The famous history of the spas of Karlovy Vary
Legend has it that the power of the hot springs in today’s Karlovy Vary was discovered by the Czech King and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, when thermal water from a local spring healed his wounded leg. Therefore, he founded a town here, whose fame reached far beyond the borders of the Bohemian lands already in the 16th century.
The healing effects of the local springs brought composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and Paganini to Carlsbad, as the town was historically known. After one of his thirteen stays here, the poet J. W. Goethe wrote to a friend: “I will return to Carlsbad in any case. I owe an entirely different existence to these hot springs.”
Sigmund Freud visited the spa town five times, contemplating his psychoanalytical theories with a cup of thermal water in his hand.
Also film stars such as Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Gina Lollobrigida, Antonio Banderas, Mia Farrow and Renée Zellweger, who have attended the annual Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF), have had an opportunity to taste the local thermal water.
Have a sip of thermal water from a traditional porcelain mug and experience its healing power which has been helping people for centuries.