Day Trip Karlovy Vary: Spa, Hot Springs and Becherovka

If you plan to visit only one spa resort in the Czech Republic, it must be Karlovy Vary 145 kilomteres northwest of Prague. You will find in this charming town imposing white spa pavilions, a beautiful promenade gallery and twelve hot springs. Karlovy Vary is not only the city of hot springs but also of Becherovka, a herbal bitter often drunk as a digestive aid but above all very tasty. Spa guests come not only to drink the water, but also for the festivals that are held in the city. One of the best known is the Karlovy Vary Film Festival which takes place in the month of July

Karlovy Vary Day Trip Excursion

Highlights of this tour

1. Guided tour of Karlovy Vary
2. Tasting mineral water
3. Lunch included

Hot Water Springs and Spa

Karlovy Vary, also known as Carlsbad, was in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the city where emperors, kings and ministers concluded treaties and made or broke careers. All this while they are drinking the healing waters. Karlovy Vary is still a popular spa city. Regular visitors come to visit the hot springs once or twice a year, many of them are Russians. Besides the water drinking therapy they also come for massage, hydrotherapy and many more therapies. Nothing has changed since the nineteenth century. The spa visitors still drink liters of spring water a day, they go for walks in the wooded surroundings and they listen to outdoor concerts

Karlovy Vary Water

Karlovy Vary water is not a delicacy. It has an iodine after taste. When you want to drink the spa water, you buy a small porcelain water jug with a spout to suck up the water. In between sipping the healing water, you nibble spa waffles, oplatky kolonáda, thin and crunchy, filled with a mixture of hazelnut, cinnamon and sugar (you can also buy them at any Albert supermarket in Prague). The water from each of the twelve sources has a different composition. The temperature is between 40 and 73˚C. The spa doctor prescribes from which source to drink, how much and at what time of the day.

Day Trip Karlovy Vary

A day trip to Karlovy Vary is an excellent idea also when you are not a spa guest. Visit the Becherovka Museum, learn about the production of lead free crystal in the Moser shop, walk upstream the Tepla river and stop at the bust of Johann Wolfgang Goethe, writer and statesman, who said: “Ich möchte mir in drei Städten leben Weimar, Karlsbad und Rom (I would like to live in three cities Weimar, Carlsbad and Rome)

Photos: Marianne Crone