Quite a mad dash to the Czech Republic for our Beer Spa in Chodovar. Not helped by the fact that the rented motorhome is not insured for that country despite it being a member of the EU. This meant that we headed for Mähring instead which is a small town on the German/Czech border in the hope of finding somewhere to park up and get a taxi to the brewery's spa hotel. Suffice to say that Mähring is sleepier than a sleepy thing with a special reason to be sleepy, so by the time we find a campsite and arrange a taxi we arrive at Chodovar 50 minutes late and miss out on being bathed in beer. We console ourselves by finding a rough-as-rats Czech pub where the locals seem to pass the time of day by drinking the local beer and downing shots. At 50p a pint for one of the best beers I've had on this trip I'm quite happy to put up with the bar's dodgy decor which makes it resemble something like a cross between a Cancer Research shop and a chippy.
We have dinner in the brewery's underground restaurant which was carved out of the granite hill around 900 years ago. This is where they used to lager (store) the beer after it had fermented, hence the name of this type of beer. See? Who said this trip wasn't going to be educational? The cultural exchange trip continues. 5 countries down, 5 to go.
