Spa history

From time immemorial, springs have arisen in the valley of the Teplá River.  A legend says that the Emperor Charles IV and his entourage went on a hunting trip in the local forests.  The Emperor’s hunting dog was chasing a deer.  The hunters suddenly heard the dog wailing, and thinking it had been injured in the chase immediately rushed to the place where the sounds of its barking could be heard.  But they could not believe their own eyes when they saw the spectacle before them.

Why is a chamois a symbol of a spa town and not a brave deer?  The explanation is simple.  Karlovy Vary councillors, who ruled the city in 1850, wanted to place a statue of a deer on a rock above the river, but they hesitated so long that a private investor overtook them.  Passionate hunter Baron August von Liitzow refused the theory that deer jumped off a cliff.  He constructed the statue of a chamois there which was more reasonable in his opinion.

In the 16th century, Karlovy Vary physician Václav Payer came up with the revolutionary idea that mineral water should be used not for bathing, but for drinking.  This can be considered the beginning of the drinking cure.  Patients rushed eagerly for the new treatment; however, since nothing old should be rejected, and in the 17th century weekly baths were interspersed with the drinking cure, sometimes up to 40 bowls of the hot spring water daily.

The worldwide importance of the spas in the golden age was confirmed by the visits of important guests, such as Peter the Great, Franz Josef I., Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Antonin Dvorak and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.  Individual spa buildings came from this period – Lázně I to VI. The most important Spa I (called Císařské lázně meaning “Imperial spa”), dating from 1895, was the most modern complex of its time, and included a sophisticated system of tunnels and mechanisms for preparing peat baths.