Page 173 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Prague

FUR THER AFIELD  171

summer concerts and other
cultural events, including an
international film festival in
early June. As one of Europe’s
leading film events, it attracts
a host of international stars.
Outstanding among the
local historic monuments is
the Baroque parish church of
Mary Magdalene by Kilian Ignaz
Dientzenhofer (1732–6). More
modern churches built for
foreign visitors include a Russian
church (1896) and an Anglican
one (1877). The 19th-century
Mill Colonnade (Mlýnská
kolonáda) is by Josef Zítek,
architect of the National Theatre
(see pp156–7) in Prague.

7 Marienbad
Mariánské Lázně
170 km (105 miles) W of Prague.
£ from Hlavní nádraží. @ from
Florenc. n Hlavní 47 (354 622 474).
∑ marianskelazne.cz
This delightful spa town lost
in the forests of West Bohemia
once drew royalty and celeb- Bronze statue of a chamois at Jelení skok (Stag’s Leap), Karlsbad
rities to its elegant parks and
spa houses. The area’s health- Vylet’al is still an impressive the German poet Johann
giving waters – lázně means sight. In front of it is a “singing Wolfgang von Goethe stayed
bath (or spa) – have been fountain”, its jets of water in 1823. Musical visitors during
known since the 16th century, now controlled by computer. the 19th century included the
but the spa was not founded Churches were provided for composers Weber, Wagner and
until the beginning of the 19th visitors of all denominations, Bruckner, while writers such as
century. The waters are used to including an Evangelical church Ibsen, Gogol, Mark Twain and
treat all kinds of disorders; mud (1857), an Anglican church (1879) Rudyard Kipling also found its
baths are also popular. and the Russian Orthodox church treatments beneficial. King
Most of the spa buildings date of St Vladimír (1902). Visitors can Edward VII also came here and
from the latter half of the 19th learn the history of the spa in in 1905 he agreed to open the
century. The great cast-iron the house called At the Golden golf course (Bohemia’s first),
colonnade with frescoes by Josef Grape (U zlatého hroznu), where despite hating the game.

The cast-iron colonnade at Marienbad, completed in 1889

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