Inner-city shop of Kolonada, a local producer of thin filled spa wafers, a sweet specialty mainly sold in Czech spa towns, Mariánské Lázně, West Bohemia, Czech Republic
Some background information:
According to sources from the end of the 18th century, wafers were a popular sweet delicacy among the townsfolk at that time. However, in Mariánské Lázně the production of this speciality began in 1856. The predecessor of the spa wafer was probably the communion bread. Communion breads were made on an open fire in metal tongs called “wafer tongs” from the Middle Ages onwards. These wafer tongs were later used for making round wafers. They were embossed, for example with the year number or the name of producer.
A legend from the 19th century refers to a talented cook from the Premonstratensian monastery in Teplá behind the origin of spa wafers. As a dessert for unexpected guests he decided to use wafer tongs usually used to produce communion bread. He enriched simple dough made of water and flour with sugar and milk and sprinkled a delicious mixture of nuts, sugar, cinnamon and other delicate spices between the baked wafers. Then he baked the wafers together. The dessert was very popular and the recipe soon left the confines of monastery gates.
Among the most well-known sweets since the end of the 19th century were undoubtedly products made by Franz Wittmayer, the founder of a famous family of confectioners. Franz Wittmayer acquainted his knowledge in Mariánské Lázně and founded the first Czech confectionery there, where traditional wafers were made. One of the most important persons of spa wafer production in Bohemia in the post-war history was Josef Homolka, who also gained experience of making spa wafers in Mariánské Lázně. He spent three years experimenting before he achieved to prepare the first batch of chocolate wafers in 1923.
After World War II, the production of spa wafers passed from private hands to state-controlled factories, but the tradition of making Mariánské Lázně wafers remained. Wafer production from 1950 onwards was concentrated in the former Victoria café in Máchova Street. It was here where the production of the new type of wafers – the spa triangles – began at the end of the 1950s. In 1974, the factory was reconstructed and the enterprise was named Kolonáda. Its wafers are still very popular, not only in the Czech Republic. Today, they are a sweet delicacy that is also exported to all Europe.
Mariánské Lázně (in German: "Marienbad") is a famous spa town in the Czech Republic. It has more than 12,000 permanent residents and is located in the Cheb District of the Karlovy Vary Region, just 15 km (9.3 miles) away from the German border. Most of the town's buildings come from its Golden Era in the second half of the 19th century, when many celebrities and leading European rulers came to enjoy the curative carbon dioxide springs.
The town centre with the spa cultural landscape is well preserved and protected by law as an urban monument reservation. In 2021, Mariánské Lázně became part of the transnational UNESCO World Heritage Site with the name "Great Spa Towns of Europe". It honours both the springs and the well-preserved architectural testimony of famous spa towns in Europe from the 18th to the early 20th century. In addition to Mariánské Lázně, the following spa towns were included in this new UNESCO Word Heritage Site: Karlovy Vary and Františkovy Lázně (both in the Czech Republic as well), Baden-Baden, Bad Kissingen and Bad Ems (all three in Germany), Baden bei Wien (in Austria), Montecatini Terme (in Italy), Vichy (in France), Spa (in Belgium) and Bath (in the United Kingdom).
In the 12th century, German settlers were called into this region by the Bohemian rulers from the Přemyslid dynasty. 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 the village of Úšovice. The springs of Mariánské Lázně first appear in a document dating from 1341, where they are called "the Auschowitzer springs" belonging to Teplá Abbey.
It was only through the efforts of Josef Nehr, the abbey's physician, who from 1779 until his death in 1820 worked hard to demonstrate the curative properties of the springs. Thanks to his work, the waters were used for medicinal purposes for the first time. The name Marienbad first appeared in 1786. In 1818 it became a watering-place and in 1868, Marienbad received its charter as a town.
Between 1870 and 1914, Marienbad experienced a second period of growth, the town's Golden Era. In 1872 the town got a railway connection with the town of Cheb and thus with the whole Austro-Hungarian Empire and the rest of Europe. In the following years, many new hotels, colonnades and other buildings were constructed or rebuilt from older houses.
Soon, Marienbad became one of the top European spas, popular with notable figures and rulers who often returned there. At that time, about 20,000 visitors were on a health cure there every year. But it was also a popular resort and vacation venue for European rabbis and their Hasidic followers, whose needs were accommodated with kosher restaurants, religious prayer services, and so on.
Between both World Wars, the town remained a popular destination. After World War II, the ethnic German population of the town was forcibly expelled according to the Potsdam agreement. Thereby, the town was emptied of the majority of its population. After the communist coup-d'état in 1948, it was also sealed off from most of its foreign visitors. However, to replace the Germans, Czech people, mainly from Central Bohemia, were settled in Mariánské Lázně (which was the town’s new name from that point on).
After the return of democracy in 1989 much effort was put into restoring the town into its original character. Today, Mariánské Lázně is still a popular spa town and holiday resort thanks to its location among the green mountains of the Slavkovský les and the Český les, several sport facilities and the proximity to the other two famous Czech spa towns Karlovy Vary and Františkovy Lázně.
By the way, among Mariánské Lázně’s most notable visitors were the British King Edward VII, the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I, the Russian Czar Nicholas II, the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the Polish composer Frédéric Chopin, the German composer Richard Wagner, the Austrian composer Johann Strauss (son), the German philospher Friedrich Nietzsche, the Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, the American author Mark Twain, the American inventor Thomas Edison, the Swedish innovater Alfred Nobel, the Czech autor Franz Kafka, the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the American WW II general George S. Patton, to name just a few.