On Friday afternoon I arrived at Karlovy Vary, the third spa town on my little train adventure round Czechia’s West Bohemian Spa Triangle. Karlovy Vary, or Karlsbad in German, is the biggest and best-known of the three towns, meriting an entire chapter in my guidebook instead of a mere “and this place exists too” like … More Karlovy Vary: a shock to the senses
One thing I expected when I started researching my West Bohemian Spa Towns trip was that every town would have some kind of central bathing experience, probably using the famed spa water and what I found instead was hundreds of small-to-medium hotels offering a list of medical treatments that would put most hospitals in the … More Aquaforum: Františkovy Lázně’s big central water experience
I’m writing this on the platform of the Františkovy Lázně-Aquaforum station, waiting for the tiny shuttle train to take me to neighbouring Cheb, whence I will travel to Karlovy Vary. It’s partly to keep me busy while I wait and partly because I want to get started while it’s fresh in my mind. It looks … More “Sedate” Františkovy Lázně feels like an open-air hospital
After you’ve sampled all Mariánské Lázně’s natural health-giving spring waters, you have to soak in the stuff and, quite frankly, there’s only one place in town to do that. Well, lots of the spa hotels have pools and some may even have mineral pools (which might only be available on prescription because spa in Czechia … More Taking a Roman bath in Mariánské Lázně
I’ve just got back from a week discovering Czechia’s contribution to the UNESCO list of Great European Spa Towns, which is three towns up in the top left corner known by the tourist title, the West Bohemian Spa Triangle. Even as I was on my way round, I was already excited about transforming all this … More Half a day in Mariánské Lázně
By the time this is published, I’ll be on my way back from my latest train adventure/book research trip in which I’m spending a week visiting Czechia’s three UNESCO Great European Spa Towns. I’ll tell you all about it in at least nine blog posts over the next month, depending on how many spas I … More What I packed in my personal item for a week in West Bohemia in April
Last night I had my ninth out of ten lessons in the Norwegian for beginners: module one class. I knew that I wanted to write this before it even started and I’ve written pages and pages about it and deleted it. So now, with the end in sight, I’m starting over. I’m not actually a … More I spent 10 weeks learning Norwegian
Iceland is now up to eleven lagoons, pools and geothermal experiences that are aimed at tourists, if we’re totally honest. Icelanders love hot water and the Blue Lagoon did start out as a request from the locals to bathe in the hot mineral-rich waste water from the power station but I’d bet you’ll find very … More Which lagoon should I visit in Iceland?
Iceland Itineraries is a series I did quite a few of a couple of years back but I haven’t for a while. But now I’m a member of a Facebook group for people to ask questions and they’re all the same questions and a huge proportion of them are about what they should do and … More A first-timer’s Iceland itinerary
Having got a bit out of the habit of using the film camera that I carry everywhere I go, I was determined to get through a whole roll of film in Finland. I managed something in the late 20s out of my 36 exposures and used the last 8 in London last weekend but when … More Helsinki on film (winter edition)
I Am A Polar Bear 