Karlovy Vary (part II)

We did more in Karlovy Vary than just drink warm water and try to decide if I was making faces. We strolled down the town's main promenade, past many wonderful Victorian-era buildings, to the Grandpupp Hotel, supposedly one of the nicest luxury hotels in eastern Europe. It didn't look that impressive from the outside, though. Behind the hotel was a hill with walking trails, so we hiked up. There was supposed to be a lookout tower at the top with a great view. We found one; apparently, as I later learned, it wasn't actually the lookout tower we were trying to reach, but it did the trick. It gave a great view back down the river valley with the town lining each side. To the other side, away from the town, you could see the forest surrounding it. Very nice.
After climbing back down, we walked back through the promenade, stopping to buy some spa wafers, and made our way back to the Communist-era Hotel Thermal. Our objective at this hotel was to find the outdoor, thermal spring-heated swimming pool. We were successful, and although Chelsey worried about how she would get from the changing room to the pool, it turned out the designers thought of that and took pity on her. The pool overlaps with the building, so that you enter the water inside and swim out under a little gate. Ingenious. The water was warm enough, though I had been expecting something hotter - this was pleasant to swim in. As we finished our hour in the pool, it began to snow on us, creating quite the sensation - swimming laps in the snow!
-Jason