Bled or Karlovy Vary?

Bled has real swimming for a few summer months. Lake Bled warms to about 24°C in high summer, and you swim from grassy lidos, wooden piers and rocks along the shore path, or out to the island. Lake Bohinj, wilder and colder, is half an hour away.

Karlovy Vary has nothing comparable. Summer swimming there means the flooded mine of Lake Medard near Sokolov, a few ponds in the hills, or the warm spring-fed outdoor pool.

Neither town is a place to travel for food, but Karlovy Vary offers a little more. Its hearty Czech cooking and Pilsner-style beer are cheaper one street back from the promenade, and it has its own specialities in warm spa wafers and Becherovka, plus cafés with cake along the Teplá.

Bled has one famous dish, the kremšnita cream slice eaten by the lake. Beyond that you mostly get hotel dining rooms, pizzerias and inns serving trout and žlikrofi. The better meals are in the farm inns of the surrounding valleys.

In Karlovy Vary the whole town is the sight. Pastel tiers of spa architecture fill the valley, the Mill and Market Colonnades frame the springs, and the Vřídlo geyser shoots up inside the Hot Spring Colonnade. Dientzenhofer's baroque church adds more, and the town fills a day or two well.

Bled has a smaller set of sights. The clifftop castle with its little museum, the pletna boat to the island church and its wishing bell, and the old spa villas along the shore are lovely, but most visitors have seen them all by evening.

Both towns go quiet early, but Karlovy Vary has a bit more going on after dinner. It has cocktail and wine bars, Czech pubs and casinos, and in the week of the film festival the valley fills with parties and outdoor bars.

In Bled an evening means a terrace drink and a walk along the lit shore, and the village is asleep before midnight. Anyone wanting a real night out from either town has to travel to a city.

Bled is the stronger choice for the outdoors. From the village you can climb to Ojstrica and Osojnica, walk the Vintgar Gorge, reach Bohinj and the Savica waterfall, or cross the Vršič pass to the Soča valley. Rafting, canyoning, paragliding and multi-day hut routes make it a proper Alpine base.

Karlovy Vary's countryside is gentler. Graded old spa paths climb through beech forest to the Diana tower. Beyond them are the moors of the Slavkov Forest, easy canoeing on the Ohře and skiing at Klínovec, all green and rolling rather than dramatic.

Both make good bases. Bled reaches a little further and offers more variety: Ljubljana under an hour away, medieval Radovljica next door, the Postojna cave and Predjama Castle, Piran on the Adriatic, and Austria's Wörthersee through the Karawanks tunnel.

Karlovy Vary's outings are mostly about West Bohemia. Castle-town Loket is twenty minutes away, the sister spas of Mariánské Lázně and Františkovy Lázně are about an hour off, and there are the St Maurus reliquary at Bečov, Plzeň's brewing and a long day in Prague.

Bled gives children more to do. They can row out to the island and ring the bell, swim from the shallow lidos, ride the toboggan run and use the rope park on Straža, and the flat lake path is easy with a pushchair. Rainy days are the weak spot.

Karlovy Vary is safe and tidy, but it is built for adults taking cures. The geyser, the spouted cups, the funicular and the wafers will charm children for an afternoon. The steep valley sides wear out anyone pushing a buggy.

Both centres are easy on foot, and Karlovy Vary is a little easier to manage without a car. Buses and the funicular take you up its steep slopes, and coaches and slow trains link it to Prague, Loket and the other spas.

Bled's lake path ties the village together, and buses and two railway stations serve Ljubljana and Bohinj. The mountain trailheads, Pokljuka and the Soča valley are thinly served, though, so hikers usually end up hiring a car.

Karlovy Vary has far more to buy. The promenades of Stará louka and Tržiště hold jewellers and boutiques, and you can buy Moser crystal from its own showroom along with local porcelain and Bohemian garnets.

Bled has a few lakeside stalls selling honey, lace and painted beehive panels, and that is about all. Anything more means a trip to Ljubljana.

Karlovy Vary is the easier place to keep costs down. Grand spa hotels charge for the setting, but the pubs and canteens a street back serve food at Czech local prices, and the colonnades and buses cost little.

Bled is Slovenia's priciest resort, especially for lakeside rooms in July and August. The trails and viewpoints are free, and sleeping in Radovljica, Bohinj or the campsite helps, but the boats, the castle and the gorge all charge entry.

Karlovy Vary offers a reliable evening out. Its symphony orchestra grew from the old spa bands and gives regular light classical concerts, some outdoors on the colonnades in summer. The Fellner and Helmer theatre puts on operetta and touring drama.

In Bled you might catch a castle or church concert or a folk evening in summer, but nothing you can plan around.

Karlovy Vary is the specialist. You sip mineral water from porcelain cups at thirteen springs, sanatoria offer carbonated baths, peat wraps and medical consultations, and there is a thermal pool on the hillside. It works best if you book a proper spa stay.

Bled's own spa past goes back to Arnold Rikli's air and sun cures. Today it offers some hotel spas using the lake's mild springs, but its real restorative power is early walks by still water and quiet evenings under the mountains.