Karlovy Vary walking tour & city guide

The colonnades

Visitors stroll along the colonnades sipping warm mineral water from special porcelain cups. The Mill Colonnade, with its columns, is the largest, and the Hot Spring Colonnade has a geyser shooting up to 12 meters.

Visiting tips

Karlovy Vary hosts an international film festival every July. The Diana lookout tower, reached by funicular, offers views over the town.

A day in Karlovy Vary

Karlovy Vary is the most famous spa town in the Czech Republic, set in a narrow valley of the Teplá River. Walk along the river through the town, past pastel hotels and elegant colonnades. At each colonnade, springs flow from taps, and visitors fill special porcelain cups with spouts to sip the warm mineral water as they stroll.

The Hot Spring Colonnade has the strongest spring, shooting up to 12 meters high. In the afternoon, take the funicular up to the Diana Lookout Tower for a view over the town and the forested hills.

Why it is famous

Karlovy Vary was named after Emperor Charles IV, who, according to legend, discovered the hot springs in the 14th century while hunting. In the 18th and 19th centuries, it became one of the most fashionable spa towns in Europe, visited by Goethe, Beethoven and Tsar Peter the Great. Together with other European spa towns, it is now part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The town is also known for Becherovka, an herbal liqueur made with local water, and for spa wafers, thin round biscuits sold warm from stalls. Every summer, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival brings stars and film lovers to the Hotel Thermal and the colonnades.