The grandest structure on the Teplá promenade, the Mill Colonnade was designed by Josef Zítek — the same architect who built the National Theatre in Prague — and completed in 1881. The building runs for about 130 metres along the river, a long neo-Renaissance arcade of columns enclosing five hot springs. The interior is elegant and appropriately theatrical for a building that was as much about display as hydrology.
You can walk the length of the colonnade, filling your spa cup at each of the five springs and noting the subtle differences in taste and temperature. The ritual is taken seriously by the older Czech visitors who have been coming here for decades; the tourist trade runs alongside it without quite drowning it out. In the early morning, before the tour groups arrive, the colonnade is a calm and rather beautiful place.