When you come to Třeboň, he says, “You have to try the fish.” We order all the appetizers on the menu - a good trick when trying to sample another culture’s cuisine. Alone and still covered in greasy oil, I head out to meet my local friend, Honza, at dinner. Later I learn that’s literally what massages are called in Czech (ruční masáž).įinished with my hand massage, I get dressed. She tells me I’m getting a “hand massage.” That sounds redundant at best…kinky at worst. It feels like a nurse’s office with a pile of dirty sheets stacked in the corner. When we finish, I stand up in the tub and she showers off the sludge, then ushers me into the massage room, where she has me lie face down. My toes look cute poking out of the hot brown muck. I climb into the stainless-steel tub, she pulls a plug, and I quickly disappear under a rising sea of gurgling sawdust soup. She’s impatient, anxious to get started because the peat muck only flows at the top of the hour. My masseuse points to my room and mimes undressing. Envisioning the elegance of the baths I’ve experienced in German spa towns, I decided to give it a whirl. People come from near and far to soak in Třeboň’s black, smelly peat sludge, thought to cure aching joints and spines.

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