What’s On Tap in Czechoslovakia : The waters of Karlovy Vary, west of Prague, are said to possess healing powers.

If your stomach, kidneys or liver are in an uproar, head for the spa town of Karlovy Vary in Czechoslovakia, soak in one of its 12 mineral-water hot springs and chug some Doktor Bier, which brewery director Vladimir Perina claims is “the world’s only medicinal beer.”

Not only is it reputed to be healthy, a visit to Karlovy Vary is one of the cheapest European vacations possible. A two-week stay, including hotel, all meals, health spa treatment and air fare from Los Angeles, costs about $1,800. And even if your innards are calm, the town is a Victorian jewel untouched by the destruction of wars and occupation.

During a fall visit, my husband and I rented a car at the Prague airport and headed west for about 75 miles, through lush rolling farmland, past herds of grazing cattle and tiny railroad stations and through the villages of Kladno, Lidice and Bochov, finally climbing up pine-clad slopes to Karlovy Vary in western Bohemia.

Near a former lodge of the Hapsburg rulers, the springs of Karlovy Vary were discovered by King Charles IV in 1347 while he was hunting. It’s the oldest and largest of Czechoslovakia’s many spa towns, which for generations have attracted the cream of European society. The famous and wealthy of Europe, including Peter the Great, Bismarck, Brahms, Liszt, Schiller and Tolstoy, came to take the waters. Heated up to about 160 degrees, the waters of the 12 hot springs around which the handful of spas are built bubble up from a hard crust in the earth. The water allegedly contains 40 chemicals--including sulfate of soda, carbonate of soda and salt--and is used to treat stomach and liver trouble, diabetes, chronic constipation and diarrhea (a puzzling claim). Locals even suggest the waters can be good for high cholesterol.

Unlike Prague, whose air is thick with smoke, heavy industry is banned from Karlovy Vary, where good health is considered good business.

The city of Karlovy Vary--sometimes referred to by its German name of Karlsbad--has a population of about 25,000, and the newer parts of town look much like any city in Eastern Europe, with their gray cube-like office buildings, lack of landscaping and parks, dreary apartment buildings and colorless shops.

But the old town, the spa section, is reminiscent of the stage set of a Mozart opera. Tall, graceful Victorian buildings line the banks of the sparkling River Tepla, which flows through the town intersected here and there by ornate bridges. Visitors--no longer only the ailing or aged--rest on benches along a promenade bordered by banks of flowers, sidewalk cafes and enticing shops displaying the incomparable Czech crystal and porcelain. Honeymooners and foreign tourists munch the popular thin, round chocolate or vanilla lazenske oplatky wafers that taste like ice cream cones, fresh from bakeries along the way.

A good place to start a tour of the town is the soaring glass-and-steel Yuri Gagarin Colonnade Spa, marked at the entrance by a statue of the hero, the first Soviet astronaut. Most people call it the “drinking place,” and there are numerous fountains as well as the Sprundel Spring: a geyser where visitors sitting in a steam-filled room, surrounded by tall glass windows, watch 2,000 liters of water a minute, heated naturally to almost 200 degrees, shoot like a fountain into the air.

Spa visitors buy strange-looking china teapots with handles on one end and spouts on the other at one of the nearby shops. They fill them from one of the fountains and sip the water, which tastes like a cross between slightly scorched eggs and maple syrup, as they stroll through the landscaped gardens and gazebos.

On the hill above Gagarin Spa is the Baroque Mary Magdalene church, which was erected in the 1730s. The floor plan is octagonal and the dome oval. After being closed for almost 40 years by the Soviets, the church is open and being restored by the Czechs.

In reference to religious observance before the time of perestroika, a young college student from Bratislava confided, “We could go to church if we didn’t mind the consequences. Most people, especially teachers, attended in other towns where they weren’t known. College students were very careful because we knew if we dared demonstrate against the Soviets, we’d lose our scholarships and even be barred from college.”

We spoke for some time, and though she was valiantly trying to learn English and adapt to the new ways, the teaching of her years crept in. Often she referred to “the great workers’ revolutionary council,” and admitted that it would take years to re-educate young people.

Along the river next to Gagarin Spa are elegant colonnades and shops crowded with people seeking bargains. After Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution, when it severed ties with the Soviets, the country switched to a market economy in the summer of 1990 and devalued its currency. Prices plummeted and today parking lots are filled with the Mercedes and BMWs of West Germans, who come to take advantage of the shopping bargains.

Cheap fur coats, porcelain, Czech crystal, jewelry and leather goods are for sale throughout the town. Though prices have risen since 1990, last December a good woman’s leather purse sold for about $10. The average price of a set of six Czech crystal glasses was $30 to $40; the price of a set of porcelain plates was $18 to $25, and a hand-cut crystal vase cost less than $25. A large roast beef sandwich was $3, and dinner for two with wine from $24 to $42. For Americans, Czechoslovakia is one of the cheapest countries in Europe.

Some of the clerks and shopkeepers are inordinately kind and helpful, but others treat customers, at best, casually. I asked for an umbrella in one store and the clerk didn’t move an inch but simply motioned and said, “That way.”

Though many Czechs do not speak English, I found someone who could in most hotels and restaurants, and I managed quite well in the shops. No books or magazines were available in English, but when I rested on a bench along the promenade, I found a local resident who wanted to converse.

