2 Best Sights in Františkovy Lazne, Western Bohemia

Under a little gazebo filled with brass pipes sits the town's main spring. The colonnade to the left once displayed a bust of Lenin that was replaced in 1990 by a memorial to the American liberation of the town in April 1945. To the right, in the garden, you'll see a statue of a small cherub holding a fish. The oval neoclassical temple just beyond the spring (amazingly, not painted yellow and white) is the Glauberova dvorana (Glauber Pavilion), where several springs bubble up into glass cases.

A fascinating peek into spa culture is housed in this small museum, just off Národní ulice. There's a wonderful collection of spa-related antiques, including copper bathtubs and a turn-of-the-20th-century exercise bike called a Velotrab. The guest books provide insight into the cosmopolitan world of pre–World War I Central Europe. The book for 1812 contains the entry "Ludwig van Beethoven, composer from Vienna." Texts are in Czech and German, but not English.