Votive crosses
Raised in the seventeenth century after a plague or fire the town survived.
Cool3d — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Zorka Sojka — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Zorka Sojka — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Zorka Sojka — CC BY-SA 4.0
A rocky hill east of central Karlovy Vary topped by three crosses, among the town's oldest viewpoints and the one most tied to its history. The crosses were raised in the seventeenth century, and are said to have been put up to mark the town's survival of a plague or a fire — a common practice in Catholic central Europe, where votive columns and crosses were raised after disasters. What makes the site historically interesting is what was never finished: in the early twentieth century work began on a funicular railway climbing the hill to serve the resort's guests, but the project stopped and was never completed. Traces of the works are still visible on the slope, and the name used locally for the site still refers to the unfinished funicular. That detail sums up Karlovy Vary in its golden age: a small town that invested enormously in the comfort of its European visitors, and some of those projects outran its means. Practical points: the climb is on foot from the centre through forest paths, about half an hour uphill. Free and always open. The paths are earth and can be slippery after rain.
Raised in the seventeenth century after a plague or fire the town survived.
A funicular for guests was begun, never finished; its traces are on the slope.
Among the oldest over the valley, and quieter than the Diana tower.
East of central Karlovy Vary
Camera Obscura GazeboA wooden viewing gazebo standing on a slope in the woods above Karlovy Vary, on 1 min walk
The Mill ColonnadeThe spa city's icon: a 132-metre Neo-Renaissance gallery of 124 columns on the T5 min walk
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge ColumnA commemorative column in the forests of Karlovy Vary, raised in the nineteenth 5 min walk
Lützow VillaA historic villa in Karlovy Vary from the town's boom period as a spa, and an ex5 min walk
The Castle TowerA stone tower standing directly above the centre of Karlovy Vary, the only survi6 min walkBecause plague epidemics swept the region repeatedly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and towns would vow to raise a column or cross if they survived. Once the outbreak passed, the vow was fulfilled. These plague columns stand today in the squares of many cities from Vienna to Prague to small towns like this one, a visible record of disasters nobody remembers any more.
The town is ringed by a network of forest paths laid out in the nineteenth century for resort guests, walking being part of the mineral water cure. The paths are marked and graded and link the viewpoints: the Three Crosses, the Deer Leap and the Diana tower. A full day covers most of them, and they are the best thing in the town after the colonnades.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet — be the first.