Karolina Golf

Very modern, comfortable, spacious rooms and bathroom. Excellent breakfasts and friendly, helpful owners (who basically only speak Czech, with a littleGerman). The hotel has 12 rooms and, during our stay, we were the only guests so it was very quiet. The owners explained that they are usually full when there is a golf tournament on at the nearby golf course (a big advantage if you are a golfer, which we are not!). The hotel is situated in a small vilage, Olsova Vrata, about 7 kms from Karlovy Vary so the surroundings are very peaceful. Parking is on site and feels very secure. The downside of this is that you have to drive into the town to find a restaurant and, unless you are willing to risk the very zealous and, we found, rather unpleasant, police, you would be unwise to have alcohol with your meal! We have been faily frequent visitors to the Czech Republic and Slovakia (from the days when it was still Czechoslovakia) but have not visited for about 10 years. We were often stopped by the police for no apparent reason and on one occasion fined ("only half the cost today" we were told by the officer) - to this day we do not know why, and it seemed wise not to press the matter - we were not given any kind of receipt, and noted that three other foreign cars were also stopped on the same street. On this trip we were stopped twice in the first 40 kms in the Czech Republic, the second time to see our papers and be breathalysed at 1:00 p.m. on a Sunday. Although this seems to diverge from the hotel review the fact that you will have to drive to eat, shop etc. means you should be aware of this if you are unfamiliar with the Czech Republic and its police!! The only criticism we would make of the hotel is that our room was not serviced during our 3 day stay. The WiFi is only accessible by sitting in the lobby. This is an excellent, good value hotel which we would recomment to anyone.