Podebrady

Podebrady was a castle town on the Elbe with no spa tradition at all until 1905, when the German landowner and water diviner Prince von Bulow came 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 probable 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.

History

The name means "below the ford", after the early settlement and small fortress by a crossing of the Elbe. Poděbrady is first mentioned in 1223, and a long-distance trade route from Prague to eastern Bohemia, Silesia and Poland crossed the river west of the present town; between 1262 and 1268 the estate passed to King Ottokar II, who built a stone water castle, and the place became popular with rulers for its nearness to Prague and its hunting. Charles IV gave the estate to the Lords of Kunštát, later known as the Poděbrady family, under whom it reached its greatest prosperity; the town is the probable birthplace of King George of Poděbrady, and his descendants granted it town privileges in 1472. It flourished under Ferdinand I but suffered in the 17th century from war and fires, the worst in 1681, when the town hall and most of the wooden houses burned; afterwards only brick houses were allowed on the square and the town walls were demolished. In 1905 the German landowner and water diviner Prince von Bülow marked a strong spring in the castle's inner courtyard, which was bored to a depth of 97.6 metres; the first spa opened in 1908, and from 1926 Poděbrady specialised in treating cardiovascular disease (Wikipedia, Poděbrady).

Highlights

• 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 - probable birthplace of the fifteenth-century king.
• The Elbe promenade - riverside walks and boat trips.

When to go

May to September. A day.

Things to know

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.

Key facts