h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ostrava, a 350,000 population city is a down-at-heel mining town in Northern Moravia near to the Polish border. The scars left by Nazism and Communism still show. One saving grace is the fine Theater named after Dvorak; he was incidentally the composer of the New World Symphony which became famous as the first piece of music to be played on the moon.
There is a reasonable hotel on the outskirts of the metropolis and it is the 4-star Hotel Atom, where British PM John Major once stayed, and which is where we stayed for 3 nights; all 25 of us and our bus driver.
Visiting Ostrava I recalled a 1960s poem about the City of Leeds by Irish Poet Christie Brown who observed that Leeds was "between standing up and falling down". It rather captures the Ostrava mood.
One excursion worth mentioning was the visit to the not too distant birthplace of Sigmund Freud. Oustide the front door of the old Freud residence I relaxed on a bronze full-size psychiatrist's couch complete with the Freudian quip - sit down and think, stand up and act - inscribed along its base.
The Ash Mountains Region (a 13th century gold rush attracted the first settlers) is only a little over an hour or so's journey to the west of Ostrava. And so we went to look. And there, an abundance of pure nature; cool fresh air, greenery, wild flowers, sparkling brooks and rivers, quiet lanes, walking trails and so on, all situated amid the pleasant mountain scenery rising gently to 1,300 mtrs was just the tonic! I may well return.

Dobre den!

Somerfields (loghtly downmarket supermarket) sells beer from Ostravaya. And very nice it is too!

loghtly? slightly!

Yes, the Czechs have some decent beer, and at 50p a pint it's worth the quaff! Unfortunately I ate some sauerkraut that had gone off and suffered the whole time with gut ache and could only drink water. It means I'll just have to go back!
Judging by the plethora of road signs Ostrava seems to be totally surrounded by Tesco supermarkets. Many of them are open 'NonStop' - which presumably means 24 hrs.

Isn't sauerkraut *meant* to be off?

Very funny Edward. They told me some years ago, and I should have known better, that you should never eat sauerkraut in some of the months - of which May unfortunately turned out to be one.

Trouble was that the chef cooked it in this delicious sweet sauce and served it with melt-in-the-mouth dumplings and, oh well, you know the rest.

I'm still a bit tender having cured myself with Rennies and vodka. But basically mended.

I overdid it with kimchi (see A3100168) recently. I couldn't sit down for a week!

Kimchi and weapons grade chili I cannot possibly eat. I think a Madras with a Tiger Beer is about my limit in that direction.
Having read the results your excellent research at A3100168 it seems that fermentation was still on-going as I was actually consuming the kraut! Maybe it was one from the top of the barrel.
Perhaps I'd have been ok if the cook had fished one up from the bottom of the barrel? As you probably know they look a bit like cowpats when they get ripe.