Cheers! Bathing in Czech Beer

Beer! Who doesn't love it? Especially Czech beer. A few years ago I visited the Czech city Olomouc and actuallly bathed in the stuff.

As my article about that experience has since disappeared from the Web, here it is again for your enjoyment...

I glance around to check that no-one is watching, then bend over the large wooden tub and scoop up a handful of liquid.

I swallow some of it, then lick my lips and smile. It really is beer that I’m about to have a bath in.

I’m in the small city of Olomouc, well away from the tourist hordes of other Czech destinations such as Prague and Český Krumlov.

Above me at ground level is Svatováclavský Pivovar, a small brewery with a good reputation for its house-brewed ales, produced without pasteurisation or filtration.

However, the most intriguing part of its business is a fairly new installation in the cellar – a beer spa.

When I first saw this written on a leaflet at my hotel, I thought perhaps I’d misunderstood what was on offer.

But no, this tub is full of beer, a weak 2% version with some added oils to make it smooth on the skin. The plentiful froth in the bath isn’t from soap, but is the head on this vast serve of ale.

Immersed in the brown foamy liquid, I can smell the faint aroma of what seems like wheat beer. Or a light pilsner.

But the beery fun doesn’t stop with immersion; included in the entry fee are two large steins of the real stuff from the brewery above, a cold full-strength brew which I sip while soaking in the tub.

There’s beer inside and beer outside, and I’m feeling fairly mellow in the warm oily bath.

The Czech geniuses who designed this spa have definitely figured out how to make wellness seem appealing to blokes.

When I later ask the attendant who are their best customers, she says "Couples." It seems that soaking and sipping in beer make a romantic night out in Olomouc.

It’s certainly a pleasant environment – a quiet room with dimmed lighting, walls painted with vineyard scenes and two big wooden tubs. There are several sets of these his-and-hers baths, I’m told, and one double-sized tub for two people.

Personally, I’m quite happy soaking alone on a quiet weekday afternoon, with the faint aroma of hops drifting around my head.

Afterward, I recline on a couch in the relaxation room which is decorated to resemble an old village tavern. And, on cue, the second stein of beer arrives at my elbow. I could get used to this.

Upstairs, the Svatováclavský Pivovar’s dining room is a good place to sit and eat while sporting the soft skin of a man who’s been soaking in an alcoholic beverage.

Timber tables with checked tablecloths are arranged around big copper-coloured vats in the centre of the room.

I’m feeling in the mood for a snack, so I order the potato cakes stuffed with the local matured cheese.

Heavy, but tasty, and perfect with a beer. Of which there are seven on the menu, including a dark beer, a wheat beer, and even a cherry beer.

With all that alcohol on offer, it’s lucky that Olomouc is easy to navigate on foot.

The historic Old Town is focused on the main square, featuring a statue of Roman Emperor Julius Caesar, said to be the founder of the city.

In the centre of the square is the town hall, pretty in white with its Renaissance-era architectural exterior.

What’s stunning, however, is the astronomical clock on its north side. This was once a collection of elaborately carved wooden canopies and little angels who moved when the hour was struck.

After World War II, however, the damaged clock was completely redesigned by the new communist authorities.

Its various faces are now flanked by a mechanic and a scientist, and at noon a bunch of workers parade above: blacksmiths, farmhands, bricklayers and so on.

Another reminder of Cold War Czechoslovakia is the daily tour of a civil defence shelter, designed for a nuclear or chemical attack.

Its blocky concrete entrance leads into chambers embedded beneath the 18th century city wall.

My guide Jan, a young student who leads tours on the side, unlocks the entrance and takes me through stark corridors with huge metal doors.

It’s the type of environment in which you’d expect to find a Bond villain holed up, with escape hatches, a huge generator and air-pressure gauges still in place.

After the tour I buy Jan a beer at Moritz, another popular local brewery on the other side of town. It has a beautiful beer garden next to an elaborately decorated stone gate dedicated to the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa.

