Karlovy Vary

Last weekend (now two weekends ago) we decided it was time to get out of Prague, so we did what the nobles of Prague have done since the 1400s and went to the spa town of Karlovy Vary. Unlike the Charles IV, however, we went by Student Agency bus (hats off to Lisa organizing that) which was very similar to riding on a plane. They even brought us a free beverage and headsets to watch the in-bus movie. So we all got to watch "Sahara" and marvel at the fact that Matthew McConaughey still makes films.

From our Student Agency bus, we transferred to the local transportation, and after one failed attempt, we made it safely to our hostel. The main desk for the hostel was also a bar, and the barman/receptionist informed us that a.) we could leave our stuff in the bar and he'd look after it, and b.) that check-in was at 4 pm, but we should feel free to come later. Both of those things seemed odd, and if we hadn't been putting up with the strangeness of the Czech Republic since September, we would have been extremely paranoid.

We spent the day moseying around Karlovy Vary. We descended into the main strip of the city, several rows of ornate buildings lining the river and nestled into the rock that rises steeply from it. Our first stop was one of the Market Colonnade where we bought a small porcelain cup to sample the natural hot spring water that pulses up through the basins in the colonnades. We also bought some spa wafers (large flavored wafer disks) to take the acrid taste of the mineral water out of our mouths. I sampled water from several other colonnades, including the Mill Colonnade and Park Colonnade, before we made a giant loop of the south half of the city looking for lunch. Our loop took us past St. Peter and Paul, the Russian Orthodox church with minarets topped with fierce blue and gold domes, and a statue of Karl Marx (Karel Marx to the Czechs). We eventually settled on the only restaurant we could find open, a Thai joint that counted, among other things, pickled cobras and vipers as decorations.

We then headed to the Becherovka (the anise-y mineral spirit) museum, and got a rushed little tour, followed by a tasting of three Becherovka products while we watched a hilariously bad movie about the history of the liquor.

From there, we reverted back to the slow saunter that has become so much of our exploration in the Czech Republic. We stopped to look into the windows of expensive shops, snap pictures of almost strategic mistranslations, or riff on the political and anatomical incorrectness of various monuments, all while piecing together an alternative route back to the hostel.

Towards the bottom of our street, we split into two groups. One group went up to the hostel to check in, lug bags and the various foods for our continental breakfast up to our apartment. The rest of us went to a nearby bar for a drink and some appetizers, although not as many as we'd ordered. We then headed up towards our designated meeting place, a restaurant called Bernard, and took a few seats in a "Cafe Bar" next door. There were three other people in the place when we sat down: the owner and his two friends. The bar was decorated like a hunting lodge. Deer heads stuck out from the wall. Various birds had been stuffed and mounted. An antique gun case was a featured decoration. And, most impressively, a stuffed badger and fox stood on their hind legs, leaning on staffs and smoking corncob pipes, each wearing a pair of Pince-nez. Moreover, there were pictures of the owner, a smiling balding Czech leaving his fifties, standing over the dead bodies of most of the decor. When we asked him about it, he showed us more pictures, as well as the various shells he'd used to take them down. He then brought out a large red sausage on a cutting board and served it to us. While we ate it, he brought out a picture of a boar he had killed and made into the sausage we were currently eating, as well as the bulled he'd used, and then, as if that wasn't enough, he brought out the tusks to pass around. It was the most morbid show and tell I've ever been to.

After that, he showed us pictures of his son, who is a Thai fighter, posing beside the likes of Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis. And, just to be even, he showed us pictures of his other son, who just graduated university, posing in his swimsuit on the beaches of Portugal. I think I preferred the pictures of game.

Anyways, after a long night out and a slow continental breakfast, we made it out to the Elephant Cafe, a decadent art nouveau cafe across from the city's opera house. And after one last walk around the town and a mad solo dash to replace a missing souvenir, we caught the bus back to Prague. The in-bus movie was a Czech musical about a woman being in Karlstejn Castle. That's right, 90 minutes of songs that went something like, "Even a dwarf like a giant feels when he needs no woman to make his meals." In the end, they decided it was okay for women to be in the castle. Knowing this, I may take Lindsey there in the spring.