Hotel Purkmistr Plzen

... and sauerkraut. Didn't really care for the dumplings and sauerkraut but the goulash soup was great.<br><br> Then on to the brewery. Pilsner Urquell has been purchased by a conglomerate, the South African Brewers or SAB but Pilsner Urquell has also become their flagship as it is such a good beer. It was our misfortune to be there on a day when they were cleaning the lines in the bottling and ...

I seemed to have developed a taste for beer on this trip (partly b/c it's too hot to drink wine!!) and no tour to Czech republic would be complete with a tour of the Pilsner Urquell brewery...<br> <br><br>The town of Pilsner is fairly nondescript (ie/ it has no redeeming features, other than a summer installation of a pilsner beer garden and a bouncy ...

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 ...

We finally made it to the Czech Republic after a delightful delay of German bike touring. We waited an extra day to cross the border so that we could early in the day....just in case anything went wonky....only to find the border crossing unmanned. No papers, no stamps, no inspections, no officials, no nada. Czech Rep. is a different world...sorta like going from the US into Mexico, and pretty much what you might expect from Eastern Europe. Pastoral landscapes, small villages, and old ...

Plzen would be better recognized in its Germanized spelling, Pilsner; this town is the home of the famous beer Pilsner Urquell (originally a Czech beer but marketed under its German name). Pilsner beer has been brewed here since the 1100s, but the modern variety emerged in the mid-nineteenth century. The town itself was nice but nothing special, but the Pilsner brewery made it much worth a trip. Visitors get to see much of the beer ...

... couple of minutes to recover from laughing before he could tell me that Ausfahrt is the German word for Exit.  Hee hee!  We made it to Plzen around 1 pm, just in time for an outdoor cafe lunch accompanied by a frosty mug of the original Pilsner beer.  The goulash was very good, and I suspect there will be lots more tasty bowls of the stuff on this trip. 

... The theater is really something to see. It was renovated about ten years ago. As you would expect, it is all gilt, crystal, alabaster, and beautiful frescoes. We ended up in a box on the second balcony. This is the stuff that movies are made of. The box was mirrored, beautifully painted and enclosed except for the front. A door shut out the hallway behind. We sat in the second row on little chairs about the height of bar stools. This enabled us to see over the people who were ...

... We stopped in a Metro Station and bought 15 day transit passes for $10 each. We took the tram home and stopped at the butcher, greengrocer, and minimarket for dinner and Thursday's breakfast. We got shish kebobs from the butcher and potatoes and lettuce from the greengrocer. We also picked up fruit, cereal, and a few basics. We found a wonderful Moravian dry, red wine for $2.60 a ¾ litre bottle. Although we didn't feel like we had jet lag, we were in bed by 8:30 and slept. 23 ...

... from Czechia into Germany, we stopped at a roadside station to have first dinner, Scott's first asparagus of the season (tender white asparagus is a special event in late Spring throughout Europe), along with a breaded schnitzel, goulash, and a jelly doughnut (known as a Berliner). The second dinner was later, in Berlin, where Scott had his second asparagus of the season.