"Karlovy Vary is the oldest and biggest of Bohemia's fashionable spas. Wealthy hypochondriac wrinklies with oversized sungalsses, yuppie dogs and too much jewlerry flock here from Germany, Austria, and Russia, to take the waters and sign up for courses of 'lymphatic drainage' and 'hydrocolonal therapy'..." hm... yuppie dogs? big sunglasses?
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| Karlovy Vary |
The guidebook goes on... "You can pretend to be a spa patient by purchasing a spa cup and a box of spa wafers and sampling the various hotsprings (free) which are prominently displayed in shops all over the spa."
Wafers and cups? That seems like a small price to pay to get a "spa day." A bit peculiar...but when in Czech, do as the guidebook says.
We weaved through downtown trying to find parking for Paulina (our wheels) and finally came across a wide sideroad not far from the main streets- where we believed the "spas" to be.
"We might as well bring our bathing suits with us now," I suggest, "to avoid having to come back to the car to get our things once we find a spa that we think we can get into using the wafer and cup tactics."
"Yup, sounds like a plan," agree the other three. We sorted our things and made our way into town towards the tourist "information centre," which was little more than a big board. Not to sell the board short, it did have an audio feature. It described the "mill colonnade," home to twelve spas! We headed in that direction.
As we approach the colonnade, featuring tall columns in a large open arcade-a very pretty space- we see tiny fountains lining the centre, spaced 20 feet apart, each with a bronze plaque mounted nearby.
Costas points to these little fountains, "The colonnade," he says.
Hm. We saunter up and inspect the tiny fountain, "Look at the mineral build up!" says Mike.
"Ah, yes," I reply cooly. I look down the stretch of the colonnade, and see other tourists milling about.
Many are holding these porcelain cups that look like miniature teapots-
"Look at those tea cup thingers!" I say. Tourists are holding these cups under the fountains and filling them with the warm thermal spring water.
Hm. I look at Paul. We exchange confused looks.
I lean in and whisper to Paul, "Do you think we came all this way to drink this water?"
"I'm beginning to think so," says Paul, smirking.
As we made our way along the colonnade and into the indoor atrium of "spas," it soon became clear that the Czech description of a "spa" meant a thermal hot spring- no matter the size. And these particular ones were for drinking only. The indoor atrium spas hosted a range of little shops- many selling these porcelain tea cup/pots. There was also a wafer shop.
"Ahhhhh! These are the cups and wafers mentioned in Lonley Planet! They must serve as pallet cleansers," proclaims Paul.
The water tasted almost creamy, and very mineraly- sometimes metallic. How anyone would consider drinking several cups of this stuff was beyond me. I can certainly see how doing so might lead to "hydrocolon therapy."
We snapped a photo in front of the largest geiser or "spa" in central Karlovy Vary, disappointed that our swim wear didn't get put to use.
After a quick walk around a few other streets in town (I think we felt a need to make the trip to the city a little more worthwhile), we headed back to the car.
As we walked back up the street where we parked, approaching Paulina, the cars we passed by had been clamped.
My stomach dropped.
Oh no.
We approach Paulina and saw no clamp on the street side wheel. I quickly dash to the curb side wheel....
"Ohhhh no."
"We've been clamped?" the boys ask, coming around the side of the car.
"It appears so."
Fortunately the police were in the process of ticketing and clamping the next car, parked 20ft ahead. We approach the two police officers- a short, broad shouldered bald man and his tall, dark haired, and very Czech looking counterpart.
"Ah, we've been clamped," says Mike to the bald officer, pointing back to Paulina.
The officer grunts and kind of nods, as if to say, "Yes, you have."
There are no smiles.
We were all banking on the unknowing tourist card to get out of this situation, but it seemed these police weren't going to be overly sympathetic.
"Where are the signs?" asks Mike.
"No cars. No driving," says the bald cop.
"But where are the signs to say that?" asks Mike, painting the shape of a street sign with his hands.
The cops both point down to the bottom of the street with very grim looking faces.
"Okay, guys, whatever, it doesn't matter if there are signs, we're clamped. We need out," I say. I can appreciate Mike's frustration.... particularly since he had made a point of checking the nearby cars to see if they had any particular permit when we first parked. There we no parking signs of any kind in the area... but alas, it was not a battle we would win.
"How do we get it taken off?" Mike asks.
With a straight face and a gruff Czech accent, the shorter officer says "500 koruna."
