Guide through Carlsbad and its environs/Hints for Strangers visiting Carlsbad

by Hans Feller

Hints for Strangers visiting Carlsbad.

 

The official season lasts from April to October; still the waters may be taken at any season of the year and as their effect is always the same, patients are in fact to be found here the whole year round. Care is taken that plenty of lodgings and a good round of entertainments are provided during the winter season.

Carlsbad may be reached from Paris in 35, London 40, Cologne 20, Berlin and Vienna in 12 hours, from Munich, Dresden and Leipzig in 8, and from Prague in 5 hours. Through-going carriages are attached to all fast trains from the above stations, during the season (May—September). Carlsbad itself is a station on the Prague–Eger railway line.

Strangers coming from foreign countries should have their luggage examined by the Custom-house officers at the frontier. To have it sent on here direct, under Customs’ seal, is very unadvisable for many reasons which need not be enumerated here.

Fares from the Railway Station to the town:

Omnibus	each person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .		fl. —.40	$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$	including gratuity to the driver.
Droschkies (cabs) A. 6 A.M. to 9 P.M.	$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$	One horse conveyance (2 seats) including the bridge toll	fl.„ 1.20
		Two-horse conveyance (4 seats) including the bridge toll	fl.„ 2.—
B. 9 P.M. to 6 A.M.		One horse conveyance (2 seats) including the bridge toll	fl.„ 1.80
		Two-horse conveyance (4 seats) including the bridge toll	fl.„ 3.—

Small articles of luggage which can be carried in the hand, are not charged for; heavy luggage has to be paid for at the following rates: In the one horse conveyances, 30 kr. up to 60 Kilos; in the two-horse vehicles, 50 kr. up to 100 Kilos.

It is advisable to claim one’s luggage immediately on arrival at the station. The hotels, as well as the “Post Omnibus Bureau”, will take charge of it for a trifling sum, whilst a lodging is being looked for.

Other rates of charges, for porters, cabs, draught and saddle donkeys, postal and telegraph information, also a list of medical men practising here, the railway time table, &c. &c., will be found in every number of the “Fremdenblatt”, price 10 kr. (This journal is indispensable if the stranger wishes to protect himself from much annoyance.)

Carlsbad has a population of 12,000 inhabitants, with 900 houses. The annual number of visitors is over 27,000; not including mere passers-through and tourists. The inhabitants of the town, as well as of the district, are purely German.

Lodgings: These are always comfortably furnished and well provided with attendants. The prices are the same as in other watering places, and vary of course with the season of the year and the situation.

In consequence of the extensive building operations which have taken place in the town, and are still going on, there is never a scarcity of lodgings. Should a visitor require a large number of rooms, or wish to hire in any particular street, he will do well to apply, before he arrives, to some friend, or to the doctor he may intend to consult, or to the “Wohnungs-vermittelungs-Bureau” here, to secure them for him. Single apartments are always to be obtained, and it is advisable to choose them personally after arrival. The lodging must be paid for from the day it is taken. A stranger visiting Carlsbad for the first time will do well to go, in the first place, to an hotel, as his want of knowledge will be taken advantage of by unscrupulous lodging-house touts—under the pretext that everything else is taken—to conduct him to some out of the way, distant, and, at the same time, expensive quarter of the town. The visitor has to pay the full week’s rent, even though he at once gives notice of his intention to leave. All houses in which lodgings are to be let, make this known by hanging out a bill with the word Logis, or Wohnung.

There are several very comfortably furnished hotels in the town, where the stranger may live at the same rate as in a private lodging-house, without being required to board there. Such hotels generally send their own omnibus to meet the trains.

 

Hans Feller,

Bookseller to the Imperial and Royal Court.