Prague’s “beach” at Žluté lázně celebrates 100 years

The weather may not be ideal so far this summer for laying about in the sand, but one outdoor amusement centre isn’t letting that spoil their big occasion. Žluté lázně, or the “Yellow Spa”, turned 100 years old on Wednesday, and that is cause for a week of celebrations at Prague’s “beachfront” on the Vltava, come rain or come shine.

The concerts, restaurants, ping pong tables, Thai beach, volleyball courts and children’s playgrounds might be new, but otherwise people here at Žluté lázně are doing much the same thing they were a hundred years ago to the day: laying around by the river. On the centennial anniversary of the Žluté lázně lounging grounds, I met with the director, Helena Grout, who told me what it was like there back in the day.

“It opened in 1910 and it was just a place where Prague people could just come and be by the water, have a picnic and enjoy the sun and nature.”

So there was just something like a lawn here next to the river I guess.

“Exactly, exactly. You have to imagine that 100 years ago this was countryside. Today we cannot imagine that. It was a day-long trip, not just for one or two hours, because today we take a car and we are here in ten minutes, but in that time it was a big trip to get here.”

That’s not to give the impression of an untouched wilderness in Podolí in those days. What is now a busy district just beyond city-centre was a place for water sports and recreation at least since the beautiful 19th century waterworks were built nearby. Places used by the ailing timber rafting industry were then replaced with docks for pleasure seekers and a yachting club, and the large swimming stadium was added in the 1960s when Žluté lázně was enjoying its heyday, with many a celebrity to be found there basking in on the lawn by the Vltava. But even that was a long time ago; nowadays no one even remembers if the “Yellow Spa” took its name from its long yellow fence or vice-versa.

“We have visitors who are 80 years old today and they remember coming with their parents or grandparents to visit, and they say it looked completely different. It’s also interesting that they had a nude beach here, separate for men and women, and they said that they visited these places too. In those days it was possible to swim in the river, there was no problem with that. Today the water is pretty cold, because of the dam.”

The old Žluté lázně took a fatal blow in 2002 with the flooding that decimated Prague. But here it also created an opportunity to make something altogether new.

“When the ‘big water’ came we lost everything here, it was just vacant land with a big mess on it. So we rented the place from the city and we started to build. So first came this Modrý Bar, then the dance hall, Tančírna, and then we built the kids’ corner, which is really nice because we have swimming pools there. But it was a lot of work.”

All of those facilities should be abuzz with concerts and other festivities for the next week, even the Thai beach, subsidized by that country’s embassy to bring Praguers a taste of Thailand beneath the walls of Vyšehrad.