Fun in Karlovy Vary

I finally started having fun when I reached Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad). The train station where I first arrived sits on top of a hill about a half mile outside of town. The city looked rather pretty from above. A stream ran through the middle of town and ended up pouring into a larger river that was just below my train station. Ornate bridges crossed the stream every so often, and the sidewalks that ran next to it were covered with fallen chestnuts. I saw plenty of people on the streets, but no tour groups. The people here were making their own choices about what to see and when. Before I left home I had read reviews about Karlovy Vary on the travel sites. I saw several vague critiques recommending that people avoid the town, and patronize Marienbad or Franzensbad instead. On further investigation I found that these reviews were written mostly by Czechs who were unhappy that Karlovy Vary continued to be a popular hangout for Russian Oligarchs and their more rank and file compatriots. Since our president seems to like Russians a lot, I thought Karlovy Vary offered me an opportunity to observe them in the wild. Here was my chance to understand what was so fascinating about them. 🙂

I had no problem finding my hotel, (The Hotel Romance, otherwise known as The Pushkin Hotel), because I passed a tourist office as I walked along the stream into the center of town. The clerk laughed when I asked for directions. My hotel was just around the corner. The Pushkin Hotel turned out to be a great place to observe Russians, though most were of an older more well heeled sort, and frankly, pretty boring.

Actually the hotel was a lot more fun than I make it sound. Included in the room charge was a huge Russian breakfast that included a half dozen types of pickled vegetables, three kinds of fish, little pancakes that the people on the tables next to me were smearing with heavy cream and caviar (two kinds of fish eggs), meats, sausages, a table full of pastries, black bread, rye bread, and the regular kind that you could toast in the available toasters, and then cover with a large selection of berry jams, and, of course tea, which was served from a huge samovar. I almost missed my bus on the day I left because I lingered a little too long over this magnificent breakfast. Dinner at the hotel however, was unreasonably expensive which leads me to the second thing I liked about the hotel, the girls at the front desk. They apparently don’t get a lot of backpackers at the hotel and were very friendly and helpful. When I mentioned that dinner cost too much there, they told me that Karlovy Vary was divided into two neighborhoods, an expensive tourist neighborhood where the hotel was located, and a less tourist-ed part of town where the workers lived, ate and shopped. I was sent to a small Italian restaurant where I had a dish of Lasagna, a salad, bread sticks and a Coke for around $5.00. This savings for dinner allowed me to splurge on my second night in Karlovy Vary at a very upscale Italian restaurant where uniformed waiters would come around to my table to scrape away any breadcrumbs I left after I finished the introductory warm bread, (which I dipped into olive oil and balsamic vinegar). Many of the other diners were dressed in sport coats and ties. I suspect the waiters weren’t too happy with me for ruining the high class ambiance of the place as I sat there in my windbreaker and jeans. For dessert I had an $6.00 cannoli. Expensive, but otherwise perfect. I took a deep breath and asked for my bill. It was a budget breaker, but definitely worth it.

After dinner I walked by the local opera house where some event was taking place that night. The ticket office was open but one look at the men in tuxedos and women in evening dresses standing on the steps convinced me that I was even less likely to fit in there than I was in the expensive restaurant.

Further along the central stream a street fair and a folk dance exhibition were in progress. One of the reasons I liked Karlovy Vary so much was that there seemed to be some sort of entertainment for everyone, no matter the size of their wallet. In this case a lot of young families had brought their children there for a cheap evening of sampling sweets and spinning around on little hand operated kiddie rides.

I meandered among various food stalls, and sampled a glass of cheap but tasty beer. While my wardrobe certainly fit the occasion, after ten minutes I realized that I really didn’t feel any more at home here among the shrieks and sobs of cotton candy smeared kids than I did at the opera, or the fancy restaurant and headed back across the stream to photograph some of the local art and architecture. I eventually returned to my hotel where I spent some time researching everyday life in Karlovy Vary with the desk clerks.

I learned that in order to work in a Karlovy Vary hotel you had to be fluent in at least three languages: Russian, English and Czech. One of the girls was also fluent in German. I wondered at the time how many desk clerks in US hotels could say the same? It wasn’t too much of a surprise, however, to learn that the clerks weren’t very impressed with their home town’s charms and activities. Still as a tourist new to Karlovy Vary, I had to disagree.

Like Saratoga Springs near my home, large numbers of tourists have been coming to Karlovy Vary, (Carlsbad) to sample the waters since the 1800’s, ( and before, though tourism didn’t really take off until the 1800’s). Like Saratoga there are baths and a number of free standing springs where people can fill up on the healthful(?) waters. Unlike Saratoga the springs here are mostly hot and steaming, (some are very hot!), and the stream running through town runs warm all year round due to these springs.

I left Karlovy Vary after two days though I felt that I had barely scratched the surface of all it had to offer. This was the first city I visited that I wanted to revisit. It deserved to be more than one stop in a long series of short visits! Perhaps I will return. Perhaps.