Bargain Booze In Bekolce.

BEKOLCE.

Manage to elicit a reluctant hello from my friend the gardener on the way to the shower block. He puts some hours in so he has a right to be miserable, I conclude.

We meet a fellow Brit at the water station. He and his wife are from Limington in the New Forest. He bought 4 pairs of shoes yesterday and is throwing all his old ones away. Rosie has seen the quality and concludes that you get what you pay for! They have a bigger van than us , he complains that he is always backing into something. He should be employing a panel beater full time, he jokes.

Paul has a conference call at 2pm so Rosie has found a large town on route to our campsite. Eger is 2 hours' away so we arrive with 10 minutes to spare. We park in a shopping mall car park on the edge of town. Rosie finds a bargain on a pair of walking boots whilst I take the call.

We drive to Bekolce and find the gates closed. Whilst we are looking for an alternative, a girl in her late teens appeared surrounding by five dogs. The dogs, though noisy, are all very friendly. She offers to phone the owner who is home in Holland at the moment. He says we can stay and offers full use of the facilities. The girl house sits whilst the owner is away. She hails from Switzerland and her parents are opening a zoo in the valley. Full of exotic animals including big cats.

After connecting up, we walk a mile or so along a dead straight road into the village. Each house has at least one dog and often two or three. As we pass, we set the dogs off barking, one after the other. The village has entered the spirit of Easter, or is it Spring?, with their display.

The bar is full of men but this doesn't deter Rosie. I'm we stayed. If we thought that beer was cheap yesterday, today we realise what cheap really is. Two half litre bottles of beer, 300 ml of wine and a large packet of peanuts cost £3.30. In total!