Mariánské Lázně, Czech - Day 3

My Hotel - Villa  Gloria

Woke up to the most beautiful sunny day.  I was so excited and after a very nice breakfast I was off and running so speak for a long, long walk. I first walked the park near across from my hotel which is just beautiful and saw lots of people out doing their Nordic walking or just strolling and one Russian family with a young girl were out enjoying the snow. I offered to take a picture of them all which they where very grateful for and kindly offered to take my picture which was very nice.

Beautiful Old Hotel now abandoned for many years. I do hope with all the construction going on here and refurbishing of old buildings this one is on someone's list, it's evident even looking at the ruins that it was a spectacular place.

Little Fur Trees growing up out of the snow

Forest Spring Colonnade with Three Graces sculptures in front

Goethe and Muse Sculpture - This is a masterpiece by the sculptor Professor Heindrich Drake of Berlin. It was given as a gift to Mariánské Lázně by the East German government in 1975. The statue of the woman does not represent Goethe's love Ulrika, but is a symbol of poetic inspiration.

I then walked all along the city center area including up on one of the larger hills but still nothing compared to the ones in Karlovy Vary and this one was lined with hotels and when I got to the top there was what I thought a park in the distance through a stone wall and Iron gate. I love small parks like that but to my surprise it was actually a cemetery  It was so beautiful and peaceful, as cemetery's tend to be but this was was very special and you can tell a lot about a society by how they treat their loved ones after their passing and like in Italy the graves are well tended and covered with flowers and pictures and many have these glass boxes where loved ones have placed picture frames and other meaningful memorabilia.

After walking peacefully around the rows and reading some of the dates and names I saw in the distance along the wooden fence at the far end of the cemetery, a small deer or doe, I suppose. I walked quietly and slowly not to scare it and watched as it paced back and froth near the fence. I then realized the animal was lots and couldn't find it's way back out the way it entered. I continued slowly and pulled out the apple I had brought with me from the spa in Karlovy Vary the other day and which was getting a bit old and brownish. I bit a few pieces off and put them in my hand to give to the precious deer but by the time I got near the fence he/she had made it's way to the iron gate and squeezed out back into the forest.

I through the apple pieces on the ground near the outside of the fence so he/she would eat it later when it was quiet. I'm hopping it will eat it even though I had sullied it by biting pieces off and leaving my human scent.

While in pursuit of the deer I came to a section of the cemetery that had identical small, grey stone crosses with names and dates engraved on them each person having lost their lives around 1945 and I realized quickly this was the designated area for World War II veterans. It's not a huge space but very beautiful and near one section there is a plaque describing where to find people and also on a metal table was a book with bronze pages each engraved with the names of those who perished in the war. I imagine it was done this way so that families could come and trace their loved one's names like they do at the war memorial in Washington DC.

Bronze engraved pages of the World War II veterans buried in the peaceful Mariánské Lázně Cemetery

After leaving the cemetery I came to a women walking the most adorable little white puppy who was having the best time running around in the snow and came running up to me. So cute in his plaid coat.

I ended up walking around the city and through the main parks for about 2 and half hours before stopping for a crepe for lunch. I was famished by that time and so tired, not to mention I need a bathroom break desperately with all this water I've been drinking.

St. Vladimir's Orthodox Church (It was closed when I got there just after 11:30am. Open daily - May to October 9.30 – 12 am, 1– 5 pm & November to April    daily 9.30 – 11.30 am, 2 – 4 pm

In the years 1900–1902, St. Vladimír's Orthodox Church replaced an Orthodox chapel which had been operating in the Town Hall since 1878. The orthodox priest Nikolaj N. Pisarevský together with local doctors undertook several fund-raising campaigns among the Serbian and Russian spa guests in order to raise money for a new Orthodox Church. Later, the architect Professor Nikolaj V. Sultanov (1850–1908) drew up the plans for the building, which were carried out by the well-known builder Gustav Wiedermann of Františkovy Lázně, who built similar Orthodox churches in Františkovy Lázně and Karlovy Vary. The floor plan is in the shape of a Greek cross whose central square is supported by the side apses. A richly decorated majolica iconostasis, created in Kuzněcovo u Tveru for the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900, dominates the interior of the church. The musical bells were commandeered during the First World War. During the Second World War, the church was used as a storehouse and was subsequently reopened in the second half of the 20th century.

Beautiful Stained Glass window on old empty building

Ferdinad Spring (not in operation in winter)

Men out playing soccer

Antonika Spring 

Park at Dusk

Singing Fountain dressed for winter in blue lights

Hotels on the hill bathed in the soft dusk light

Iron Colonnade

Iron Colonnade stained glass windows

View of City from Park at dusk

Beautiful Door details

Once I was warmed up with some homemade ginger tea I was off again to walk another 2 hours past the different colonnades, most not operational during winter although I found the Antonicka fountain where I indulged in some of it's water which is amazingly getting easier to stomach now. I had found another working fountain earlier near my hotel called "Lesni Preman" which I also drank from.

I also passed the Universita Karlova Praha - Universitas Carolina Pragensis which it seems has a campus here with a program for Spa Medicine. It also seems from the bust of Franz Kafka with plaque on the University wall reading "In this house in 1916 lived writer Franz Kafka."

Kafka Plaque

Three people in Cross Colonnade drinking their evening water cure (look at the man in the middle his special cup is shaped like Donald duck. That's was the first time I've seen one of those.)

It's been such a lovely day and all in all about 5 hours of walking outside, so great and so, so tiring, I'm pooped but a really great pooped. I had dinner after getting my evening water cure at the Westend restaurant near my hotel.