Marianske Lazne, CZ

My next trip was a natural follow-up to my Karlovy Vary trip. Both Karlovy Vary, or Carlsbad, and Marianske Lazne, or Marienbad, became popular tourist destinations in the 19th Century due to their mineral water springs, which were thought to have curative effects. If you're just interested in a city trip to see interesting buildings, Marianske Lazne may be the more interesting of the two cities, as its hotels and restaurants, most of which are of late 19th-and-early-20th-Century vintage represent some of the most attractive buildings of that period. This is the train station, of course, but here we only see the canopy (admittedly steam-era), and the train that I came on.

Here's a much better view of Nadrazi Marianske Lazne, with its 19th-Century Austrian architecture. The station may have always been bigger than it needed to be, and today it's absolutely immense, not that that's a bad thing for the future, when oil prices will skyrocket.

Most of the more interesting buildings (although not all) are hotels built in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when tourism to Marianske Lazne was at its peak, and the city was still called Marienbad. This is the Penzion Elektra.

I wasn't clear to me whether this house is now being used as a hotel, offices, or both, but it is notable not only for its attractive architecture, but for a plaque (just visible on the lower right part of the building) commemorating the time Sigmund Freud spent here. Although people usually think of Freud as an Austrian or a German, he was actually a German-speaking Moravian, making him an Austrian by the standards of his day due to the Hapsburg Empire. Due to his Czech ties, Marianske Lazne isn't the only place in the Czech Republic where you can find references to him. Mozart is another common figure to see in Czech history and commemorated on buildings, as he was in the same situation, having been born in Salzburg, Austria in the time of the Hapsburgs, and having travelled throughout the empire while on tour, but that's a story for another place.

This is, surprisingly enough, a hybrid bus, for lack of a better term. It can run off of catenary like a trolleybus, or on diesel like a conventional bus. It looks like a Karosa, but it's actually built by Skoda, a traditional trolleybus maker. Here you can see it retracting its trolley pantograph.

Here's a front view of the bus, revealing the Skoda logo above the bumper. The trolley pantograph is fully retracted here, and the bus is starting to pull away under diesel power.

When I figure saw an earwig in Europe a few years ago, walking on a sidewalk in Patras, Greece, I was very surprised. I always assumed that these were American animals, but in actuality you can find them in most of the world. I also found out to my surprise that they can fly, although they do so rarely. In spite of their reputation and their looks, though, the pincer on their rear is more for intimidation than anything else, as they aren't particularly aggressive. I'm not an expert, but this one looks male, as males have more curved pincers. Earwigs aren't culturally significant to the Czech Republic, although you do hear the Czech word for them, Skvor, here and there. There a pub in Cercany named U Skvoru, for example, and I'm pretty sure there's a band called Skvor as well (although a Yahoo search failed to turn up anything).

This building is one of the exceptions in Marianske Lazne, in that it looks impressive, but isn't actually a hotel. It's the post office, in fact.

This is the Hotel Bohemia, one of many hotels that I photographed, but one of only a few I decided to post online.