Mariánské Lázně (German: Marienbad) is a spa town in the Carlsbad Region of the Czech Republic. The town, surrounded by green mountains, is an exquisite mosaic of parks and noble houses. Most of its buildings come from the town's Golden Era in the second half of the 19th century, when many celebrities and top European rulers came to enjoy the curative carbon dioxide springs.
Although the town itself is only about two hundred years old, the locality has been inhabited much longer. The first written record dates back to 1273, when there was a village of Úšovice. For most of its history it belonged to the nearby Teplá Monastery. The springs had been known since the beginning of the valley's settlement, yet they were first examined (for salt content) in 1528 on the order of the Austrian Emperor and Czech King Ferdinand I. They only found sodium sulfate which didn't start to be used but at the beginning at the turn of the 18th century, after it had been examined by Jan Josef Nehr, the abbey's doctor of the Teplá Monastery. The water from the Cross Spring (Křížový pramen) was evaporated and the final product was sold as a laxative under the name of sal teplensis. The modern spa town was founded by the Teplá Monastery abbots, namely Karel Kašpar Reitenberger, who also bought some of the surrounding forests to protect them. Under the guidance of gardener Václav Skalník, architect Jiří Fischer and builder Anton Turner the inhospitable marshland valley was changed into a park-like countryside with colonnades, neoclassical buildings and pavilons around the springs.