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We arrived in Karlovy Vary (also called Carlsbad) around 1:00pm in the afternoon on Sunday afternoon. At first it seemed like a normal town, but once we got to the area where the hotel was, it was quite a different story as there is an area which revolves around the mineral water springs and you could tell there was a lot of wealth in the area with many designer stores and posh looking hotels.
The town is a "spa town", known for it's warm water mineral springs which are touted to have healing properties. A number of tourists visit for a 2+ week stint, to go on a program where they drink from the spring fountains every day and have various other spa treatments to cure their ailments. For us though, it was just a passing trip, to see the scenery in the area and get some relaxing in before we made our way to Canada.
On Sunday afternoon we walked around the place and Van made an appointment for a spa-visit the next day. There were many designer brand stores and hotels lining the sides of the river going through the central tourist area. We purchased a little porcelein cup which is commonly used for drinking from the fountains. We sampled from the hottest of the 12 existing fountains - the taste was not very much to our liking, but when in Rome.... (or Carlsbad in this case). For dinner, we went to the second-best reviewed place and both had seafood seeing that it had been so long (seafood had been a big no-no in India due to our food safety concerns).
Monday morning was spent getting the funicular up to the Diana Tower with views over the town, followed by Coffee and Cake at the Grandhotel Pupp. In the afternoon, Van went for her spa treatments (4 hours including massage, pearl bath, hot-cold treatment etc), while Matt opted for a 1 hour massage, a stroll around the town, and some fries + a beer. In the afternoon, we enjoyed a couple of glasses of champagne before we headed to a cute French restaurant for our final meal on holiday, which didn't disappoint.
After our last European-version continental breakfast for some time, we boosted out of town at 9am to make our way back to Prague airport to catch the first of our three flights that would see us arrive in Stavanger in the evening.
We really enjoyed our seven days in the Czech Republic (moreso once recovered from the Indian food sickness!) :-)
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