Karlovy Vary

So this is the lovely town of Karlovy Vary in western Bohemia. It's about 30 minutes from the border with Germany.  This means it has a very different feel from Plzen for many reasons that I will get into. The town is famous in this part of the world for the hot springs and the spas that grew up around them. King Charles discovered the hot spring hundreds of years ago. Karlovy Vary was a favorite vacation destination for Peter The Great of Russia. As a result Russians love to come here. 

In fact the Russians have a huge impact here. For one thing, well I might as well go back to the beginning of what I know. For as long as anyone could remember Germans and Czechs lived in Karlovy Vary and got along fine.  But when Hitler rose to power he saw it as something he could use. The infamous Munich Agreement, you know "Peace in our time" and all that gave this part of the Republic, the famous Sudetenland, to Germany and the nazis. 

As one might expect there were lots of hard feelings at the end of WWII and all the Germans were kicked out. They were literally driven from their homes. So as the Communists took over the Russians again began to impose on the Czechs here. Apparently they filled the vacated German homes with people from Bulgaria and Serbia and wherever they felt like shipping people in from. I hope I'm not boring anyone with the history lesson but it really explains the way things are now for me. 

One of the things the commies did in every town was to build a huge "cultural center" building in town. It was mostly a way for them to say that "We have all the power and will do what we want." They built a big ol' building right on top of the hot springs.  Here I am in my embarrassing tourist pose.

The whole building is mostly glass except for that wall behind me to the right. What you can't tell from the picture is that on the other side of the wall just across the street is the Russian Orthodox Church. They very obviously blocked the Church on purpose just to show disrespect. There's no functional reason to put a brick wall up where they did. It's just there to say, "We are in control here." 

So anyway now the Russians are back. But now they're just gangster businessmen. During the communist era many of the buildings were allowed to run down. They're 100s of years old remember. Now Russians are bringing tons of money into the town and things are being fixed up which is great. But the Russians kind of own the town now which understandably rubs the Czechs the wrong way. 

Even with all that it is a very nice little town and one of the most beautiful I've ever been in. You really feel like your big "E" Europe here.  I mean just look at it. 

A couple other notable things are that movies are filmed here from time to time because it's so pretty. Casino Royale, the James Bond movie was filmed here. This building below is the actual "Casino Royale" where he was playing poker or whatever. 

One of the most famous buildings which I did not take a picture of was the Grand Hotel Pupp (pronounced Poop, hee hee hee) Apparently Last Holiday starring Queen Latifa was filmed there. Deidre says it's a good movie but beyond the Czech landmark I'm not sure it's my kind of thing ;) Oh and James Bond (Daniel Craig) ran down the street in front of the Hotel Pupp in his movie. Just to be sure you know, this picture is not the Pupp. 

As you could see fall is in full swing here in the CR. I'm glad I made it to Karlovy Vary when I did. The trees are really pretty.

I'm very much looking forward to coming back again when the snow comes it should be just as gorgeous. Speaking of gorgeous check out the UMC Church in Karlovy Vary.

Deidre can correct me if I'm wrong but I think her classroom where she does her English lessons in the Church. How awesome would it be to go to work here everyday? Unfortunately they don't have Church services here on Sundays. They've got a really big challenge in Karlovy Vary. Mila and Deidre are doing really well getting teenagers to come in for lessons and camps and whatnot. It's just a really tough place to get people interested in Church. Mila is a pretty amazing guy and does so much good here in KV. I don't know if I explained, Mila is the main representative of the UMC here in Karlovy Vary and "looks after" Deidre. Not that she needs looking after, she can handle herself fine. But I know it's got to be great to have him a minute away. 

So that's pretty much it. Deidre still won't let me take her picture. For some reason she thinks I've been telling everyone that she's late all the time. I must have imagined it or something. She's never late. That whole story about us being late that day in Prague was all my fault. It turns out that nobody ever noticed Deidre being late to anything. So she is not a late person, I fully retract and regret any implication that I may have given to this effect. And I apologize wholeheartedly.  Somehow I think I may have just dug myself a lot deeper.