The easy way to spa at Marianske Lazne, Czech Republic

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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to take a spa vacation in a Czech spa town? I did a week-long spa package at the historic Hotel Nove Lazne, and found that there’s no better way to learn about European spa culture, improve your health and eliminate stress. I’m passing on what I learned to you, so here it is: The easy way to spa at Marianske Lazne (Marienbad), Czech Republic.

Spa trip to Marianske Lazne starts out with a bang

Crack! I hit my head on the top of the van as I’m climbing in, tumble back and end up sitting on the sidewalk. I get up and reel around for a moment, wondering if I’ve done some permanent damage. It’s not like I have any brain cells to waste.

The young Czech driver insists on accompanying me to the reception desk at the Nove Lazne Hotel where I’m checking in, and explaining to the front desk clerk what happened. I don’t understand Czech, but I appreciate the staff members clucking around me maternally. Luckily, since I have an appointment with the hotel’s spa doctor anyway, within five minutes I’m having my head checked out in a beautiful historic hotel in the Czech spa town of Marianske Lazne, also known as Marienbad, one of the loveliest spa towns in Europe.

About Marianske Lazne (Marienbad)

Located in the Bohemian region of the Czech Republic, near the German border, Marianske Lazne was once patronized by the rich and aristocratic. Today, while those same grand buildings have been updated, the focus is still on the traditional spa cures based on the town’s abundant mineral-rich springs and natural CO2.

Suffering burnout? Head to the spa

Fortunately my head is fine, and I can get to the important business of planning my spa week. I’ve signed up for a week’s spa package at the Hotel Nove Lazne, and seeing the spa doctor helps to customize your treatment schedule.

My main problem is narrowing down all my ailments to decide what to focus on. Aside from an apparent inability to enter a van correctly, I’m perilously close to burnout (thank you very much, social media!), have a bit of stomach indigestion and, let’s see, sore feet.

I also tend to get sore throats in the winter and, as I know the curative waters of Marianske Lazne can be good for respiratory problems, I’d like to engage in some preventative medicine tactics.

Czech spas: my weekly spa schedule

Doctor Victoria takes my complaints in stride. She tells me I need to work on my back and shoulders (I’m a terrible sloucher), gives me diet advice and prescribes my week of treatments. These include:

• 3 mineral baths
• 2 partial peat packs
• 2 CO2 gas baths
• 3 inhalations
• 2 partial body massages

She pauses. “Do you want gas injections?”

 

“No!” I say.

I am, if I may say so humbly, pretty adventurous when it comes to extreme spa treatments (unlike extreme sports), and I know that natural CO2 injected just under the skin is said to alleviate joint pain. Marianske Lazne is famous for their CO2 gas that emerges from the Maria Spring. I actually tried injections once before in the Czech spa town of Frantiskovy Lazne, but it was years ago and all I remember are all the German women in the waiting area laughing at my fear and swearing that the injections reduce back pain.

“Wait, okay,” I say, reconsidering. “Maybe one.”

 

The drinking cure

In addition to my treatments, Doctor Victoria gives me my prescribed drinking therapy. (Sorry, Czech beer lovers, we’re talking mineral water.) One of the most social things to do in Marianske Lazne is to stroll the colonnades with your cup. However, with more than 40 springs in Marianske Lazne and all of them different , it’s important to know which ones to drink, when and how much. (Although I do cheat, because I like to sample them all.)

“But please,” says Dr Victoria as if she can read my mind, “not all at once.”

Nove Lazne Hotel

After seeing the doctor I flop on my back on my bronze-and-golden bedspread and think how lucky I am to be staying here. Reconstructed in 1896 from an older building that dates back to 1812, Nove Lazne is one of the most prominent landmarks in Marienbad. This just makes the fact that I’m sleeping in a bathroom so much sweeter. Let me explain. Nove Lazne, which means New Spa wasn’t built as a hotel but as a bath house. The rooms weren’t hotel rooms they were bathing cabins.

From the looks of my high ceilinged room, it’s clear that it is actually two bathing cabins put together, and it’s grand as can be with a Bohemian crystal chandelier and decor of pale gold.

Sometimes you should judge a hotel by its cover

The exterior of the Nove Lazne Hotel is even grander, a yellow neo-Baroque beauty with white pillars, statues, domes and an overall ambience of elegance and grace, but which somehow also reminds me of a delicately melting ice cream cone. In fact, a lot of the town makes me think of ice cream and cake (although that could just be because of all the desserts offered every night at the hotel buffet).

Danubius Hotels in Marianske Lazne

Today, the Hotel Nove Lazne is owned by the Danubius Hotels Group, the largest spa hotel company in Central and Eastern Europe. They have quite a hold on the curative spa vacation market in Marianske Lazne, and in this case it works in your favour. For example, if you stay in their complex of five interlinked historical hotels you can use the pool and sauna facilities at either the Aqua Wellness Centre at the Hotel Hvezda or the Roman Baths at the Hotel Nove Lazne.

And believe me, one of the absolute highlights of staying in Marianske Lazne is lounging around in Nove Lazne’s Roman Baths.

The Roman Baths in Marianske Lazne

Originally part of the men’s steam room, the Roman Baths built in 1896, stand virtually unchanged. Their design was inspired by Roman bath houses in Vienna and Hungary, and it does remind me of a smaller more tranquil version of Budapest’s Gellert Baths. Two richly-tiled pools are surrounded by columns of red Salzburg marble, the richly-painted arches overhead practically transforming a swim into a religious experience.

I spend almost every evening here, soaking up the wellness traditions of the past (not to mention getting over the trauma of gas injections, which, I’ve decided, I really don’t like.)

 

Dry Carbonated Bath, an unusual spa treatment

Much more to my liking are gas baths. At the spa in the Nove Lazne Hotel, this entails lying on a treatment bed in a bag that reaches up to your chest, which is then filled with the Maria Spring C02. While sceptics will scoff, it’s said to improve blood circulation and, by saturating the haemoglobin with oxygen, help regenerate cells for an anti-aging effect.

In the name of curiosity I try a different type of gas bath over at the Danubius-owned Maria Spa in the Hotel Centralni. Here it’s a more of a multimedia experience combining oxygen inhalations, film, sound and special effects. It may be a treatment that dates back to 1905, but it’s an updated take on an old tradition.

Exploring Marianske Lazne

A traditional spa cure isn’t a true cure without gentle exercise, so each afternoon I roam the wooded trails that surround the town, stroll through the landscaped parks or wander up and down the colonnades, my porcelain drinking cup in hand. Does it sound boring to you? For me it’s renewing – the most gentle way of amusing myself, getting healthy and reducing stress I can imagine.

As my week’s spa vacation comes to an end, I wish I hadn’t booked just one week, but two. I’ve fallen hard for Marianske Lazne – and not just on the sidewalk getting into of the van, but deep in my spa-loving heart.