Podebrady

Podebrady was a castle town on the Elbe with no spa tradition at all until 1905, when the owner, Prince Hohenlohe, engaged Karel Bulova, a dowser, to look for water; he indicated a spot in the castle courtyard, drilling there struck a strongly carbonated mineral spring, and the town reinvented itself within a decade as a heart and circulation spa, which it still is. The colonnade, pump room and spa park were laid out from 1908 in a restrained early-modern manner rather than the heavy nineteenth-century idiom of the older Bohemian spas, which gives the centre a lighter look. The castle in the middle was the birthplace of George of Podebrady, the fifteenth-century king remembered for proposing a league of European rulers. There is a glass museum, boat trips on the Elbe, and a long riverside promenade. The water is drunk from the pump room.

What you actually see

• A spa founded by dowsing - the spring struck in the castle courtyard in 1905.
• An early-modern colonnade - laid out from 1908, lighter than the older spas.
• George of Podebrady's castle - birthplace of the fifteenth-century king.
• The Elbe promenade - riverside walks and boat trips.

When to go

May to September. A day.

Honest expectations

Treatments are for registered patients, not walk-ins. The water is strongly carbonated and mineral - not to everyone's taste. The town is quiet and geared to spa guests rather than tourists.

Nearby

Kolin is upstream; Nymburk is downstream on the Elbe.