vary'd it up

We shied away from windows. We knew if we looked, we wouldn’t go. It’s a good thing we didn’t. The whole world is white. White sky, white land, white trees scattered among fields and mountains and hills of intemerate whiteness. It’s absolutely breathtaking.

A quiet bus ride with three sweet friends is all it took to go from what we thought was the most beautiful place in the world to what may actually be the most beautiful place in the world. Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad in English) is a town outside of Prague founded by Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV and celebrated for its healing spas.

We hopped off the bus and wandered a little way, feeling as though we’d entered the twilight zone. Everything was silent. Snowy streets were untrodden, shops that lined the streets were closed tightly, and we were the only souls meandering the lamplit streets.  

I have a friend from Karlovy Vary who is studying in Prague, so I asked him what we should do on our day’s visit. By fortuitous accident, Jozef happened to be in KV for the weekend and offered to show us around! We found a map left outside an information stand and began to walk to where we’d meet him. Ten minutes into our exploration found three pairs of snow soaked boots and layers upon layers of wet socks and tights, but we were so distracted by our surroundings that we hardly minded.

I can’t count how many times we stopped short in awe of snow-capped gazebos or larger-than-life Christmas dollhouses. We rounded one corner and were met with the Kostel Sv. Petra a Pavla, a church built in Byzantine style by Russian architects. I’ve never seen anything like this in person before; even looking at pictures now it’s hard to believe such a thing exists.

We met up with Jozef and he gave us the grand tour of his hometown, from one end to the other. He showed us the healing fountains and told us the legend of Charles IV’s founding of Karlovy Vary: the king was hunting with his dogs when a deer led them off the side of a mountain. They landed in a pond of magical water and were instantly resurrected, so Charles decided to establish this as his town.

Jozef made us taste some of the spring water, explaining that we must experience the city with all of our senses. The water, though refreshingly hot, was terrrrrible. We gagged and sputtered and felt like vampires—it was full of metallic minerals. Jozef laughed and took us to a place with the famous KV delicacy, oplatky, to get the bad taste out of our mouths.  We watched them make the thin, wafer cookies, and then we chose a few kinds to try. Our dear tour guide did not lead us astray this time. They were delicious! I will be sending some home for souvenirs :)

 We all fell in love with Karlovy Vary and cannot wait to go back in the spring to go rafting down the river and in the summer to the famous film festival. Everyone talks about how beautiful it is in the springtime, but I seriously can’t imagine it being any more magical than what we experienced yesterday. 

"What's that?" we asked Jo, indicating the massive boulder protruding between two buildings and atop another.
"That's Jesus!" Jozeph replied, astonished with such a ridiculous question.