The Golden Age of Czech Spas/ Tschechische Kurorte zur Kaiserzeit

The world of spas at the end of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, when the emperor, the aristocracy and famous visitors from all aver Europe would take the waters, is long gone. Elegant ladies and gentlemen would come to these towns for health, diversion, amusement and tranquility. This country´s many smaller and lesser-known spas offered seclusion and relaxation, while the beautiful promenades, cafés and casinos of Karlovy Vary, Mariánské Lázně and Františkovy Lázně offered entertainment, conviviality and romance. All of this was captured by photographers whose pictures can now take us back to a lost world.

These pictures guide us through spa towns in an age when Austro-Hungarian emperor´s portrait still hung in schools and public buildings. The individual photographs in this book all have stories to tell, and they present what the writer Stefan Zweig described as „an ordered world with definite classes and calm transitions, a world without haste“.

There are numerous spa treatments. Some have been abandoned, while other age-old remedies are still practised today. A visit to a spa need not to be for any medical reason, for these towns offer relaxation, tranquillity and convivial company, and a sense that time has stopped. And this is what photography does: it freezes time. Besides the treatments, a stay at a spa was also a social event, and Karlovy Vary, Mariánské Lázně and other towns were once central to European high society, politics and culture.

The publication is from the same series as The Prague at the Turn of the Century.