booze tourism

Beer and Fucking Tour… beer spa #1 at the Moorhof

So, finally it was time to try out the Moorhof’s beer spa.  Bill and I slipped into our bathing suits and I wrapped up in the robe I wisely brought with me (I don’t think they had them at the Moorhof).  The hotel has sauna towels, but we brought our own spa towels, which are huge and cover everything.  The nice lady who checked us in told us to wait by the door where the beer spa is (and you can tell which one it is because it says it’s only for beer spa patrons).  We waited patiently for her to come and get us started.

For beer spa patrons only!

Finally, we went into the little room where the fake beer keg looking bath is.  She had already prepared it with hot water and hops.  I got in first and sat on the side close to the wall, where there was a beer keg with spigots over the tub.  Unfortunately, they were just decorative.  Bill sat on the other side.  There were two dark beers waiting for us, included in the treatment.  She turned on the tub and told us she’d be back in 20 minutes.

Bill and I visited the beer baths in Chodovar, which is a beer spa in the Czech Republic.  That was a great experience and we really enjoyed ourselves.  I think we liked the Moorhof’s beer spa a little better.  For one thing, it was more private.  At Chodovar, there are a bunch of tubs in one room and people bathe at the same time, albeit it with sheets drawn for privacy.  The Moorhof had the one beer bath in the room we were in and I think there was another room with two or three more tubs for those in groups.  I liked that the tub was like a jacuzzi, too.  And the hops and stuff added to the water was definitely rough.  Some of it stuck to me when I got out of the bath.

The beer bath at Moorhof is hot, and you definitely wouldn’t want to drink the beer used for the spa treatment.  It’s really more like a wort than actual beer.  But it’s relaxing and a lot of fun.

After thirty minutes, the lady came back, had us strip naked (and she averted her eyes so she didn’t see us in the buff), then wrapped us in sheets.  She escorted us to a wooden bed covered in oat straw that had a sheet over the straw.  We laid on the straw and she covered us with a blanket and turned out the light.  We laid there for thirty minutes.  Actually, I had to get up a little sooner than that because I had to answer the call of nature.  But again, it was very nice… very restful and relaxing and not itchy at all.  I was expecting the straw bed to make me sneeze or scratch, but it didn’t.  It was surprisingly comfortable and pleasant.

I don’t usually pose for pictures, but I made an exception…

Awww…

After we were finished with our treatments, we showered.  We really needed to shower because there was beer spa residue all over us and in our bathing suits.  Then we got changed and went to dinner, where we enjoyed four courses.  Each course included beer in the ingredients.  Three small beers were included with the dinner.

They thoughtfully translated for us.  

Cute little pils.

Beer soup.  It was very yummy, even if the color was a little iffy.

Beer batter fried broccoli?  Maybe the best way to eat it…

I didn’t eat much of the chicken and potato croquettes because I was getting full and wanted dessert.  It was good, though.

Beer pancakes with cranberries.

 

Remember in the first post of this series, I mentioned tour buses?  Well, there was one parked at the Moorhof on Saturday night.  I think it was full of young folks in a band of some sort.  We heard a few brass instruments playing scales.  This was the only tour group we encountered that consisted of students.  It was interesting to watch them, especially when the adults had to come in and herd some of the stragglers from the breakfast buffet the next morning.

The beer spa at the Moorhof was great!  But it paled in comparison to the Starkenberger Beer Pool.  Stay tuned for that post coming up soon.

Standard
Austria

The beer and Fucking tour…

That’s what I’m calling our next planned trip.  And no, it’s not because we’re planning to do a lot of boots knocking during our travels.

Since we’ve been back in Germany, Bill and I have been determined to try to see more.  The last time we lived here, we didn’t travel very much during the first year of our stay.  We thought we were going to get the standard three years.  We ended up with just barely two years.  Since Bill is now a contractor, we have decided not to take living in Germany for granted.  It’s entirely possible that we’ll have to move again a year from now.