I order the Moritz 12° beer, a smooth lager brewed onsite. Jan insists we also order quargel, a tangy sour milk curd cheese which arrives on pieces of bread topped with onion and a paprika sauce.

He’s right – eating it in the warm sunshine, with beer in hand, is the perfect way to end a day in this attractive Czech town.

For more about Olomouc, visit its tourism site.

Mind the Gap: The Novel & the Art of Travel

Two days ago, my debut novel was published by Harper Collins. Entitled Mind the Gap, it's a fast-paced adventure novel spanning continents and worlds.

To give you some of its location-hopping flavour, here's the official blurb:

Darius Ibrahim is not having a good week.

He's been threatened by a knife-wielding maniac on a London train, interrogated by a mysterious warrior woman beneath the city's streets, pursued by a military death squad in Melbourne, had his new girlfriend kidnapped and held hostage in Prague, and been captured and taken to another world.

And it's barely been three days since his life started to fall to pieces.

On top of all this, he's developed a bizarre ability that allows him to teleport in quite unusual circumstances - an ability that several deadly enemies will do anything to gain control of.

In a desperate struggle involving alternate worlds, Egyptian mythology, ancient prophecy, malevolent felines, underground railway stations and the power of dreams, can Darius long survive the arrival of his newfound power?

It's great to see it finally out there under the umbrella of a major publisher.

An interesting fact is that I started writing this book over ten years ago, during my final, unloved, salaried office job. To keep myself sane, I wrote 500 words a day at work, and emailed them home to myself.

By the time I visited Wellington, New Zealand for a holiday late in 2003, I'd written 15,000 words or so. In NZ I wrote a good chunk more, and it became inevitable that I'd actually finish writing the whole damn thing.

There's a lot of travel in the book, and it inevitably reflects the places I'd travelled to by the time I started writing it.

So Darius, the hero, starts off in London. In fact he's riding the London Underground the first time we see him, and the Tube and other underground railways play a major role in the plot.

The Tube fascinated me from the first time I rode on it. Dating right back to the 1860s, it seems to be a vast creature with a personality all its own - and a subtle air of mystery in its subterranean tiled passages.

He then pitches up unexpectedly (read the book to find out how) in Melbourne, Australia. Melbourne is my adopted home town of 16 years now, a city I love passionately.

It was an absolute delight to include some of its attractions - its trams, its alleyway bars, its majestic State Library - as part of Darius' only relatively quiet interlude.

He next appears in Prague. In 2014 that's a city I haven't visited for 21 years; but back in 2003 it was relatively fresh in my memory and I had fun placing spy-like intrigue, a kidnapping and a dramatic chase scene among its beautiful cityscape of elegant spires.

Our hero is then snatched away to Terra, a parallel version of Earth in which magic is an everyday part of life. The city he ends up in, Kahe-Ra, is a parallel version of Cairo, in which I lived for two years in the 1990s while teaching English.

The parallel name borrows from the Arabic name for the Egyptian capital, El Qahirah, and hints at the name of the ancient sun god Ra. Egyptian gods feature significantly in the plot, as it turns out.

Terra's Bubastis takes the same name as its Earthly counterpart (now an excavation site), which was a centre of worship for the cat-headed god Bast. She is also key to the plot, much more so than Ra.

Rome features later in the book, as does its Terra parallel Eternus (a play on the "Eternal City" nickname). I'd visited there only two years before commencing the book, so memories of its piazzas and ancient monuments were fresh in my mind. As was a cat refuge set among old broken pillars, something I couldn't resist adding to the story.

It was a lot of fun slotting my fictional characters into those oh-so-real streets I'd visited in the years before, and a chance to relay the cities' distinctive charms to the reader.

I only became a travel writer in 2004, so there are a great many new places I could include in a sequel. For plot purposes they should ideally be cities with underground railway systems, so that could take in the likes of Warsaw, Berlin, Shanghai, Montreal, New York, Los Angeles and Sydney.

