Karlovy Vary: when it is worth a day from Prague

Karlovy Vary is further than Kutná Hora and closer than Krumlov. Two hours each way is a real price. What you get back is a spa town with colonnades, a river and a pace that is nothing like Prague in August.

If you only have one day outside the city, Kutná Hora wins on logistics. If you have two days, or you want something calm after a busy weekend on the bridge, Karlovy Vary works.

With a private car you can leave after breakfast at the hotel and be back for dinner in Prague. On a coach you travel on everybody else's schedule.

What is actually there

Karlovy Vary is a complete spa city in a narrow valley, not a town with a single sight. It has twelve main hot springs, roofed colonnades built so people could sip from them at leisure, vast nineteenth-century hotels, bath houses, a theatre, and a promenade along the Teplá river. The geyser spring shoots several metres into the air, and that is the part everyone photographs.

Who it suits, and who it suits less

This is a day of easy level walking, coffee, architecture and time to sit. It is excellent for couples, for anyone who walks less, and for anyone after a pleasant day rather than a demanding one. It suits young children looking for action less well, and it is not a nature day. In those cases Bohemian Paradise or Kutná Hora work better.

Water, cups and tasting

The water is hot and mineral, and each spring has its own temperature and taste. The little cup with a spout sold on every corner is not merely a souvenir: it genuinely makes drinking water at sixty degrees easier. Nobody has to drink, but it is half the experience. Becherovka, the local herbal liqueur, is sold across town and has its own visitor centre, and it is worth remembering that it is stronger than it looks.

A real spa needs booking

Treatments in the historic hotels, mineral baths or massages, run at set times by appointment. You cannot walk in off the street on a busy day. If that is what interests you, it is the first thing to mention when we agree the day, so the route is built around the slot.

What to combine on the way

• Loket. A small village with a castle on a rock above the river, about twenty minutes from Karlovy Vary. An hour there upgrades the day.
• Mariánské Lázně. A second spa town, greener and quieter, with a singing fountain. Right for anyone enjoying the atmosphere and wanting more of it.
• A glass or porcelain works. The region has a long tradition, and it is the kind of purchase that stays in the house after the trip.