Karlovy Vary the Spa City of Czech Republics

Today is actually the second day of our tour in Europe. We were up early for our Subuh prayers which is about 5 am local time which is about 11 am in Malaysia. Unfortunately breakfast is only possible at 7 am local time and having woke up at 5 am, there is no way I could go back to sleep. At the Derby hotel in Karlovy Vary, wifi connection is only available at the lobby area on the first floor. There is little that I can do before breakfast.



Breakfast at the hotel is always an enjoyable meal. The breakfast spread is great in most of the hotel where we stayed. It will be good enough to supply the energy for the whole morning.
Immediately after breakfast we strolled around the hotel area. En. Baharom and his wife joined us. Having done the same on the evening before after arrival, I knew full well what to expect and to see.

During the morning walkabout around the hotel area before leaving for the Spa City I saw these two police couple who were on their beat. They obliged our request for a photograph with them.

Further down the road we met these not so female persons in the midst of preparing their stall for the roadside sale. They were so happy to be photographed. They must have felt that I  have failed to detect their true gender. Their protruding voice box on their throat and their voices were a dead giveaway.

 

Though the Spa City was just a twenty minutes ride by car from our hotel, the bus ride through the hilly and winding road took us through posh areas and crossing a very clean and beautiful river. This is the river that will pass through Spa City down river and later through the town of Karlovy Vary.

 Wild ducks seems to thrive on the river. If they were in Malaysia, they would become food on the table in no time.


Since buses are not allowed into Spa city, all the twenty of us had to be transported via a shuttle bus from the bus parking area. This is a good policy as congestion in the Spa city is avoided.


Veronica was our local guide for Spa City in Karlovy Vary. Lin on her left was the tour leader from POTO Travel.

Upon embarkation from the shuttle bus, Veronica started briefing us about the Spa City in Karlovy Vary. The Spa City was founded in the 14th century by King Charles IV. You can read more about it here. Some better pictures here.
As we walked to the various colonnades we came across many beautiful buildings housing shops and hotels.


Grandhotel Pupp is famous for it being the location for the filming of The James Bond film Casino Royale.


These three Malaysian tourists didn't stay at the Grandhotel Pupp but just posed beside another guest's Jaguar.


Shops selling Bohemian Crystal. If you ask for the price, that means you can't afford it. If you can afford it, just point at the items that you want and pay either cash or via credit cards.


 A marvelous set of ceramic on display.


This hotel is so posh and expensive that nobody stayed there. It belongs to a very rich Russian.


That is the name of the hotel and perhaps also the name of the owner, Felix Zawojski.


The well dressed can be seen in Spa City walking on the street. How about these two below?



Always eager to do a good deed, I helped this war veteran to push his wheel chair. Later we waited for our cup of coffee.



Along the road we saw workers washing the street before laying the tables when getting ready for business.


Veronica showed us the highest flood level that had hit The Spa City. That was some flood and all tourists will be reminded of it. I forgot the year it happened. If you insist on knowing it, either you google for it or take this trip like I did.


These 9 pieces of metal plates produce a different tone when stepped on. It needed quite a jump to produce a note. A 62 years young Pak Zawi became tired after making several attempts at producing a tune. Personally I doubt it was melodious at all as I was tone deaf. Though I have a video of me doing the jumping, I was unable to upload it here.


That is the name of the gadget.


Finally our group reached the colonnade where we were supposed to do some water tasting.


Steam seems to rise where the hot water surface in the river.


Tasting the water at the spa. The temperature of the water gets hotter as you go to the next spout. The last one is the hottest and at 72 degrees Celsius and you can't cup it with your hand to drink it. You need a special cup with a spout to drink it. The spout will ensure that the mineral contents  of the water especially iron will not stain your teeth. In the 14th century, the army had to drink 11 liters of water daily to remain healthy. I bet their internal organs will be coated with iron oxide after a year of treatment. Different doses are recommended for different ailments.


A geyser in the building spurts hot water all day.


You can buy your water tasting mugs at souvenir shops within and without the buildings. It is something to remember Karlovy Vary the Spa City by.


Wow!

A group photo upon exiting the spa.

