The summation of today is I hope one of the spas helps to prevent hangovers!
We had an early start to make it over to Dobříš to catch the 09:32 train to Praha hl.n for our onward connection to Karlovy Vary in the heart of the Bohemian spa region. Our first train was a small diesel railcar that squealed it's way from village to village and took the best part of 90 minutes to complete a journey that would take a little over half an hour to drive. It was then on the R612 Krušnohor for the rest of the journey, initially retracing our route towards the German border from earlier in the week with a classic Škoda loco to Ústí nad Labem, then a change of direction with a brand new 2024 Siemens Vectron in the opposite direction up in to the hills towards Karlovy Vary.
We had booked our tickets in advance and managed to get two adjacent tables, so had one for the kids and one for the three adults. Unfortunately, Petr was unable to join us on this trip because of work. It was over 5 hours travel time in total, but the kids did well to entertain themselves with a mixture of card games, drawing and especially in Emma and Paloma's case, eating snacks!
Our small hotel, or pension as they are called in the Czech Republic, was located up high on the edge of the valley, so we decided that a bus would be a wise choice for the majority of the journey. The bus driver didn't seem too impressed when Jana asked for 3 adults and 4 kids tickets, but he did eventually sell us the tickets and we were on our way. It would appear that most locals use an app or touch in with their bank card, but there was no info about this before boarding the bus. Even after we got off the bus at our closest stop, we still had a good climb up to our accommodation.
We have the attic apartment that consists of two twin bedrooms at either end, with a double bed in the middle space in what doubles up as the living area. Whilst a little worn around the edges and very hot without aircon, it should be an ideal base for our time in Karlovy Vary. Jana and her kids are just downstairs from us on the 2nd floor and have one big shared space for the three of them.
Karlovy Vary is famous as a spa town. Historically, people would visit from afar to drink the water from the different spas to help with their ailments. Today, it is mainly a tourist attraction with people tasting the water from all the spas across the town. By chance, our route down from the hotel brought us out in to the town next to the Vřídlo (Hot Spring) and from here we purchased each of the kids a traditional small tasting cup so that we could sample the water.
There was a map that showed another 13 locations in the local vicinity, so we followed the masses from spring to spring to collect a small sample of water from each one. Most had quite a warm temperature, in the 50 to 60 °C range and they all tasted more like salt water than fresh.
Very close to our hotel we'd earlier seen a smart looking Italian restaurant called Pizzeria Locale, so after finishing in the town centre we caught the bus back up the hill and we made our way to the restaurant for dinner. They initially only had outside tables available, so we again went with the same 4+3 formation as the train with the kids and adults having their own tables. The food all looked and tasted very good, as did the house red! The only issue was the number of wasps, so we were pleased when they offered a table indoors not too long after our food arrived. Another bottle of red later and after deserts, we dragged ourselves back up the hill to the hotel.
Tomorrow we plan to again stay local in Karlovy Vary, before exploring another of the local spa towns on Monday.
Blogged by Matt.
