Day 10 - Karlovy Vary

Sunday 5 June: This morning we went to catch the rail car to the Diana Outlook Tower. The tower was only built between 1912 and 1914 at the top of Výšina prátelství (Friendship Height) 562 metres above sea level. Before then, the top was only accessible via a dirt walking trail. The base station is behind the Grand Hotel Pupp. The significance? It’s a grand old 5 star hotel which was used 6 movies, including the James Bond movie Casino Royale (2006) - renamed as the Hotel Splendide. Most of the exclusive retail outlets are also in this part of the town. I mean, after sipping the waters and having beauty treatments the only thing left is shopping. We left the Pupp, and bought our tickets in the slightly more downmarket rail car office. Interestingly, the car itself was almost identical to one we had caught in Japan to visit a mountain Buddhist temple.

On the way up, we were struck by the similarity of the environment to that around Katoomba. The plants were different, but it is a similar type of temperate rain-forest. Speaking of the weather, it’s very similar to spring in Sydney – sunny periods, then thunderous afternoon storms with heavy rain. The temperature has generally hovered comfortably around the mid 20s. The trip up was short, and t he Diana Outlook Tower stood at the summit. As Frances has to keep up her daily steps average, we walked the 150 steps to the top of the tower instead of taking the lift. However when we arrived at the top, Frances’ device showed that she had taken 190 steps! There were extra steps at each landing, but it would be interesting to check the accuracy in a more controlled way. Not now though. At the top of the tower we had fantastic views over the valley and to the plains in the distance – including a power station and wind generators. Then, it was a pleasant 1.5 km walk back down into the town.

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After a light lunch, Frances went for a walk and discovered that there was an event happening on the canal. I grabbed the camera and we went down to find that today was the start of the Karlovy Vary annual festival. The first event was a friendly race down the canal – it’s only about half a metre deep and fully paved. It was great fun and the crowd cheered loudly as each rubber dingy floated downstream.

At the sight of people having fun in the water, it took everything I had to stop Frances jumping in. As a consolation she paddled in a fountain instead. 

As we were walking, Frances spotted a dog with different coloured eyes - I just had to get a photo.

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Back in our hotel a little while later we heard loud drumming outside and went to look. A procession of local people in masks and costumes were passing our hotel. We ran out and I started filming. No-one had told us at the hotel that this was happening, and it’s the biggest event all year, apart from the film festival. The drumming group were really into it and really added to the carnival atmosphere. The overall energy was fantastic, and it was great that it was a festival by and for the local community and not just a tourist attraction. Even Frances joined in. This was the main procession. This was the drumming group - they were just great.