Mariánské Lázne (
Czech pronunciation&_160;['mar?ja?nsk?? 'la?z??];
German Marienbad) is a
spa town in the
Carlsbad Region of the
Czech Republic. The town, surrounded by green mountains, is an exquisite mosaic of parks and noble houses. Most of its buildings come from the town's Golden Era in the second half of the 19th century, when many celebrities and top European rulers came to enjoy the curative carbon dioxide springs.
Although the town itself is only about two hundred years old, the locality has been inhabited much longer. The first written record dates back to 1273, when there was a village of Úšovice. The springs first appear in a document dating from 1341 where they are called "the Auschowitzer springs belonging to the Tepl Abbey. It was only through the efforts of Dr Josef Nehr, the doctor of the abbey, who from 1779 until his death in 1820 worked hard to demonstrate the curative properties of the springs, that the waters began to be used for medicinal purposes. The place obtained its actual name of Marienbad in 1808; became a watering-place in 1818, and received its charter as a town in 1868.[1]
By the early 20th century, approximately 1,000,000 bottles of mineral water were exported annually from Marienbad.[1] The water from the Cross Spring (Kreuzquelle, Krížový pramen) was evaporated and the final product was sold as a laxative under the name of sal teplensis. The modern spa town was founded by the Tepl abbots, namely Karl Kaspar Reitenberger, who also bought some of the surrounding forests to protect them. Under the guidance of gardener Václav Skalník, architect Jirí Fischer, and builder Anton Turner the inhospitable marshland valley was changed into a park-like countryside with colonnades, neoclassical buildings and pavilons around the springs.
The name Marienbad first appeared in 1786; since 1865 it has been a town. Then a second period of growth, the town's Golden Era, came. Between 1870 and 1914 many new hotels, colonnades and other buildings, designed by Friedrich Zickler, Josef Schaffer, and Arnold Heymann, were constructed or rebuilt from older houses. In 1872 the town got a railway connection with the town of Eger (Cheb) and thus with the whole Austro-Hungarian Empire and the rest of Europe.
