Marianske Lazne, once the monden centre of Europe, made famous by Johann Wolfgang Goethe along with his last love Ulrika von Levetzow, and today a city in a park and a park in a city, boasting dozens of healing springs. Marianske Lazne would not exist, however, were it not for a trio of tenacious and progressive men.
The first of them was Dr. Johann Josef Nehr, who began to investigate the healing effects of local springs. The abbot of the Premonstratensian monastery Karel Kašpar Reitenberger contributed to further development. In 1812, Abbot Reitenberger pushed for the establishment of an independent municipality of Mariánské Lázně and began the construction of spa houses and pavilions. The beginning of the 1920s marked a huge boom for Mariánské Lázně.
It was the turn of the last man to create one of the most beautiful garden towns in Europe. Václav Skalník transformed the inhospitable and marshy valley into a "public bathing place", which took place in 1818. In 1820, the German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe, who made Mariánské Lázně famous, came to the town. In 1823, Johann Wolfgang Goethe had his late love affair here and described this unfulfilled relationship in his poem, The Marianske Lazne Elegy.
In the following years, more and more guests arrived and the town's fame and size grew. Other important personalities (Fryderyk Chopin, Richard Wagner and Anton Bruckner) came to Mariánské Lázně and in 1865 it was made a town by decree of Emperor Franz Joseph I. The golden age of Mariánské Lázně occurred between 1870 and 1914.
During this time, the town became the monden centre of Europe. Marianske Lazne was visited by British monarch Edward VII, Friedrich Nietzsche, Franz Kafka, Mark Twain, Thomas Alva Edison, Pierre de Coubertin, Sigmund Freud, Louis Renault and many others.
The spa bustle did not subside even after World War I, and other notable guests such as Thomas G. Masaryk or Eduard Beneš. The economic crisis after 1929 halted the development of the town. During World War II, Mariánské Lázně was an infirmary town - the German writer and Nobel Prize winner for literature, Günter Grass, also underwent convalescence here.
Subsequently, the German population is displaced and the town attempts to tie itself to its former fame. The first housing estates and holiday complexes are established. During the summer seasons up to 40,000 guests were accommodated. Since 1990, there has been an effort to restore the original character of the town, its architecture, parks and overall atmosphere.
Mariánské Lázně is currently seeking UNESCO World Heritage Site status, along with 11 other spa towns in Europe.