Highlights  The Russian Church, the colonnades and the views by night.

We ate at the ‘apartment’ then drove to a parking spot, with a plan for the day I had got from internet research. This proved a waste of time as we were given a map at the Information Centre which gave us a better plan (although similar to mine).

We all took photos of the church from a variety of angles, although we were sure we couldn’t get it all in properly. Katherine did see a great spot for a photo but it was on private property and we were good. We read later it is the largest and most important orthodox church in the Czech Republic.

The richly decorated Byzantine style church has a floor plan in the shape of a Greek cross and five gold-plated cupolas. The church walls are complemented with plentiful ornamental and figural murals. The church interior is dominated by a wooden majolica iconostasis with oil icons of saints by painter Tyurin. The iconostasis was originally made in Kuznetsovo for the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900.  Sadly, we could not see all of this as the church was curtained off, as it is being restored.

My plan had suggested now stopping at Little Versailles for a drink and this seemed a good idea. This is a park with a pond and a hotel which had an outside terrace by the pond. Katherine and I shared a litre of lemonade while John experimented with a ‘grog’. That may have been a bad move as later he was feeling a bit woozy. In an incident that is funny in reflection, there were issues paying the bill. Katherine had done paywave and then the machine just froze. For at least the next ten minutes the poor waiter tried to cancel the transaction, pressed all the buttons he could see, wandered around the building with the machine over his head, asked for advice and rang people. We could not leave with the bill unpaid, we could not pay cash and find we had paid it twice so we had to sit and wait. Finally he had it cleared and a second go, not with paywave, worked fine.

We could have walked from here along forest paths to a viewpoint but were not sure how long that would take. Instead we went on around the road we had been on heading for a church. This took us past more and more villas, although these seemed mainly to be spa hotels. The church sadly is the base for a Wax works museum so we just walked past it and back into the main street.

Our target was the Diana Tower, which we were going to access by using the funicular. The bottom is by the Grandhotel Pupp, a very large building with a casino accommodation and wellness centre. It opened in 1701. We didn’t go inside but it is in a lovely spot.

The funicular runs every 15 minutesand its maximum capacity is 40 persons. The ride through the spa woods up to the tower area takes approximately 3 minutes and we did get some nice views near the top of the run although most of it was through trees. Katherine and I then went up the tower, which was free, and got much better views of the area as we were another 70m high. There was an option of a lift or 150 stairs so it was easy access to the view.  After heaps of photos were taken (there was a theme to the day) we stopped at the café for a light lunch then did a short forest walk hoping to find a cache. With dodgy reception and a final place that looked off track we decided we would rather get back to the cable car for the return journey, and spend time in the town.

We swapped sides of the Tepla River, although the views of this were somewhat spoiled by advertising boards in the middle.

After a short sidestep to see the outside of the Catholic church, the next part of the day was spent walking through the various spring colonnades. We later half wished we had bought a spa cup to taste the various waters but most of the stalls with these were at the end of our walk. This was closest to the main part of town so would have been the start for most people.

Most of the areas were open, although some were blocked off where work was being done, but all the springs were accessible. John and Katherine tried more of the water than I did as drinking warm water is not that appealing to me and mineral warm water even less so.

The Karlovy Vary mineral water is formed at depths of around 2,500 metres below the Earth's surface. It is accessible to the public by means of 15 springs that differ in their temperature and dissolved carbon dioxide content. Depending on the differences in temperature and gas levels, the springs also differ in their curative effects. The list of what things they were good for is not appealing , but if you go to spa the physician will tell you what to drink and when. Most people were just tasting as they walked along.

The colonnades were lovely to walk through and take photos of even if you were not actually drinking. The springs ranged in temperature from 73C (the hot spring) to 13C with most between 40 and 65C. All had signs saying what the temperature was and many had clear build ups of minerals around the ‘bowls’.

Our final stop in Karlovy Vary was back at the start of the main street at the Jan Becher museum. I had not heard of the liqueur Becherovka before we arrived here, but knew it was important as there is a very large bottle on the street which is also the photo needed for a virtual cache. Katherine realised she had tried some when in Prague. We had the photo already and had decided to do the tour, but at the end of the day, as it did give tastings as part of the tour. 4pm seemed a better time than 10am.

The tour was in Czech with an English audio guide. We started in a room where we heard that Jan Becher was a pharmacist and had an English visitor also keen on herbs mixed with alcohol as a cure. His English friend left details of a mix he felt was very good and for the next 2 years Jan tweaked it and improved it. The tour started with this information and the history of the firm which stayed in the Becker family until about WW2. Production continued over the time the area was in German then Russian control but was privatised after that. The tour showed the production process and concluded with a film and tasting. We tried 3 of the items they make, the original, a citrus one and a sweeter cordial. While I liked the lemon, it was not enough to buy a bottle, given we are travelling.

We took the car back to the apartment and while the others had a break I walked along the road to find a nearby cache. I managed to also spot a treehouse/bridge and a wooden giraffe outside a house we had driven past at least 4 times.

Katherine and I both searched for a restaurant near us and one showed up closer than yesterday’s one, and with good reviews. We arrived to find it was part of a 2 room hotel with a terrace occupied by one group. A quick check and they only took cash, but would take Euro. We had only 750 crown left ($50) but I had Euro. It proved to be not needed. We had drinks, mains and desserts and still had change. The food was fine although the views were lacking. (That’s an ‘all up’ total for 3 people of about $35NZ!!)

As we were watching the sun drop, a decision was made to go for a cache at a viewpoint. It proved disappointing at first as we drove for about 20 minutes to find the view was blocked by a building being renovated (although we did get the cache). However, the bonus came after this. The GPS had us returning to the apartment in a different way and that was a most enjoyable drive through the countryside with some beautiful buildings and good views.