Astory Hotel Plzen

Today was Beer Day. We signed up to go to the Pilsner Urquell Brewery in Plzen (pronounced Pilszen). It is about a one hour drive from Prague. There is also a museum there and some caves about ½ way there. The tour included stopping at the caves which we thought at first were associated with Pilsner Urquell but they are just nice caves.<br><br> We hit the museum first which had some really nice ...

... put before him... <br><br><br>The tour starts with the production line - the cleaning of recycled glasses, the airation &amp; subsequent dispensing of beer into glasses and laser scanning of the bottles for imperfections, this was pretty much how it worked for the cans aswell (minus the recycling step). <br><br>If I could bore you with all the ...

Today we went to the Pilsner Urquell brewery in Plzen. Pilsner, the type of beer, originated here, where Pilsner Urquell was brewed from local crops and local mineral water. The tour was awesome. We saw the traditional brew kettles and the modern ones, as well as a very modern new packaging plant. We also tasted some unpastuerized beer directly from fermenting barrels.<br>

(76 miles) Slowing ourselves down has really helped us go longer while feeling like we are riding less. Today we entered the Czech Republic and found out that the roads are not as nice and little towns are run down. It's interesting the change. Everything is much cheaper here as well. We find ourselves dodging potholes more and eating out more. However so far I have taken less pictures ...

... nipped in the bud. Czech is a whole different ball game. Like cricket. It sorta resembles something familiar, but you soon realize everything is differnt. Differnt field, different rules, different variations on familiar things. Even the liquid refreshment is different ...rather than breaking the action for tea, they break for beer here. And sadly, I have NEVER figured out cricket. Perhaps the beer will do the trick and I will eventually remember how to say hello without my crib notes.

... in circles I noticed a tall steeple rising above the skyline of Plzen, and it struck me that the tallest building in Plzen is the St. Bartholomew's Cathedral located merely one block from Solni Pension. It was like my guiding light and led us through the city into our pension. By this time I was drenched in sweat and demanded a beer immediately. We trudged around town until stumbling upon Dominika where we knocked back a few $1.50 ...

... hopping in line to buy tickets for a tour. This was actually my favorite day trip that we took. The commercialized brewery was so neat...everything in the factory and the cellars made the trip a little corny (ok the manequin figures they have in the cellars were really corny though they're common in the region - they were also all throughout the mine shafts in Ostrava). But the brewery tour was still exciting. To be honest, I didn ...

... Eindruck. XXXXX Stopover in Plzen, the city of the worldchampion of beerdrinkers. 4 beers and cigarettes for only 5 Euro, not bad. First contact with rain, but only thunderstorm. Czech Republik, especially very beautiful Plzen, better said in German Pilsen, seems to be very nice for the first impression.

... a Czech/English dictionary and she was in the process of revising it. She also runs a small school. In her spare time she does tours. The trip down was lovely with all the fresh snow bright and clean. The sun shone all day. We stopped at a 13th century town called Chesky Budejovice. This is the home of the original Budweiser Beer. It is also one of the most beautiful squares in this part of the world. Each side of the square is about 400 feet long. Some of the original ...

... on the overhead bar. As we started up the hill on Seifertova St., the man on his right bumped into him and the man on his left was in and out of his pocket without MS's realizing it. Of course, they got off at the next stop. MS was still oblivious to the whole thing. On the way back to the Penzione we stopped to buy dinner. We got pork roll-ups from the butcher and potatoes, onions, and carrots from the greengrocer. When we got back to the rooms MS realized that he didn't ...