This is the main bus station in Prague and I'm taking a day trip today with the company Student Agency to a city called Karlovy Vary.

Karlovy Vary is meant to be one of the most beautiful towns in Prague, so I'm excited to show you what's available to you to take a day trip outside of Prague.

It's super cheap to get there, we paid only around 300 CZK for our bus ticket and it's a great way to spend such a beautiful day outside of the city.

Karlovy Vary Karlovy Vary Okay, so I'm standing now in Karlovy Vary and I'm standing on one of the bridges that goes over the canal.

You can see behind me some of the really beautiful architecture that Karlovy Vary is famous for.

This architecture is one of the main reasons that I recommend a day trip to Karlovy Vary from Prague.

It's a great place to just stroll along the waterway, check out the great outdoor cafes, the great restaurants, great bars, everything that you need is really right along this waterway.

And the architecture is really incredible, I mean you can see the buildings behind me, the facades of these buildings are just magnificent.

The town of Karlovy Vary was founded in the 14th century and it has a really long, diverse history and it's such an interesting place because of its history.

Karlovy Vary, known in German as Karlsbad, is on the border of Czech Republic and Germany which means it's in a region known as the Sudetenland.

You might recognize the word Sudetenland from your history classes.

This was a region of the Czech Republic which was annexed into the Third Reich during World War II.

So historically there have been a lot of German people here, a lot of German speaking people here.

After World War II not so much but during this time you see a resurgence of Czech culture and all of these things and after the fall of communism you've actually found a lot of Russian culture coming into this town.

A lot of Russian investors after 89 and 91 came into Karlovy Vary and made a lot of great investments into the town which is one of the reasons that it's so beautiful today.

So when you come to Karlovy Vary now you hear German speaking people, you hear Czech speaking people and you hear Russian speaking people.

You'll see signs in all three languages, you'll find cuisine of all three cultures.

So it's a really interesting place to come, a really culturally diverse place.

It's one of the things that I love about it and one of the things that I love about Central Europe.

There are really no real defined borders here even though the map tells you so.

One of the other things that Karlovy Vary is famous for is its thermal spas.

This town was founded actually on a thermal spring and Karlsbad in German means Charles Spa.

So this is a great place if you want to stay at a fancy hotel and get all relaxed in their spa, get some good massages and treatments.

This is a perfect place for that.

What I'm going to do today is check out the thermal hot springs.

I'm not having any treatments unfortunately but it's a great time to just check out what those springs have to offer because it's such a unique part of this city's heritage.

Okay so now I'm standing near one of the thermal spas I was talking about.

There's a lot of different ones in Karlovy Vary and this one's pretty interesting.

It's in this really beautiful space so I love it.

The water here is 56 degrees Celsius which is pretty hot and you'll see people coming to fill up mugs and water bottles.

People actually drink the water here.

It's a really interesting thing.

So when you come you can buy a mug, fill it up, taste some of that 56 degrees Celsius water or you could just use your hands.

But in any case, thermal spa towns are some of my favourite towns in the world.

I can think of a couple that I've been to that have been really incredible and Karlovy Vary definitely ranks up there.

And the fact that they have these springs all over the city is just such a cool feature.

I love it.

Alright so I'm standing here now outside of the Bekarovka Museum in Karlovy Vary.

Bekarovka was main in Karlovy Vary or Karlsbad for more than 100 years.

It isn't made here anymore but it's still a very traditional Czech liquor that's celebrated in this town because of its heritage.

Most people come to the Czech Republic or Prague thinking that they're going to be finding a lot of absinthe and trying absinthe because they think it's a really traditional liquor here.

In actuality, Bekarovka is probably the better choice if you want to try something that's really traditionally Czech and isn't beer.

Bekarovka has a really interesting taste and we're going to have a degustation in the museum so I'm really excited to try a couple different varieties of their products.

But there's some other really traditional liquors in the Czech Republic and the other major one that comes to mind for me is called Slivovice.

This is a traditionally homemade liquor from Moravia, the eastern part of the Czech Republic.

This is the traditional liquor from the western part of the Czech Republic, Bohemia.

So I'm excited to check out what the history of this product is, the original sellers, all of that good stuff and I'm excited to give it another taste.

Czech Republic Alright, so thank you for joining me on my day trip to Karlovy Vary.

I hope that you've enjoyed exploring this town as much as I have.

I think this is really just such a beautiful place to view some really amazing culture and architecture, a little bit more of what rural Czech Republic has to offer.

If you like this video, remember to subscribe to my YouTube channel, hit me up on Facebook, on Instagram and be sure to drop your email on my blog page so that you can get my newsletter.

It's studyhardtravelsmart.com I hope to explore more towns in the Czech Republic and beyond with you, but for now, thanks for watching.