“You see,” he told me in excellent English, “under the (Soviet) occupation we learned German and Russian, but never English, so we have some catching up to do. But now there’s hope, because the Czechs who emigrated to Canada before the Russians clamped down in 1968 are sending us their children to teach English.”

Some gaudy old Victorian buildings along the river look like dowagers a bit worse for wear, but others--newly painted--gleam and are decorated like wedding cakes. Forty years of Soviet occupation in Karlovy Vary are being swept away like cobwebs. Signs like “Volgograd Hotel” and “Lenin Plaza” are being painted over with Czech names.

Further south along the river, before it winds into the woods, are the great buildings of the Grand Hotel Pupp, one of the oldest hotels in Europe, established in 1701.

Called by the Russians the Grand Hotel Moskva, but now referred to by its pre-occupation name, the stately Pupp has 358 spacious rooms and restaurants that seat 1,701 people below glittering chandeliers, gold-encrusted mirrors and red velvet paneling. It was here that for hundreds of years, the cream of Europe’s upper classes socialized. The whisper of treachery resounds here, too, for it was in the conservatory that the infamous Austrian traitor, Colonel Redl, met his Russian contacts just before World War I to hand them the entire Austrian battle plan.

An American woman from Vermont seated in the lobby of the Pupp and surrounded by a mountain of luggage looked a bit embarrassed. “All this isn’t my personal stuff,” she explained. “Every time I come here, I bring my relatives our old clothes. They say the ones they buy here hardly survive the first wash.”

While traditionally the spas of Europe have been attractive to the wealthy and titled because of their healing waters, they also drew visitors for the cultural and social life they offered. Today, spa towns play host to musical and singing competitions, sports events, folklore and variety shows. The international film festival Tourfilm is one such event that takes place every other year. In addition, Karlovy Vary plays host yearly to the Dvorak autumn music festival and the Magiales Sharivari, an international meeting of magicians. There are ongoing social events, too. For younger visitors, there’s a disco in the Grand Hotel Pupp. When I was there, several theaters, obviously looking toward the West, were presenting the plays of Noel Coward and Agatha Christie.

On the way back to Prague, we stopped at the former village of Lidice, which the Germans destroyed in World War II in retribution for the killing of Nazi Reinhard Heydrich. The male population was put to death; the women sent to concentration camps and the children to institutions. Survivors have planted an extensive rose garden to commemorate the site, and in an adjoining building, pictures of the men who were killed form a montage on one wall, women’s photos on another. Attendants show an excellent film that tells the story of the atrocity.

The airport in Prague is being expanded, for it is much too small for the hordes of visitors now coming in. Business people from Japan, Spain, the Netherlands, the United States, Italy, Germany and France--briefcases clutched under their arms--crowded the arrival lounge the day we were there.

My seatmate on Czechoslovak Airlines was a middle-aged architecture professor at Bratislava University who was going to Chicago on a Fulbright scholarship. It was the first time he had ever been allowed to visit the West. “This transition won’t be easy for us,” he said, “but Russians are having it even worse. They don’t want to go back, and their women are offering Czech men $5OO to marry them so they can stay here.”

Gas and oil are no longer subsidized by the Soviets and a taxi driver told us his costs have skyrocketed and that in a complex barter arrangement, oil field workers from Siberia enjoy vacations at Karlovy Vary in exchange for oil. Hot water and heat were scarce when we were there and we were glad the weather was still warm, even though hotels were busy correcting that problem.

Although food is not gourmet, it is plentiful, but Czechs line up in front of hard currency shops to buy soap powder and small appliances. Hotel rooms, too, are in short supply--a fallout from the Soviet practice of keeping facilities limited so that visitors, especially Westerners, were kept to a minimum.

But Karlovy Vary offers something most of Europe has erased--a glimpse of the gracious days of long ago untouched by war and unblemished by neon signs, stark glass-and-brick buildings, supermarkets and fast-food outlets. Even if you don’t take the waters, go soon, for it’s probably only a matter of time before Czech society begins to absorb the frenzy and commercialism of the modern world.

GUIDEBOOK

Bubbly About Czechoslovakia

Getting there: Fly Los Angeles to Prague on Delta, with a change of planes in Frankfurt, or Lufthansa, changing in Frankfurt, for about $1,000, advance purchase. From Prague to Karlovy Vary there are express buses and trains. Or by rental car from Prague, take Highway No. 8 about 75 miles west to Karlovy Vary.

Where to stay: Make hotel reservations before traveling. Recommended hotel is the Grand Hotel Pupp. It’s about $140 a night, including a bountiful breakfast. Contact Grand Hotel Pupp, Mirove Namesti No. 2, 36030 Karlovy Vary, telephone 011-42-17-22121-5.

Where to eat: Restaurants are crowded; many at hotels are limited to registered guests. Recommended restaurant is the Francouzska at the Grand Hotel Pupp.

For more information: The Tatra Travel Bureau, 212 East 51st St., New York 10022, (212) 486-0533, and (800) 321-2999 specializes in tours to Czechoslovakia. It offers package tours to Karlovy Vary for from $1,800 for two weeks, including room with private bath, meals, complete health spa treatment and round-trip air from Los Angeles. A three-week tour starts at $2,150 per person. The Weber Travel Agency, 6805 W. Cermak Road, Berwyn, Ill. 60402, (708) 749-1333, also specializes in travel to Czechoslovakia. Or try Cedok, the Czechoslovakian travel bureau, 1O East 40th St., Suite 3604, New York 10016, (212) 689-9720.