortification of Jablunkov Pass. It was a series of minor fortifications, which were gradually built in the southeastern part of Silesia on the border with the Kingdom of Hungary and Poland from the 16th to the beginning of the 19th century. It is now located on the territory of three countries – Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland- near the Jablunkov Pass (551 – 605 meters above sea level).
Parking location – Šance: 49.499079N 18.743728E