Kudowa-Zdroj Spa Park

Kudowa's waters were being used by the seventeenth century and the town developed as a spa under Prussia, so the park is the German kurpark type: about seventeen hectares of lawns and specimen trees laid out through the nineteenth century, with a pump room where carbonated iron-rich waters are drawn, a colonnade, a bandstand and a rose garden of several thousand plants. Concerts run in season, including a Moniuszko festival. It is right on the Czech border - the crossing is at the edge of town and Nachod is a short drive - and the area is called the Kudowa basin, ringed by the Table Mountains and the Orlice hills. Two things nearby draw people out of the park: the chapel of skulls at Czermna, lined with the bones of thousands of dead collected by a parish priest in the 1770s, and a small museum of toys. The town also has a frog museum, which is exactly what it sounds like.

What you actually see

• A nineteenth-century kurpark - seventeen hectares of lawns and specimen trees.
• The pump room - carbonated iron-rich waters drawn and drunk on site.
• A rose garden - several thousand plants, with a bandstand and concerts.
• The chapel of skulls - at Czermna nearby, lined with bones from the 1770s.

When to go

May to September. Half a day.

Honest expectations

The chapel of skulls is a genuine ossuary and some visitors find it distressing; it has restricted hours and no photography. Spa treatments are for registered patients. The town is busy with coach groups in summer.

Nearby

The Table Mountains are east; Nachod in Czechia is a few kilometres west.