Petr Bergmann has a passion for postcards, provided their subject matter is his beloved region of Broumov, a nature preserve on the Polish border in north Bohemia not far from Trutnov. For the past seven years, Bergmann has organized a summer festival there that combines nature tours, art, music and unique architecture.

The festival days begin with a guided tour of the forests and other natural attractions of the region, by foot or bike, and conclude with a performance in one of the region's villages. Weekend tours begin earlier and last longer.

Performers in past years have included Japanese flutists, classical Indian musicians and Macedonian accordionist Dragan Stojčevski, who is returning this year. The 2006 lineup also features the four-woman Czech singing ensemble The Yellow Sisters, taking advantage of the acoustic benefits of an historic chapel. They sing a blend of world, reggae, soul and funk. The alternative folk singer Václav Havelka will likewise take his unusual breed of song-making to the resonating halls of a Broumov church.

"It's great for the performers as well as the audience, because they get to take advantage of the acoustic value of these places," Bergmann says of the chapels. "They're really fantastic and accentuate the resonance of singers' voices."

Also on the bill this year is Mimraj, a single evening heralding the start of a wider-scale, summer-long celebration of 50 years of mime in the Czech Republic. This evening will feature solo performances by students of movement theater and modern pantomime, commemorating the work of Ladislav Fialka, the original Czech master of mime. Old postcards of the region will also be on display, some of which date back 100 years or more. These are often the last remaining record of how buildings, and at times whole Broumov villages, originally looked.

Unique in the Czech Republic, Broumov is a wide mountainous region notable for its towering sandstone formations, the tallest of their kind in Europe. "Usually such formations are 50 to 60 meters [164 to 197 feet] tall, but those in Broumov are 100 meters and taller," Bergmann explains. In some areas the massive groups of rocks form "rock towns," with deep ridges carved in labyrinthine patterns between the formations that resemble streets weaving through medieval villages.

While Broumov's unique rock formations are a draw, the principal aim of the festival is to highlight the area's architectural history. "Broumov is so closed off to the outside world by mountains that the artisans there developed their own special decorative and construction style," Bergmann explains. "There are houses of a sort you can find nowhere else in the Czech Republic." According to Bergmann, the farmhouses of the area even have their own official architectural category.

Broumov is part of the area from which Sudeten Germans were expelled after World War II. Bergmann says that the comparatively new residents don't have the same connection with the architectural sites, and that local villagers often show little interest in their preservation. "Many of these unique Baroque chapels are falling into disrepair," he says sadly. "Except for thieves, no one has been inside for 40 or 50 years."

Last year, Bergmann says, volunteers had to spend two weeks simply cleaning the floor of one church in which several feet of pigeon debris had accumulated, "The doors hadn't been opened for 50 years. And then, on the first day of our festival, 350 people were in there to see a Japanese flutist perform." This, Bergmann says, is the magic of the Broumov festival.