Grandhotel Pupp

Where the river Teplá leaves the forested valley, at the upper end of the colonnades of Karlovy Vary, the Bohemian spa town also known as Carlsbad, stands Grandhotel Pupp, the grand hotel of the town. It is the oldest surviving hotel business in the town and the one most closely tied to its social history, from eighteenth-century balls to the film festival of today.

History

The story begins in 1701 with the Saxon Hall, a ballroom built for the spa season, followed in 1728 by the Bohemian Hall beside it. Johann Georg Pupp, a confectioner from Veltrusy who had come to Karlovy Vary to work for a Prague pastry-maker, married into the family that owned the halls and in 1775 bought a share of the Bohemian Hall. His descendants gradually acquired the neighbouring buildings and in the nineteenth century ran the halls, a cafe and lodgings under the Pupp name.

Between 1893 and 1907 the Pupp family had the whole complex rebuilt as a single grand hotel by the Viennese theatre architects Fellner and Helmer, who also designed the town's theatre. After the Second World War the hotel was nationalised, and from 1951 to 1989 it operated under the name Grandhotel Moskva. The Pupp name was restored after the Velvet Revolution, and the house has since been renovated in stages. It is listed as a cultural monument of the Czech Republic.

Film has given the hotel a second fame. In Casino Royale (2006) it stood in for the Hotel Splendide in Montenegro, and in Last Holiday (2006) it played the Grandhotel Pupp as itself. Each July the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival uses the hotel as its social headquarters.

Architecture and design

The Fellner and Helmer building is Neo-Baroque rather than Art Nouveau, with a long cream facade of pilasters, balustrades and sculpted pediments facing the small square and the river. The Festival Hall, the Slavnostní sál, is the principal interior: a tall ballroom with stucco, galleries and chandeliers that has served the town's balls since the Fellner and Helmer rebuilding. Public rooms keep their period decoration; guest rooms have been modernised behind the historic walls.

Rooms and suites

The hotel has 228 rooms and suites spread across the main building and its wings. Those on the upper floors look over the river and the wooded slopes of the valley.

Wellness

The hotel has its own spa with a swimming pool, saunas and treatment rooms, and offers the balneological programmes for which Karlovy Vary has been known since the eighteenth century, using the town's thermal mineral water.

Weddings and events

The Festival Hall is the venue for weddings, balls and gala dinners, and the hotel's smaller salons host meetings and receptions. The combination of a ballroom of this scale with a spa and a historic town makes the Pupp a natural choice for a wedding weekend or a company retreat in western Bohemia.

Location

Grandhotel Pupp stands at Mírové náměstí 2 at the southern end of the spa district, a short walk from the Mill Colonnade and the thermal springs. Karlovy Vary has a small airport, but most international visitors arrive through Prague's Václav Havel Airport, a road journey of about two hours. The town's railway station is on the opposite side of the centre. As a luxury hotel in Karlovy Vary, the Pupp has no equal for position or history.