 

The ladies wanted to be on their own.

An interactive map being used by a tourist to locate a place.

 Ornately decorated wooden colonnade.

Glorious tulips.

Legend has it that a fragile old man came to Spa City for treatment. After the treatment he emerged to be a young strong man as depicted in the sculpture below. Will I emerge a younger man after leaving the place? Younger at heart, maybe.

Graffiti on a park table.

Another wild duck.

My next post will be about Prague, the capital of Czechs Republic.

The Tour of Eastern Europe - KUL - FRA

From Malaysia To The Czech Republics

The preparation for the trip was started when we received the confirmation from our travel agent POTO Travel and Tours Sdn. Bhd that the package is on after they managed to get twenty pax for the trrip. Bags to be used for the trip were brought out and below you can see the packed bags, two of which were to be checked in and the other smaller two will be hand carried. The hand carried baggage will contain items that will be used at airports while on transit such as prayer clothes and mats and cooked food during the trip.

I had specially bought a pair of suede shoes for the trip. Since they were new I have yet to break it in. When I tried it on, on the day of departure it felt too tight and so I opted for a pair of old leather shoes which was used mainly for work when I was still working some seven years ago. It was supposed to be comfortable alas slightly tight as over the seven years that I retire, I have rarely used the shoes and my feet must have expanded due to the  too much use of slippers and sandals.

The new suede shoes was not broken in yet so it was left behind. 

Anyway even the old pair of shoes that I wore on the flight became too tight for my feet over the 13 hours flight from KL to Frankfurt excluding the 3 hours transit in Abu Dhabi. Fortunately for me my wife packed in another pair of old sandals which turned out to be extremely comfortable as there were many walk abouts and long bus rides during the tour.

 

Waiting for our bus upon arrival in Frankfurt.

During the flight, we were told that the European Union countries were very strict about visitors bringing in poultry, beef and whatever other products into their country. For fear of getting into trouble should we be caught, all the members decided to declare everything including all the boiled eggs, serunding, sambal ikan bilis and whatever else that we brought in. We proceeded to the red lanes of the custom check point. To our amazement and joy there was not a single custom officers manning the counter be it the red lane or green lane. At such an unearthly hour as 6.30 am I guess these people love their sleep more.

Outside the airport this very new 40 seater bus was waiting for us. A forty seater bus for a group of 20 tourists mean a very comfortable ride as each one of us could hog to a double seat. They are definitely much more comfortable than the plane ride and everyone of us can afford a window seat.

Frank, the  driver of the bus complained to the tour leader Lin from Malaysia to remind her next time not to call the bus in yet until all the members of the entourage are ready to board the bus. It seems the long wait had incurred him a very hefty parking fee when parked in front of the airport terminal.

See how spacious is the inside of a 40 seater bus with just 20 passengers. 

All the seats in the bus are equipped with a seat belt. Should you be caught not wearing it during a  ride, the penalty is Euro60 and the thought of having Euro60 which is equivalent to RM240 is too much to bear so all of us were strapped to our seat.

 We left the airport and headed for Romerberg the old section of the city of Frankfurt. Upon alighting from the bus, I was surprised to see how severe the trees at the Romerberg square were pruned. I remember when I was here a few years ago for my European Tour, there were some foliage on the trees.

Since we had been here before, we were not that anxious to see the fantastic architecture of the old buildings around the area. My wife opted to immediately shop for souvenirs to remember Frankfurt by. I bought a cap.

Fridge magnets anyone?

The old buildings.

Another moment in our life for the visit to Romerberg.

The must see statue in the area. Another statue at the extreme right of the picture had been demolished for a certain development.

Being an early Saturday morning the street were still empty of people. Only later bus loads of tourists start arriving.

The Indonesians seems to have left their mark in Romer. Jemaat Kristus Indonesia as the signboard says. What happen to our Malaysian dakwah group?

A cruise boat still berthed along the River Maine.

What are those people doing so early in the morning across the river?

Since we still have an hour left to explore the area, my curiosity got the better of me and together with another couple from the group, we crossed the river via this old bridge nearby.

