Karlovy Vary

Karlovy Vary is the largest of the West Bohemian spa towns, laid along the narrow valley of the Teplá river where more than a dozen hot mineral springs rise; with Mariánské Lázně and Františkovy Lázně it is on the UNESCO list of the Great Spa Towns of Europe.

The town is a 19th-century stage set of pastel hotels and colonnades. You walk from spring to spring with a spouted porcelain cup, from the wooden Market Colonnade to the columns of the Mill Colonnade and the Vřídlo geyser, which shoots up some twelve metres. A funicular climbs to the Diana lookout above the forests, and every July the film festival fills the brutalist Hotel Thermal.

It's a town for slow days: spa treatments and pools, long walks on forest paths, cafés. Prague is under two hours away by bus straight from the airport.

Try spa wafers, Becherovka, the herbal liqueur made here to a secret recipe, and Czech classics like roast duck with dumplings and red cabbage.