Sydney's defiantly retro Museum station keeps asking to be placed in the sequel each time I pass through it (as I did a few hours ago on the way to Sydney Airport).

But so does Kings Cross station. Yes, Kings Cross has potential. Time will tell.

Mind the Gap is available from your favourite ebook retailer for a mere $2.99. You can find more information and download links by clicking here.

The Statues of Olomouc

After I finished this year's Lonely Planet assignment in Poland, I hopped on a train from Katowice into the Czech Republic, getting off at the town of Olomouc.

Olomouc is in Moravia, the lesser-known eastern half of the Czech Republic, fated to forever play second fiddle to Bohemia (where the Czech capital Prague is located).

This relative obscurity means, of course, it's not as flooded with tourists.

The Prague hordes' loss was my gain, as Olomouc proved a very attractive burg, lined with beautiful monuments and facades from its time in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There's a fair bit of Art Nouveau architecture along its streets, a dash of Baroque and a decent dose of Renaissance (along with less attractive communist-era contributions).

Something which especially caught my eye was the collection of mostly Baroque statues in its city squares, all harking back to legends from ancient Greece or Rome.

Here's the first I happened upon in the main square, Horní Náměstí. It's a dynamic rendering of Julius Caesar, who legend has it was the founder of the town on one of his campaigns in the area:

Around the other side of the square is this statue of Hercules slaying the Hydra. As it was constructed soon after the Turkish Empire's 1683 defeat in the Battle of Vienna, it's thought to be not-so-subtly referencing the outcome of that battle:

The final statue in Horní Náměstí is a radical stylistic departure, and that's because it only dates from 2002. Maintaining the classical theme, this multi-part installation references the Greek legend of Arion, a musician who was rescued from drowning by a dolphin.

Because it's constructed as a fountain, this work is a lot of visual splashy fun, and there's even a second large turtle outside the fountain for kids to clamber over.

In the quiet square Náměstí Republiky, I found Neptune's son Triton holding two water-dogs on chains, supported by Aquarians with the whole company spouting water:

And finally, I located this unconventional statue of the god Mercury in a kind of wrapped plastic motif. OK, he's under wraps while some heavy construction takes place in the building next door, and will eventually be revealed once more.

But I don't know... he looks intriguing the way he is right now, prompting the observer to puzzle out exactly what's hidden beneath those contours:

Light Packing Revisited

Way back in May 2008 I wrote a blog post on light packing, listing the items I take with me on Lonely Planet assignments to Poland.

It's still one of the more popular posts on my blog, receiving many visits and comments.

Four years on, I'm planning to travel to Poland again and things have changed. Technology, in particular, has moved on and has allowed me to reduce my packing even more.

I still travel with cabin luggage only, stored in my trusty High Sierra backpack purchased in 2005 (pictured above, packed and ready to fly via Ryanair from Poznań last year).

So it's time for an update. Here's what I'll be taking with me this year to Poland (with sidetrips to London, Stockholm and the eastern Czech Republic):

Clothing:

• 3 shirts (2 t-shirts + 1 with a collar)
• 3 pairs of socks
• 3 pairs of underwear
• 2 pairs of trousers (1 jeans, 1 black)
• 1 bathers
• 1 fleecy top
• 1 scarf
• 1 woolly hat
• 1 jacket
• 1 pair of boots

Tech:

• iPad
• Apple wireless keyboard
• iPhone
• Mophie Juice Pack battery case for the iPhone 
• small tripod & Glif tripod stand for the iPhone
• chargers for the above, plus an AU > Euro power adapter
• headphones

Other:

• folder with printouts of Lonely Planet text by city
• clipboard
• pens & 2 notepads
• foldable bowl and fork/spoon
• Crumpler satchel
• toiletries

Of course, a fair few of these items will be travelling on my person rather than in the backpack.

So what's changed since 2008?

Threads and tech

The clothing is much the same, based on my "rule of three" - I've found it's the perfect mix for a late Polish spring, adaptable to hot humid days and cool chilly ones. My one indulgence is the pair of bathers, because I do just occasionally stay at a hotel with a swimming pool.

