Marianske Lanze

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Wednesday, June 27

John and I had more of the drinking cure in Karlovy Vary and left in the afternoon on a train to another spa town two hours to the southwest called Marianske Lazne. This town is a smaller version of Karlovy Vary and is home to the Kolonada spa wafer factory and the singing fountain. The Kolonada spa wafers consist of two paper-thin wafers with a filling, such as hazelnut, chocolate, or cocoa, sandwiched between the wafers. Nearly everyone on the street is either eating a spa wafer or is carrying a box of wafers to take home with them. Of course, I had to try one and they are quite tasty. The singing fountain is one of the touted sights of Marianske Lazne but is nothing more than a fountain that plays a track of recorded music and changes spray patterns in time with the music. I’ve never been much into fountains, much less singing ones, but apparently some of the visitors appreciated the performance as shown by the half-hearted applause the “singing” received.

We spent the remainder of the day walking around the town. John and I definitely lowered the median age of the town. To find some excitement, we headed to the casino where they wanted to charge us 10 Euros a person entrance fee. I refused to pay money for the privilege of losing more of it, so we left and went back to the hotel.

Thursday, June 28

In the morning, the weather couldn’t decide if it wanted to rain or shine, so I got a massage at a local beauty parlor. After the massage, the weather was holding up so we decided to rent bikes for the day as Marianske Lazne is surrounded by woods with well groomed, and in some instances paved, paths. We biked through the woods and up a steep logging road. After descending the logging road, we made our way to a specific hiking/biking path and had our first (and hopefully last) run-in with the local police. We overshot the path and had to turn around. Since the path was less than 50 meters away, we did not cross the road to go with the traffic, but instead went against the traffic towards the beginning of the path. As we’re making our way to the path, a polizie car appears out of nowhere and crosses over the centerline of the road right in front of me. I never dreamt it had anything to do with us so I maneuvered around the police car. The cop then turned on its lights and sirens, pulled the car over to the side of the road, and got out of the car. This is when it dawned on me that the cop was pulling us over. All of the old people were craning their necks to see what was going on. The policeman began by talking loudly and kind of yelling at us in Czech and we stared blankly at him. The only English and the only words I understood from him were a threat to fine us 1000 crowns (about $50), a demand to see our passports, and a comment that “this is not Mexico, we have rules here.” After profuse apologies and explanations, he did eventually let us go without paying a fine, but the whole experience was very surreal and scary. I felt like it was a scene out of a movie. After this incident, we scurried off into the woods where we remained for awhile before heading back to the apartment.

Earlier in the day, we had purchased tickets for a show that evening. Since the locals only speak Czech and German, we were unable to figure out exactly what sort of show we were buying tickets to, but from the advertisement, it looked like we were buying tickets to an Eastern European band. Little did we know, but we had purchased tickets to a two-hour traditional polka band performance. It was like going to a bad wedding, but without a bride, groom, or other guests to divert your attention away. John wanted to leave during intermission, but I insisted we get our $20 worth. I even taped a portion of it so everyone can get a sense of what we endured. The band’s commentary was in Czech and then in German as were the songs. They did end with a German rendition of “Roll Out the Barrel.” Again, John and I were the only people in the quarter-filled theater below 60.