5 - Spa Promenade with Mattoni Waterfall

The central area of the spa in Kyselka was adapted to serve as a promenade for spa guests heading from the colonnade to the Spa Restaurant. With its Tuscan columns, the Grand Colonnade programmatically followed on from similar Empire style and Classicist constructions in nearby Karlovy Vary. An originally small wayside inn was probably extended in 1872 with a side annexe with terrace and pergola for sitting in the open air. Around 1885, Heinrich Mattoni arranged for an annexe to be made to the restaurant with a regular symmetrical layout in the spirit of a popular English suburban villa (cottage) with ornately carved gables. In addition, the half-timbered building of the Theatre and Concert Hall (Konverzationsaal) and a small Swiss-style gazebo stood next to the colonnade. A traditional weather station and barometer could not be lacking here, either. The slope below Otto’s Spring was romantically landscaped with cascades of waterfalls and small lakes, fed by water from Otto’s Spring. A cave (grotto), opening with a massive arcade made of Cyclopean masonry supported by a stone column with a carved sculpture of Neptune, the god of the sea with a trident in his hand, was carved out into the rock below Otto’s Spring. The entrance to the cave itself was also guarded by a lying lion. The interior space of the cave is arched with a stone barrel vault. In the rear, Otto’s Spring falls into a stone reservoir and from there by gravity via several overflows forms a waterfall leading all the way to the small lake near the Spa Restaurant. The falling spring water was guarded at the lake by a statue of an elf. The waterfall was intended to evoke, just as in, for example, Baden-Baden, the famous waterfall in Gastein. Resting places with benches and another small grotto, where a bust of Dr Löschner apparently based on a design by architect Alfréd Bayer from 1907 was to be installed, were established close to the path to the pavilion of Otto’s Spring. A pillared pergola with a vantage point was built above the grotto. The surrounding forests were interlaced by a network of promenade paths with vantage points offering views of the spa and the Ohře (Eger) River.