Nové Lázně

When planning our stay in Mariánske Lázně, we chose our hotel because the concert hall was right next door. At the time, we didn’t realise it was all part of the same complex, nor did we know that our German friends Volker and Sabine had also booked a room there. However, upon parking our car on arrival next to a Mini Cooper with a Stuttgart registration, we knew we were in good company.

At breakfast, the following morning, the woman on the point checked that we were with travelling companions - weren’t we? Well, yes, I guess we were…and she showed us to a table for four around the corner.

“Good Morning” said Volker, already sitting at the table, “we appear to be a group!”

The waitress slotted two cards with our details on them into a brass stand on the table and explained that this would be our table from now on. It we wanted lunch and dinner, then we could organise that as well. Welcome to the “old country”! Things here are organised; regimented, even, and we were simply expected to go with the flow.

Their cards had already been slotted into the other side of the brass stand!

As if we hadn’t noticed the crown motif here and there around the hotel, a huge portrait of King Edward VII hung at the entrance to the restaurant. His Majesty had been a frequent visitor to the spa, together with many other prominent personalities of the time.

Just across the way from the restaurant entrance was the Royal Cabin, the King’s private spa facility here, which he visited for the first time in 1897, shortly after the renovation work had been completed.

On the other side of the main entrance to the Nové Lázně, there’s a similar, if rather grander private spa for Emperor Franz Josef I, another frequent visitor here.

The two royal gentlemen are there as bronze figures on a corner of the park, a popular location for photographs with passers by.

The Emperor Franz Josef I appears a little more serious than his British counterpart

who was probably here for more “leisurely pursuits”!

The pair of them were in good company however, for we read of Kafka, Goethe, Chopin, Wagner and Bruckner not to mention Edison, Twain, Kipling, Mahler and Nietsche! All around the hotel were pictures of scenes in the park, with elegant ladies and groups of gentlemen. This was the place to be seen.

No need to offer guidance regarding behaviour in those days, I suppose, except for the no smoking part?

Actually, even today, things continue at a fairly sedate pace and I wonder how many would be using skateboards, roller skates, scooters or Segways anyway? I don’t think I saw anyone in the park much below retirement age and I include ourselves in that group!

The women’s clothes shop on the Promenade reflects the general clientele here, I’d say.

But we have been very comfortable. Our rooms - here in the hotel, every one of them seems to come as a pair, with a sitting room and a bedroom - were quiet and spacious and we appreciated the tiled panel in our sitting room which was marked with a small sign “original 1896”.

We have eaten well in different restaurants, generally in German-style. Here, at the nearby restaurant Filip I enjoyed venison medallions with a mushroom cream sauce and Semmelknödel, freshly cooked and very tasty. Remarkably cheap too - nine of us had dinner in another, similar restaurant the following evening with two rounds of drinks and the bill was less than £125.

So, three lovely days in Mariánské Lázně. Four nice breakfasts sitting at “our” table with Volker and Sabine, but on our final morning, we found the brass stand had been removed and our cards placed on the table. We understood. Our time was up!

We’d already arranged to meet Tenor Gustav and his girlfriend (also an opera singer) Katynka for the return journey when the note from BA arrived. Never mind. We needed to return our rental car (or pay for another day) so the four of us set off over the hills and through the woods to Prague and the airport.

A delayed incoming flight with the delay further compounded by an aircraft seat which had been double-booked meant that more than ever, I wished we could simply teleport directly home. It was particularly cruel then, to find the last part of our journey home was disrupted by roadworks and a lengthy diversion. How unfair!

But our sweet family had sent us a short video to greet us - Arthur is now on the move!