European Trip 24: Karlovy Vary, Czechia.

Tuesday 15th October 2024 (day 32)

On the recommendation of two other motor-homers we met on the Prague park-up, we made a slight change to our plans and headed more or less due west, to the spa town of Karlovy Vary.

The popularity of the town, for those seeking a “cure” is evident in the number of very large posh hotels and that most of the shops cater for the very well-off, selling jewellery, watches, handbags, shoes and fashionable clothes.

The Kaiserbad Spa building is extraordinary:

Painted on the gable end of one building is a remarkably life-like cartoon mural:

This was apparently the home of Dvorak, the composer, and his house has a plaque outside:

I do not believe I have ever visited anywhere like it before. Yes, we have been to Bath and to Buxton in England, but here, the springs are everywhere and the water is hot.

There is a good trade in special cups which are used to “take the waters”. We saw many people using these. The handle is effectively a straw, which draws water from inside the base of the cup.

Another, more modern building, houses a huge fountain which spouts hot sulphurous water continually, and has three drinking fountains in an adjacent room:

Some of the hotels offer an extensive range of “treatments” which presumably are designed to cure all ills:

Whilst waiting for the bus back to our park-up for the night, we decided to have a warming drink in one of the posh hotels, the “Grand Hotel Pupp”, which has a rather nice cafe:

The town also has a speciality drink, a herbal liqueur, which is on sale via a huge bottle/kiosk and via many other vendors:

I decided to try some, so bought a small bottle to take back to Fufu. I didn’t like it much, but Alison could tolerate it, if not actually enjoy it. It has a very strong flavour, presumably to take away the taste of the warm puddle-water, ingested earlier.

Our choice of overnight park-up is a free car park, outside of the Ice Hockey rink. No services and it is on a bit of a slope, but the price is right and the bus stop is within a few yards.

We move on towards Germany tomorrow. TTFN. See you later.