Czech Republic 2024 - Day 7: Mariánské Lázně

The summation of the day is that there is water for drinking, entertainment and play.

When we first spoke with Jana about having a mini-break with them whilst in the Czech Republic, one idea was to travel around the Bohemian spa towns staying in a number of different places, however for logistical practicality we decided to base ourselves for the whole break in Karlovy Vary.  We picked Karlovy not only because it is the largest of the spa towns and had better accommodation options, but it was also well placed to visit the other towns by rail.

We had originally thought about visiting two other towns, but once we'd seen what was on offer in Karlovy Vary, we only had enough time on our itinerary for one day away and we decided to spend that in Mariánské Lázně.  Similar to Karlovy, the town has a number of drinking springs amongst other attractions and in Jana's case, she hoped that it would bring back memories of visits as a child.

There are normally two routes available to get from Karlovy Vary to Mariánské Lázně by train, either from the main railway station with the national operator České dráhy (CD) via Cheb, or on the direct branch line from the secondary Karlovy Vary Dolní Nádraží station with the independent operator GW Train Regio.  Both routes typically take a similar time of around 1h15, however due to engineering work, the Cheb route would have required a rail replacement bus, so there would be no round trip with both trips on the bus-like GW RegioSprinter.

Once in Mariánské Lázně we bought a 24 hour group ticket for all the local bus and trolleybus routes, or that was what we thought (more on this to come). Our first point of call was one that had to be time critical and that was to visit Zpivajici Fontana, or the Singing Fountain in English. Opened in 1986, the fountain has a repertoire of eight standard pieces of mainly classical music that are played and accompanied by the fountain on the odd hours starting each morning at 7am. Our timings were just right to catch the 11am performance, that on a Monday is Carnival Op 92 by Antonín Dvořák. Whilst quite impressive as a standalone attraction, for Paloma she likened it to a smaller version of the light and fountain show from Efteling that we had seen earlier during the holiday, and it's hard to argue against her views.

We then moved on to the adjacent Colonnade to visit a cafe for some late-morning refreshments whilst listening to a live jazz band before sampling a number of the springs at the close by Cross Springs Pavilion. Ultimately, I think the girls wanted my Oreo milkshake over any of the springs! One major difference from Karlovy Vary is that all the springs in Mariánské Lázně are much cooler and highly carbonated, so taste more like traditional sparkling mineral water as you'd buy from a shop. There was also less fun for the kids with a modern tap used and many of the springs collated together side-by-side instead of hunting down all the different locations as in Karlovy Vary. We sampled oplatky too, a type of wafer that has been made in Mariánské Lázně since the early 1800s and was a popular snack for aristocrats between spa sessions during bygone times.

Suitably fed and watered, our next plan was to head up to the district of Krakonoš, high above the town below. During winter months this forms part of a small network of ski runs and whilst no snow in August, the largest of the cable cars remains open for tourists during the summer, or at least it does on paper unless it has broken down! We were left with the options of a long up hill walk or catch a bus, so with an almost unanimous decision, we headed to the bus stop. Forrest was the only one keen to walk, unfortunately he's still too young to say "okay, off you go then, son", so he begrudging joined us at the bus stop. It was here that the 24 hour pass failed to work since bus route 115 that we caught was operated by an independent company and we had to buy new tickets for the journey. This bus also didn't stop exactly where we needed to go and despite Jana asking the driver to be kind (which he wasn't), we were left with a 20 minute walk to the top of the cable car, but at least it was relatively flat.

Our main reason for heading up to Krakonoš was to visit Park Boheminium, a 1:25 scale model village of famous Czech landmarks, coupled with a small petting zoo with the typical goats and sheep amongst other smaller animals. The models were all very well maintained and although we didn't know many of the buildings, it was good to see Český Krumlov and Karlštejn Castle, two places that we had visited during our 2019 roadtrip. The kids also spent too much time on the tiny playground, despite us reminding them multiple times about our next destination.

Once we finally got on the move, we passed the Deer Farm where a beautiful stag was happily resting watching the day go by and made our way back down towards the centre of Mariánské Lázně following the walking paths through the forest. There was a lot of active deforestation and at times it was hard to know exactly where the path was supposed to go, but we made it to our final destination of Přírodní Park Prelát. This was a pretty amazing playground with adventure courses, swings, slides and a water play area that the kids loved. We often see these on the continent where you can control the water using dams and other obstructions, but they seem very rare in the UK. Time was unfortunately against us so the kids couldn't play for as long as they would have liked, maybe in the future they will listen to us and move on a little quicker!

Originally we had planned to head back to Karlovy Vary in time to have a BBQ back at our pension, but time had been going too quickly and with the need to head back on the branch line, our new aim was to catch the 19:10 train. This would get us back in to Karlovy for 20:25, so we needed to find somewhere for dinner. Most restaurants near the station appeared to be closed on a Monday, but one that was open was Restaurace Bavaria, a 10 minute walk from the park. They really could not have been more accommodating and we all enjoyed some lovely food, even if we did have a mild panic when we discovered it was cash only when attempting to pay the bill! Fortunately, the ability to perform a bank transfer saved the day and we made it back to the station in time for our train. We would have been pushed to make it to the main Mariánské Lázně station, so picked up the train at 19:13 at a small request stop closer to where we had eaten.

Tomorrow we set off early back to Prague, then onwards to Dobříš and back to Jana's for the last few days of our holiday.

Blogged by Matt.