Bill has been wanting to visit Gruyeres, Switzerland since we lived here last time.  We meant to go in 2008, but circumstances did not line up for us to make it to the land of chocolate, cheese, and weird museums.  On Sunday afternoon, I was trying to come up with a plan for a weekend in Switzerland next month.  Once again, the cards of fate seemed stacked against me.  I had a hard time figuring out exactly where we should go.  Then my attention shifted to Austria.

There is a hotel in a small town about twenty miles from Salzburg that offers a beer spa.  I have been wanting to go to that hotel since our last long term stay in Europe.  During our five years living in the States after our first Germany tour, I thought about how we could get there so I could take another beer bath.  I wondered how I’d justify visiting Franking, Austria when we’d have to travel thousands of miles to get to Europe and there were so many other, bigger, more exciting cities we hadn’t yet seen.  Salzburg itself is a great town and Bill and I were only there for a day back in 2012.

Anyway, I was looking at the hotel in Franking and noticed on the map that close to Franking, there is another town called Fucking (pronounced Fooking).  Naturally, that tickled me, since I have a filthy sense of humor.  I looked it up and discovered that this tiny little town has become the subject of much mockery from English speakers.  Town officials have had to put up theft proof signs and closed circuit television in order to discourage tourists from stealing the signs and/or having intercourse in front of them.  The town has been so rattled by tourists disturbing them that they even tried to get the name changed.  It was not allowed.

Well, that piqued my interest.  I told Bill about it and he agreed, Fucking is a town we need to visit, if only so I can get a photo of the theft proof signs.  Maybe we’ll just drive through.  Maybe we’ll stop for lunch.  And it’s not far from Franking, where we can take beer baths and relax in a country atmosphere.

Then I started thinking about Austria’s famed Starkenberger beer pools.  They are located at the Starkenberger brewery in Tarrenz, Austria.  Looking around the Web site, I see that Tarrenz is a very picturesque area.  Though a dip in the beer pool will be very costly, it’s the kind of thing that is often on a beer lover’s bucket list.  Having already enjoyed a weekend at Chodovar’s beer wellness land in the Czech Republic, this is just the kind of activity for people like Bill and me.  And it definitely fits in with the beer baths we hope to enjoy in Franking.

I started looking for lodging in Tarrenz and found there were slim pickings there.  However, the area is well saturated with lodging in other towns.  I chose a hotel in Lermoos that looks pretty damn awesome.  Lermoos is about ten miles from Tarrenz.  Better yet, because it’s not ski season time, the hotels are reasonably priced.

We have been to the Tyrol area of Austria, but in the past, we’ve always stayed in Garmisch-Partenkirchen at the Edelweiss Lodge.  Garmisch-Partenkirchen, as we all know, is in Germany, and the Edelweiss Lodge is not exactly authentically European style accommodation.  The only reason we went down to Garmisch-Partenkirchen was because Bill had conferences at the Edelweiss Lodge.  I’d go with him and take day tours with other bored housewives.  Now that Bill doesn’t go down there for work, it’s time we visited the area as tourists and checked it out more thoroughly.  It will be nice to stay in Austria instead of Germany, too.

I have to admit, my first impressions of Austria back in 1997 were not all that positive.  I thought it was a very pretty country with little soul.  I was wrong about Austria.  Every time I’ve been back, I’ve found more to like about it.

As for Switzerland, we are still planning a trip.  I think maybe we’ll try to go to Gruyeres in October.  Or maybe we’ll finally get to Ireland, which is another place we’ve been wanting to visit.  These plans are, of course, not in line with our usual champagne bucket method of choosing places to go.  The champagne bucket method should really be used in times when you can’t decide where to travel.  This time, we know we want beer and Fucking, so there’s no need to involve fate.

Hopefully, this beer and Fucking tour will turn out beautifully.  I look forward to blogging about it.  Incidentally, I have also written about this on my main blog, but that post was composed before we made up our mind to actually visit this fabled part of Austria.

Standard