Teplice

Teplice has been using its hot springs since a Benedictine convent was founded beside them in 1154, which makes it the oldest continuously working spa in Central Europe. Its great period was the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when it was called the Salon of Europe: royalty, generals and writers came, and in July 1812 Beethoven and Goethe met here and walked together, an encounter that produced the famous anecdote about Beethoven refusing to step aside for an approaching imperial party while Goethe stood back and bowed - a story that is probably embroidered but has been told ever since. The spa park, the chateau with the museum, the colonnade and the Regional Theatre remain. The town was heavily damaged by mining and postwar building and the historic centre is fragmentary, so the spa quarter carries most of what is left.

History

Teplice is Old Czech for warm water. The chronicler Václav Hájek wrote in 1541 that the springs were discovered as early as 762, but that is legend; Teplice is first mentioned in 1154, when Judith of Thuringia, queen of Vladislaus II, founded a Benedictine convent by the hot springs, the second in Bohemia. A fortified town grew around it and was wrecked in the Hussite Wars after the Battle of Aussig in 1426, and in the late 15th century Queen Joanna of Rožmitál, wife of George of Poděbrady, built a castle on the ruins. In 1634 Ferdinand II granted castle and town to his general Johann von Aldringen, who died in battle that year, and Teplice passed to his sister Anna Maria von Clary-Aldringen, whose family made the castle their main seat. After a fire in 1793 much of the town was rebuilt in Neoclassical style, and the spa drew wealthy guests and monarchs: the poet Johann Gottfried Seume died here in 1810, Beethoven met Goethe here in 1812, and in August 1813 the emperors of Austria and Russia and the king of Prussia signed their alliance against Napoleon here. In 1895 Teplice merged with neighbouring Šanov (Wikipedia, Teplice).

What to look for

• A spa working since 1154 - the oldest continuously used in Central Europe.
• The Salon of Europe - the nineteenth-century quarter that hosted its visitors.
• The 1812 meeting - Beethoven and Goethe walking here, and the anecdote about it.
• The chateau museum - over the convent that first used the springs.

When to go

May to September. A day.

Things to know

Treatments are for booked patients. The historic centre is fragmentary - mining and postwar building took much of it. The spa quarter is the part worth walking. Some outer districts are run-down.

Nearby

Duchcov is west; the Ore Mountains rise north.

Key facts