The Habsburg empire's favourite spa town, a wedding-cake canyon of colonnades and pastel facades where Beethoven, Goethe and half of nineteenth-century Europe took the cure. Sip the hot mineral water from a porcelain spouted cup as you promenade — it tastes medicinal, which is rather the point — then book a proper treatment at the Alžbětiny Lázně baths. Stay at the Grandhotel Pupp, an inspiration for Wes Anderson, and come in autumn when the wooded hills turn copper.
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