Marianske Lazne: Thursday

Punctually at nine, the train pulled away from the allotments and headed south through the forest on a track raised between streams. Thick patches of snow lay all about like white-sand golf bunkers, and spruce firs grew between railway sleepers on abandoned lines. We stopped every few minutes at a succession of sheds, each no bigger than a bus shelter, that served a few houses and a minor road. There were small towns, too, with red-spired churches and stations the size of a semi-detached house.

We arrived at the grim little station and walked the half hour into town, passing smoke-filled pubs smelling of yesterday's food, pokey shops selling printer ribbons and rock hard bread, and drab panelaks in different shades of grey. It felt as if the air had been slowly let out of the place. Then right in the centre were the big hotels and currency exchange rates, and German tourists sitting outside cafes drinking expensive cups of coffee. We walked through the colonnade, trying the foul smelling, eggy water and then through fallen trees to the top of the hill behind the Nove Lazne, where we climbed 100 steps up a look-out tower and saw almost as far as the border.

We came back down through the Ski Area, walking on the grass a few metres from people practising their slaloms on what was left of the snow. It seemed an apt metaphor for the three times traumatised spa: try as they might, things just aren't what they used to be.