Germany Day 53 - Saturday, Feb 28

Drove to Chodovar Brewery in Chodova Plana, Czech Republic. Based on Carl's "suggestion", I'm coming to spend night and have the famous beer bath.

On the drive over, I took the back route. It was extremely foggy with white-out out the side windows. It was so cool, I pulled over at a rest stop and had a cigar. Apparently, it was the last rest stop before the Czech border (about 1km away) because a couple of friendly German border patrol agents pulled up and asked for my passport and asked several questions. Weird part is, as near as I can tell, its an open border... Certainly I saw no guards at the boarder crossing into Czech.

Inside Czech, the roads are smaller, more worn, and things are generally more run down than in Germany. However, it looks like they are making things better with signs of progress all over. Blame the Soviets.

Radio here has less English than Germany, but still plenty. "Hot and Cold" seems to be #1 song.

The Hotel is part of the brewery in "Beer Wellness Land". Checked in around noon, left the bags in the room and ate in the cave. Yes a real cave. Real adventure because I don't speak Czech and their German isn't any better than mine (well, it is). So I took a wild guess on the meal and got a plate with ham, chicken, a rib, and a bratwurst on it. Very nice.

The crowd was gathering in the cave reception area for the brewery tour so I took that. Lots of German tourist - so I blended. The tour guide lectured in both Czech and German, meaning I could not understand twice as much!! Oh, well, there was a beer at the end so all is good.

Had a partial message directly afterwords, then off to upload pictures and post day so far.

Pictures here

They are really trying to save power here in Europe. Many hallways (especially at hotels) have motion detectors in them and only light up when you start to walk in them. Spooky at first for those of us afraid of the dark. And the room here does not power anything until you put your room key in the power switch by the door - so you can't leave anything on when your away (like charging the laptop).

Beer bath was interesting. Mainly water but nice beer foam on top. Water all poured when you get in it. You get a beer to drink in the tub. Very nice. After a few minutes I was dozing off. Then you go to a dimly lit room where they wrap you in a blanket and give you another beer. Very relaxing.

Tubs are all in a row with curtains for modesty (and atmosphere). You have a sheet you where from the changing room - but the attendant (all females here) helps you in and out of the tub. Attendants remind me of Slavic mom's - but they have nice yellow uniforms and look very official.

Anyway, a very pleasent beer bath. Inf fact, the best I've had!

Next adventure: Dinner! Actually, Czech is the first place since I've been here where I've had to rely on my (really really bad) German - not too many folks speak English - especially the SPA attendants.

I'm sitting here minding my own business, and at 7:30, boom! I hope that fireworks and not cannons (it didn't sound like cannons). Jump to the window and a big fireworks display in the beer yard just beyond the parking lot. And with my slanty window faced that way, I get a perfect view! Too cool!!

Dinner was interesting. The new restaurant is basically a beer hall (as was the cave). So I finally find out how to eat in a beer hall not in Germany but in Czech. No real English spoken in beer hall, but on menu so I did OK. Only cost 10 Euro - cheep!! Bill had both Czech currency and Euro making it easy.

There was some kind of reception going on (like a wedding) with those folks doing a buffet. They had a 2 man Czech band playing, so I heard lots of old (mainly 50s) American tunes with mostly Czech lyrics. Interesting. Way foggy at night. I'm sure there's vampires on the lose somewhere around here.