The tech is quite different. Out goes the Sony Vaio laptop, Olympus digital camera, Palm PDA and Nokia mobile phone; in comes the iPad, wireless keyboard, iPhone and Mophie battery case. Clearly that's a big reduction in weight, especially when you factor in the fewer leads and chargers required.

Paper goes digital

Physical books have completely disappeared too, present instead in digital form on the iPad and iPhone. Though I have been known to pick up the odd undemanding novel from the local bookshop chain EMPiK as I potter around Poland.

Unfortunately I still need printouts of the previous edition of the Lonely Planet guidebook I'm researching. I'd love to have all this on a waterproof tablet with a long battery charge, on which I could make quick marginal notes with a stylus. One day perhaps, as the tech matures.

Image reduction

Where's the camera, you might wonder? For years I've taken photos on a simple compact digital camera, and had plenty of them published. Now, with the camera of the iPhone 4S approaching the quality of that of my digital camera, I've decided to use that for my photography instead.

It's a bit of a leap and I'm aware it has limitations, but I trialled it recently on a week in Thailand and it was quite successful. The bonus of being able to automatically back up images via hotel wifi to iCloud each evening is an added incentive. It'll be interesting to see how it goes.

Bowl food = soul food

The other item that might raise eyebrows is the foldable bowl. It's a clever item you can buy from camping stores, a flat circular piece of plastic which magically folds into a usable bowl. It's for evenings when I'm completely exhausted and just want to eat something simple in my hotel room - I pick up some muesli and milk and use the bowl for them. Bliss.

What do you think, would this work for you or is it too restrictive? Do you have light packing tips you'd like to share?

Look Upon This Picture, And On This...

When is a famous historic building not a famous historic building? When it's a scale model, of course.

In last week's Canberra post I talked about our visit to Cockington Green Gardens, a tourist attraction filled with miniature replicas of English village settings. However, it also has an international section.

Rather than being filled with humble village miniatures, it's mostly home to replicas of grand historic buildings from around the globe, funded by the relevant national embassy or cultural body.

As I walked around, I realised I'd been to several of the models' originals. There's nothing more fun than playing the "Been there!" game, usually while watching the TV. You know how it goes - an image comes on the screen of the Pyramids, for example, or Edinburgh Castle, and you shout out "Been there!".

You don't know that game? Oh well, we play it here, anyway.

Here are my "Been there!" moments from Cockington Green:

1. Borobudur, Indonesia. On my first trip overseas in 1981, I visited this beautiful 9th century Buddhist monument, containing over 500 Buddha statues within bell-shaped stone structures. Here's my pic from 1981:


... and here's Cockington Green's model:


2. Karlštejn Castle, Czech Republic. This Gothic castle outside Prague was constructed in the 14th century for the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, Charles IV. We snapped this shot on a Central European trip in 1993...

And here's the replica at Cockington Green:


3. Palmyra, Syria. Palmyra was a Roman-era city, now a set of ruins in the Syrian desert. We visited it in 1994, on a holiday from our teaching jobs in Egypt. Here's a pic we took then...


... and here's the model at Cockington Green:


4. Petra, Jordan. The beautiful "rose-red city half as old as time", carved from the rock by the Nabatean civilisation around 100 BCE. Here's our 1994 photo...


... and Cockington Green's version:



5. Trakai, Lithuania. Finally, I visited Trakai in 2008 while taking a side-trip from a Lonely Planet assignment. This place really does look like it's been plucked from Disneyland, as it's a perfect fairy tale castle in the middle of a lake. Here's my shot...

... and here's Cockington Green's model. Hard to pick the fake, huh?

The Sound of Wanderlust

Melbourne singer and songwriter Andrew McUtchen recently released his debut album, Down With Wanderlust. A provocative title, I thought, as I regularly bang on about the love of travel right here on this blog. So I asked Andrew to explain himself...

