Karlovy Vary is a town of faded glories. Paint peeled from the walls, and from the curls of the old iron art nouveau gates.
The town seemed to come straight from the pages of Anna Karenina, reminding me of the passages about popular curative spa towns. The grand esplanades, white pagodas, and old hotels with velvet curtains all hinted at a once grand, if temporary, populace. At one point, this spa town was so renowned that it had attracted the likes of Beethoven, Mozart and Freud. Yet, much like the Tolstoy's book, the town has been touched by time, and is now covered in a scattering of dust.