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Marianske Lazne is a spa town, developed at the beginning of the 19th century in a valley where many healing streams spring from the ground. Local inhabitants were aware of the springs as early as the 1200s. By the end of the 18th century, the prelate of the Tepla Monastery, Dr. Jan Josef Nehr, had begun a systematic examination of their curative effects. In 1805, he founded the first spa house called "The Golden Globe". The number of visitors increased rapidly and in the early 1820s a building boom started. In 1865, Marianske Lazne was declared a city.
Between 1870 and 1914, Marianske Lazne reveled in its Golden Age, reflected today in its numerous reconstructed and newly built Art Nouveau spa houses, hotels, colonnades and churches, designed by architects such as Friedrich Zickler, Josef Schaffer, Arnold Heymann and Josef Forberich. Parks were enlarged, and romantic lookout points were created. In 1872, the city was connected by railway with Cheb, Vienna and Prague through Plzen and in 1898 with Karlovy Vary.
The spa life remained active through the first half of the 20th century. The city's connection with the world was extended when a new airport was built in nearby Sklare in 1927.
During the Second World War Marianske Lazne became a hospital town. In the years immediately following the Second World War, the city started to develop again. The efforts to restore the original city character, its architecture, parks and its overall atmosphere have been in progress since 1990.
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