Snow Road Trip to Czech & Saxony, Germany - Day 1: Loket & Karlovy Vary

In early December we drove to the Czech Republic and then the state of Saxony, Germany. Our first stop was a bakery for breakfast outside of Bamberg, a town in northern Bavaria, after about two and a half hour drive. My pastry at the bakery was lovely. Green tea was also served in a large pot with loose tea leaves. That was a nice break since we still needed to drive another two hours to Locket, Czech in snow.

Eventually we arrived at Loket, a small town that is located within the River Ohře bend. At the high point of the town, a 13th century royal castle stands. We decided to stop by Locket because the town's market square was one of the filming locations of Casino Royale (2006), which was supposed to be a small village in Montenegro.  While the scene wasn't in snow, the market square was colorful and charming as I remember from the movie.

A tall Christmas tree in front of the town hall. It was before noon but somehow very quiet. We saw only a few people in the town.

Our first contact with a human in the town was a lady at a beer shop that we happened to find. J picked up some bottles of local beer, a mix of light, dark and half-dark, to take home.

The red and white building was Kostel svatého Václava, a late Gothic parish church of St. Wenceslas with Baroque features. The Loket Romanesque castle was behind the church although I couldn't see it from this angle.

Instead of climbing up to the church and the castle, we walked though the main street to the other end. 

Then we saw a part of the castle on the hill, well, what we believed so. 

The Black Tower stood in the area of so-called lower castle. As a part of the city defensive walls system, the tower was built next to the North gate, which used to be the only entrance to the city.

Currently the outside of the North gate doesn't look threatening. 

Then we drove to the next destination. It was a very short but nice visit to Loket. I would like to visit the castle next time. Within less than 30 minutes, we arrived at Karlovy Vary, the largest and most famous spa town in Czech. Honestly I hadn't known the town until this trip. I was simply looking for a town to stop by between Prague and home and Karlovy Vary was just on the way. Then I discovered that a hotel in the town was one of the main filming locations of "Casino Royal" and the interior of the hotel was known as a model of the interior of the Grand Budapest Hotel, a Wes Anderson's film. We thought it would be enjoyable to stay at the hotel overnight and explore the town before going to Prague.  

Grandhotel Pupp was a beautiful classic hotel, with a tradition dating back to 1701. The hotel's exterior, driveway and the lobby on the ground floor looked exactly the same as seen in Casino Royal. After we left our car and luggages at the hotel, we explored the spa town. We walked along the River Teplá, which runs through the town. The name means "warm." There are countless mineral springs underground of the spa resourt. 15 springs are captured and made available to the public, 12 of which are commonly used for drinking. In fact we saw steam here and there during our walk.

 

The buildings on both riversides looked charming. The architectural style of Karlolvy Vary that we see today is mainly in historicism as well as Art Nouveau. We walked up a hill away from the river to see a different view of the town. 

Then we walked down to the river level again. We found several filming locations of Casino Royal in the town.

A Christmas market was set up although it was relatively small. We just walked through it and headed to a restaurant for late lunch.

The restaurant we tried was called Staroslovanská kuchyně. As the name suggested, they serve old Slavic cuisine. 

We ordered Georgian pickled vegetables to share. They were simply picked vegetables but surprisingly delicious. Each vegetable - cucumber, eggplant, cabbages, and tomato was seasoned differently. J really enjoyed the tomatoes that were uniquely, brightly marinated. I liked the garlicky eggplants.

Also we both had rainbow trout that was cooked on the dry oak woods in the stone oven, which is the Slavic traditional way of BBQ. The fish was wonderful. The side potatoes were tasty, too. 

We strolled toward the hotel, admiring the town's lovely architecture.  

It was snowing more and getting dark. Before retiring to our room, we entered Café Pupp, a renowned café and patisserie at the corner of the hotel building. How could I go to bed without exploring traditional Czech desserts that the Café is well-known for?

The place was packed but luckily we were seated immediately. I had darjeeling tea. The tea tray came with a little jar of honey and a cute macaron. Approved.

J had a slice of apple strudel. He asked for whipped cream. The request was successfully completed.

I had a slice of their signature cake, Pupp. Johan Georg Pupp, the founder of the hotel was a respected confectioner and the Café still prepares the cake according to his recipe from the late 18th century. The cake reminded me of Sachertorte, the world-famous chocolate cake from Café Sacher in Vienna, Austria although the base of the Pupp cake was yellow sponge, not chocolate sponge. The Pupp cake also contains the traditional Carlsbad herbal liqueur Becherovka, which I couldn't clearly point out because I had never tasted the liqueur. Perhaps the liquor was hidden in the kind of fruit jam (apricot? orange?) between the sponge layers. The cake was sweet and delicate but slightly dry, so the unsweetened whipped cream was a suitable accompaniment.

 

Finally it was time to rest. We made a superb start of the trip.

To be continued...