The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge Column

About this place

A commemorative column in the forests of Karlovy Vary, raised in the nineteenth century in honour of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, members of the British royal family who visited the town for treatment. The column is one of dozens of monuments scattered through the town's forests, all from the same period and for a single reason: Karlovy Vary was among Europe's most important spas in the nineteenth century, and its guests among the nobility and royalty left traces bearing their names — sometimes at their own initiative, sometimes in gratitude from the town. Reading these monuments together gives a map of the nineteenth-century European elite: British, Russian, German and Polish, all passing through this small valley in Bohemia. The column stands on one of the marked forest paths, a point on a walk rather than a destination. Practical points: free and always open. Access is on foot from the centre on a climbing path. No facilities on site.