Marianske Lazne (or Marienbad in German), the youngest West Bohemian spa, boasts unique natural beauties. The valley in which it is located opens to the south while being protected with forested hills on all the other sides. An altitude of 630 m, clean air, the peace of the environment and the salubrious silence of the woods combine to give Marienbad its characteristic features. Although historical records indicate that the medicinal powers of today's existing natural springs were known as early as in the 13th century.

Marianske Lazne was not funded until the early 19th century. It happened thanks to a medical superintendent Dr. Josef Jan Nehr and Karel Kaspar Reitenberger, the Abbot of the Tepla monastery. It was the garden architect Vaclav Skalnik that made the major contribution to the quick development of the town, which was built up in place of impervious marshes.

After the whole valley was drained, an ingenious idea of urban development arose: to do landscaping first so that the park areas would merge into the forest land through the vacant sites, and to conveniently lay out individual buildings only after the first stage had been completed. The charm of Marienbad is a common achievement of a landscapist - an urban planner and an architect. Most of the spa buildings date back to the second half of the 19th century. Those times showed the unprecedented development of the spa town on record as the annual number of visitors exceeded 25,000.

Many recognized personalities and famous artists from all over the world were among the spa guests (e.g. J. W. Goethe, M. Twain, H. Ibsen, F. Liszt, J. Strauss, I. S. Turgeniev, F. Chopin, R. Wagner, C. M. Weber, R. Kipling, T. A. Edison and Czech artists A. Dvorak, J. Dobrovsky, V. Benes Trebizsky and many others). The English King Edward VII, was one of the most frequent guests. In the period of 1899 - 1908 he came to stay nine times in total.

Carefully arranged parks, spa forests, specific architecture, flourishing cultural, sports and social life - those are the features to characterize the beautiful part of our country with medicinal springs gushing out of the depth and giving a sense of sparkling powers from the mysterious depths of the Slavkovsky les (Slavkovsky Forest).