Karlovy Vary - The Great Adventure

Today let me regale you with a story—a tale of bravery, adventure, and true heroics. 

The setting: the picturesque mountain town of Karlovy Vary, the sun is out and it looks to be a perfect day.  Alex, Kati, and myself had stopped in a back-street cellar restaurant for an authentic Czech lunch, svíčová na smetaně (roast beef with sour cream sauce and cranberries), which was quite delicious.

Then we stepped outside and all hell broke loose.  The sky was falling—literally.  The sun was nowhere to be found and raindrops the size of my fingers were pounding against the cobblestoned street.  We had left our raincoats at the hotel, well on the other side of the town.  Our only hope was to wait out the storm.  Yet we dashed from the entrance to the restaurant to the great gates of a church and then rushed down the hill to the building housing the Vřídlo geyser, splashing through the street-turned river with every step.  After sampling the sulfurous healing waters Vřídlo had to offer, we were faced with a dilemma.  We wanted to continue exploring the city, but Alex was wearing his only pair of jeans for the week and Kati, being a girl, was scared she would melt in the rain.

It was at that moment that I thought to myself, “Jackson, this is one of those moments that define your character; one of those moments that separates the men from the boys.”  In an instant I sacrificed my dryness and dashed out into the rain, up the street—trying to make it to the hotel and retrieve raincoats for all of us.  After crowning the top of a large hill I realized that I should not have gone uphill, but by then it was too late, I was trapped and could either backtrack or go even further and hope for a way down.  I decided to do a little freestyle running and jumped off a few ledges into the backyards of hotels and down back alleys until I finally reached the Hotel Romania.  Walking through the patio restaurant and into the lobby, I got a number of sideways glances.  There was no possible way I belonged in that hotel when I was drenched head-to-toe in a ratty t-shirt and couldn’t even see where I was going through the precipitation on my glasses.

Yet I put on my sandals, grabbed our coats, and made my way triumphantly back down the street to meet Alex and Kati.  Not more than 20 steps away from the hotel, the rain stopped.

Karlovy Vary - Great Day

At the Becher Museum

We spent August 4 in Karlovy Vary--a town that doesn't get nearly as much attention in the United States as it should.  You would recognize its streets from scenes in Casino Royale, and its Grandhotel Pupp set the scene for Queen Latifah's masterpiece Last Holiday. (Yes, I'm a closet Queen Latifah fan)

For decades Karlovy Vary has been the destination of choice for Russian, Ukranian, and other soviet bloc countries.  We befriended a Karlovy Varian at the local pool/spa who makes furniture and said that 90% of the residents of the town work in the tourism industry, so it is very much a tourist hub.

King Charles IV founded Karlovy Vary by accident.  He was hunting when one of his dogs fell into a hole that happened to be one of Karlovy Vary's 15 natural springs.  It's these springs that bring the tourists to the town (In addition to fantastic skiing in the winter).  For centuries people have made the pilgrimage to Karlovy Vary in the hopes that their springs would heal their ailments.  The 15 springs all have different levels of iron, sulfer, etc., and each caters to healing certain types of ailments.  The springs vary from trickles from a faucet to a full-fledged geyser that spurts 2,000 liters per minute.

The town is quite picturesque, there are two main streets, one on each side of the river that splits the town in half.  Both banks are lined with idyllic hotels and colorful buildings.  Only Hotel Thermal, a hideous concrete monstrosity, tarnishes the otherwise perfect city.  We spent the day tasting spring water and relaxing at the local pool.  The pool, although lacking in a hot tub as we had hoped, actually had a very unique feature.  One of the pools, which I've dubbed a European Massage Pool, had several stations.  One employed a powerful waterfall on the wall to massage your upper back; the next had a strong central jet to get the lower back; the third was a smaller jet used for massaging your feet; and finally there were three "lounge chair" positions built into the pool that provided a full back and leg massage.  The jets would turn on for 10 minutes or so and then turn off for about 2 minutes, signaling that your turn at that position was over and you needed to move on.  If the pool was hot, it would have been perfect, but it was still incredibly relaxing.

After a relaxing day at the spa we grabbed some pizza and then walked around the town at night, admiring the lit streets--especially the Grandhotel Pupp.  The only [slight] disappointment about Pupp is that the ceiling in the reception area was not so beautiful that it made me cry, like Queen Latifah said it was in Last Holiday.  Regardless, Karlovy Vary is hands-down my favorite stop so far.