The wheels immediately start turning for all four of us as we frantically try to convert this to euros or sterling and get a sense of how much trouble we're in....
"That's around 18 quid," says Paul quietly to the three of us. We all visibily relaxed.
Turning to the officer, Paul then pipes up, "Can we pay in Euro?"
"No. Change," abruptly replied the taller officer.
"Okay, I'll run and get some Koruna," says Paul as he turns to head off down the street toward a nearby hotel.
The taller officer turns to us again and says, "Passport."
"Oh, okay," says Mike, digging into his pocket and handing over his passport.
The bald officer opens the trunk of the cop car and digs around, pulling out a wrench. He then slowly walks past us towards Paulina. We watch as he kneels down and ratchets at the wheel clamp to pry it off the passenger side wheel.
As he returns to the cop car with wheel clamp in hand, I say "Thank you!" in the most chipper, helpless female voice I can muster up.... digging for some sympathy. While the tall cop was copying down details from Mike's passport, Mike, Costas and I stood around shuffling our feet, waiting for the cop to finish and or Paul to return with the Koruna. Not long after Paul appeared over the crest of the hill with a crisp 500 koruna note in hand, passing it to the cop in exchange for the 'official parking ticket'.
"Thank you," I say cheerily, as we make our way back to the car.
We climb into the car, a tad deflated from the day's events so far. We turned our attention to the Tomtom in hopes of brighter adventures for the rest of the afternoon.
With family from the Czech Republic, my mother kindly sought some information from Aunt Judy about some noteworthy destinations in the country. Terezin had made the list, as a city about an hour north of Prague and home to an interesting concentration camp. I plugged it into the Tomtom and off we went.
The drive passed quickly, with endless Czech countryside flying by. We navigated motorway (turns out without the necessary road permit....forunately we figrued that out on our own before getting another ticket) and weaved through tiny villages. We circumvented Prague, taking note of the peripheral view we had of the city. By late afternoon we were approaching the town of Terezin, but without really taking much note, we had traveled well over an hour past Prague. Hm...
As we pass the sign for the "city" of Terezin, we could in the same range of sight see the end of town sign. It was that small. With no more than a handful of homes, buried deep in the forests between similarly small villages along a single lane road, we were in very remote territory.
"It is awfully remote here," says Paul, "but I suppose they would want a concentration camp to be fairly well hidden," he went on.
Logical enough. Plausible.
But after poking around along the two "roads" of this town, including an inadvertent off-roading adventure into a logging camp, we soon realised there was no concentration camp to be found. We were so remote that none of our devices worked. I managed to get a few bars of cell service and make a call to a family contact, but I either mucked up the number or spoke to a Czech relative who spoke little english. It was a short lived conversation. Suffice to say we had no idea where we were.
We turned our attention back to the Tomtom and Paul started fiddling around.
"Wait a second, when I enter Prague into the Tomtom, it shows me as being here, near Austria!" he says pointing to the screen.
"Whaaaat? No," I say in disbelief.
The Tomtom uses a green flag to mark the start of your journey and a checkered flag to mark the end of your journey. Costas leans in and asks, "Why is the green flag near Austria?"
"Maybe the Tomtom has it backwards, this time. It's done it the other way around?"
We re-entered it three times.
Yup. We had driven from the north of Czech to within 20miles of the Austrian border. Apparently the Czech Republic has two towns by the name of Terezin- one in the north and one very, very small one in the south. We optimistically reflected on the lovely forest and countryside we had seen and quickly got ourselves back on the road toward Prague, our final destination for the evening.
By the time we made it to Prague we'd been in the car for nearly 6 hours. We managed to find a grand little hostel right in the centre of town. We showered and changed and were into Prague by 8pm. Mike had spent some time in Prague many moons ago and was giddy at the sights of this city. We enjoyed a spectacular meal at a very fancy restaurant, but spending a mere 15 euro each for our meal and a healthy serving of pints.
Saying CHEERS! at that meal certainly felt like we were celebrating....a celebration of having made a day full of wrongs into a lovely evening in an incredible city. We bumbled around town, enjoying pints at a few neat spots and taking in the beautiful night views that Prague has to offer. The streets were busy, and despite the cool night air, the city was warm and vibrant. We slept well.
Prague is so so beautiful! There is a free walking tour of the city which was quite nice and entertaining.. and good for low-budget travelling :)
ReplyDeleteGreetings to all of youuu!