The tower on this side of the river has a lift inside it so the disabled person or the elderlies will not have to face any difficulties.

The bridge was constructed in 1911 and completed in 1946. A renovation was made in 1992/1993. That is my guess as to the meaning of those words on the plaque. Any of you has a better guess?

Padlocks on the bridge. Pray tell me why people do this?

My earlier hunch that it was a flea market at the end of the bridge. It was confirmed when I asked a passing cyclist. The participants of the flea market were still trying to display their wares but those that were displayed were interesting items like porcelein, bicycle parts and whatever knick knacks that are often found at such a place.

Since we didn't have too much time on our hands, I just picked up an American felt hat which was still in a very good condition at Euro15 after a Euro5 discount from the female vendor. We joined the group only to be told that the bus will only leave in another hour's time. What a missed opportunity. If only I had known that, we would have stayed longer and perhaps find some treasures to bring home.

The autobahn in Germany.

At 10 am, we hit the highway for our first town in The Czech Republic by the name of Karlovay Vary which is famous for its spa. In fact it is named as the Spacity. The drive from Frankfurt will take us some four and a half hour including rest stops for the driver and bus which is mandatory in European countries. After a two hours drive the driver must stop some 15 minutes to rest and refresh. A longer rest is need after several more hours. The driver can choose to driver longer but he will require longer rest at the end of it. 

It was after entering The Czech Republics that we received the call from Kelantan that my wife's brother in law had passed away after suffering some breathing difficulties. He is so much younger than me and seems to be in the best of health. Allah must have loved him more.

A Porche

At one of the stops we met this guy filling up his Porche.  The owner told me hat the number plate is PS which is the initials to his name and 911 which is the model of his Porche. He told this nosy blogger that he bought the Porche at Euro120 thousand some 4 years ago and now the price of this model has gone up by another Euro24 thousand. So you better stop dreaming of buying one even a four years old Porche, a Perve maybe all that I can afford.

To give you an idea of what you could see along the journey from the bus window is this undulating meadows where grasses or other plants are planted to make hays to feed the cattle. The yellow flowers of this plants seems to be a sight to behold. These are the canola plants planted to produce the canola oil to be used as biodiesel.

Another likely scenery is this pine forest and sometimes you could see wild deers at the forest fringe. These wild deers are protected by laws and these laws are rarely broken unlike if they were to be in our country.

Our hotel room in Karlovy Vary.

We were checked into a small hotel with a comfortable room. Free wifi is available at the lobby floor. It was here that I found out about the ugly skirmishes at the Bersih 3.0 sit in around Dataran Merdeka.

Though we were feeling tired from the long journey from home and without much quality sleep, we prefer to loook around the area of the hotel.

A casino

A vegetable and fruit market.

Horse drawn carriages for tourists to ride around town.

Souvenir shops.

Of course my wife will never miss buying some souvenirs.

Souvenirs being sold at roadside stalls.

An old building is converted to supermarket for the Alber chain of supermarkets in The Czech Republics.

That is all for now folks. More to come soon.

Eastern Europe - A Dream Holiday Comes True

It took a holiday to Eastern Europe to drive me back to blogging. It has been quite a while since I made my last post on August 8, 2011 despite having many things to share. The enthusiasm to blog seems to have waned after the addiction to Facebook which seems to take so much of my time on the internet.
The trip to Eastern Europe will begin today when I leave home after the Friday prayers via a short flight from Kota Bharu to Kuala Lumpur International Airport by MAS, followed by the onward journey to Frankfurt in Germany by Emirates, which include a transit in Abu Dhabi. From Frankfurt it will be a land journey to Karlovy Vary and Prague in Czech Republic, Bratislava in Slovakia, Budapest in Hungary, Vienna and Salzberg in Austria, Munich and back to Frankfurt in Germany. Inclusive of the travel dates, the journey will take a total of 13 days.
As usual our favourite travel company POTO Travel will be taking our group of 20 from Malaysia to these wonderful destinations.
I will be sharing with you the rest of my travel to Eastern Europe and new posts will be made as time and internet availability permits. Hopefully you will be enjoy reading the travelogue as much as I will be enjoying doing it.