Q: Why the title? What inspired it?

A: The title refers to what I had to do to make the album. It was Down with Wanderlust, and Up with Songwriting, Recording and Sitting Still! Travel is phenomenally inspiring, but I suppose as a writer, or a creative generally, you have to watch that you don’t end up with a shelf full of notebooks and no finished works.

Travel provides the flashpoint of inspiration, but returning home for me is about processing what you’ve seen and experienced and then re-expressing it in words or music.

Q: Do you think a love of travel can be a harmful thing?

A: I reckon travel is an intoxicant and should be treated as such. Travelling keeps you in a childlike state of awe at the world, which is so refreshing after a period of routine. But for me, the movement needs a counterpoint to have real value.

Was it Wordsworth who said “Emotion recollected in tranquillity”? I think it only becomes harmful if your love of travel, like your love of single-malt whiskey or hard drugs, is just an escape from boredom, responsibility, or real, deeply rooted relationships with the people around you.

Q: How can you balance travel with putting down roots? (And would you agree it’s ironic that you left for South America just after the album was launched?)

A: Some pointers:

• Get a job that relates to travel;
• Get a girlfriend who loves travel as much as you do;
• Find a vocation that can be developed on the road;
• Write quality, PERSONAL emails to your best mates and family (CCs do as much damage as good, I hate getting CC:ed travel emails). I actually became closer to one mate of mine through our epic correspondence. He ended up writing our joint memoirs into a novel.

Yes, true, I left for South America less than 12 hours after my record launch at Pure Pop in St Kilda! I designed a quick international getaway in order to feel like a rockstar on a world tour. But no, I beg to disagree, it’s not that ironic, it was my first major OS trip in ages; I’d managed to push my wanderlust down for three whole years!

Q: Which of the tracks on the album address travel most directly?

A: Probably Freedom Hymn. The chorus has a chanted refrain of “Freedom is anywhere you want it to be”, which is intended to mean that true freedom is a mental state, not a dusty suitcase, a plane ticket and a passport. Though these things, in concert with an unencumbered mind, is the ultimate combination.

Sand Dunes is the epic travel song though, in the sense that it’s really long, and is, lyrically speaking, a travelogue about a guy trapped inside Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road (incidentally, probably the best song ever).

Q: Does your day job involve travel?

A: Yes, I’m the managing editor of two high-end in-room hotel magazines: Destinations Victoria and Destinations Australia.

Q: Where have you travelled most recently?

A: Uruguay. I much preferred it to Argentina. Cleaner, greener, less corrupt and the coastline is studded with great little Mexican-style seaside villages. Did I mention the horses? Lots of horses!

Q: Is there a place you long to return to?

A: I probably shouldn’t mention it, because it’s quite busy enough, but my mind always goes back to Český Krumlov in the south of the Czech Republic. There’s something about the softness of the light in summer, the taste of the beer and the way the afternoons pass as slow as the waters of the Vltava River that runs through it; it’s just magical.

Not to mention that if you get a room with a wooden windowsill you are looking, every day, at a real-life Van Gogh painting; all those rustic golds, fields and swirling blue skies!

Q: How has the album been received so far?

A: So far so good. For me, the best thing about reviews is hearing who people think my influences are and what my music ‘sounds like’ to them. False humility aside, as a singer you honestly have no idea how the sound that’s coming out of your mouth settles in other people’s ears.

Some references are difficult to take (John Mayer always smarts a bit, but I know it’s the “air” my voice) and some are flattering (Cat Stevens, Paul Simon, Nick Drake, Ryan Adams), but all interest me for their subjectivity.

More info:

• Down With Wanderlust can be purchased online via iTunes; or order the CD from Rare Records.
• In Melbourne, the CD is also available from Rare Records, 82 Acland Street, St Kilda; Pure Pop Records, 221 Barkly Street, St Kilda; and Greville Records, 152 Greville Street, Prahran.
• You can read more about Andrew and his music here.