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Text and images by Sheila Atter - All rights reserved.

The Czech Republic is a beautiful country, with rolling hills and deep mysterious forests, dotted with unspoilt medieval towns and crowned with the most stunning architecture. Why is it then that the vast majority of visitors never venture outside the capital? Yes, of course Prague is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and a travel photographer can happily spend a whole vacation there without even scratching the surface of its charms.

Yet to equate Prague with the Czech Republic is like visiting New York and claiming that you know the whole of the United States. The very best way to get to know this part of Europe (or truly any area of the world) is by public transport. Trains and buses cover the whole of the country, and are, by American or Western European standards at least, ridiculously cheap.

If you aren’t brave enough to try and decipher the timetables you can still visit some of the most beautiful sights of the country by taking an organised bus tour. Never having tried this option before, I recently booked a one-day outing from Prague to the spa town of Karlovy Vary in Western Bohemia. I’ve never been very keen on the idea of such trips. Would I be able to do my own thing? Travel photographers like to spend a long time getting just the right angle, or waiting patiently until the tourists have moved on. This is not behaviour that is popular with the average tour guide who has to keep to a tight schedule. Still for around £40 ($75) I thought it was worth the risk of wasting a day, especially as the highlight of the trip was to be a guided tour around the Becherovka factory, with the promise of a tasting session at the end of the visit.

Karlovy Vary’s heyday was the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when, better known by its German name of Carlsbad, it was the fashionable resort of the aristocracy. However, the town has attracted visitors for centuries, keen to sample the vile-tasting waters of its twelve springs from the traditional strange-shaped beakers that are for sale everywhere. If you are tempted to join them, don’t begrudge the few crowns that it will cost you for a beaker. Drinking from a normal cup means that you run the risk of staining your teeth with the minerals in the water! Becherovka, a herbal liqueur whose recipe is a closely guarded secret, is often called the thirteenth spring of Karlovy Vary, where it has been made for two hundred years.

So I duly presented myself at 8.45am at the starting point of the Premiant Tour to Karlovy Vary. An air-conditioned bus was, I must admit, rather more comfortable than the regular bus or train would have been in the hot weather, and the tour guide regaled us with much information about our destination. Some things do lose a little in translation however. It was slightly disconcerting to be told that the Hotel Thermal, where we were to have lunch, “wasn’t very good”, but thankfully it transpired that she was referring to the architecture (communist tower block) rather than the food!

The visit to the Becherovka factory was fascinating, and after the generous tasting session we stumbled back to the bus, which then took us from the town’s commercial district to the spa itself. Karlovy Vary consists of a long, narrow ribbon of buildings set in a deep wooded valley. The central area is pedestrianised, and our guide took us from the Hotel Pupp (the place to stay if you have the resources) at one end of the valley to the previously maligned Hotel Thermal at the other.

After lunch we were free to do our own thing for several hours. I had taken a few quick snaps on our initial walk through the town, which helped me to decide where I wanted to return for a second look. Many of Karlovy Vary’s buildings are in the style known as secessionist – the Czech version of art nouveau – and the photographer will want to turn their lens towards not only the long view, but also the intricate detail that deserves a closer look. Towering over the spa is the Church of St Mary Magdalene, a baroque confection that will be instantly recognisable to anyone who has spent even a few hours in Prague as the work of K. I. Dientzenhofer.

Then there are the springs themselves. All are housed in colonnades, of varying style, from the Greek look of Mlynska Kolonada to the Vridelni Kolonada that was built from glass and marble in 1975. The people, too, are worthy of the photographer’s notice. This is after all a spa, and many people still come to ‘take the waters’ for their health. Some are elderly and infirm, but many tourists also move from spring to spring with their little beakers. There is, incidentally, no charge for drinking from the springs.

This organised tour gave me only three hours free time in Karlovy Vary for photography – obviously not enough to cover the town comprehensively. It provided a chance to get a flavour of the area, and to decide that on a future visit to the Czech Republic I will make time for a more extended stay.

Would I bother with such a tour again? Maybe – Maybe not. It was frustrating to have to give some shots a miss where the light was just impossible, although I did cover most of the major sights. I didn’t have the time to take the funicular railway up to Diana’s Lookout for an overall view of the town. Nor could I walk up to the striking Russian Orthodox Church on which I could probably have spent many hours and still have come away dissatisfied.

However, the value of such trips to the photographer shouldn’t be overlooked, or indeed dismissed completely. Even in a country such as the Czech Republic where even the smallest community is well-served by public transport, this can be painfully slow, and sometimes just isn’t practical for the visitor who has only limited time at their disposal. Indeed, if such a tour does leave you regretting the missed opportunities, it will show you many great photographic opportunities, and hopefully will inspire you to return at a later date to capture them properly.

About the Author

Sheila Atter has been taking travel photographs since 35mm was regarded as revolutionary, and nowadays concentrates almost entirely on the Czech Republic, although she has swapped her original, overworked Olympus OM1s for digital - Olympus still. More of her photographs can be seen at stockczech.co.uk.

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