Hotel Victoria 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.

... quite a hangover, we found out that the Solni Pension was sold out for the day, a fact that would have been nice to know before hand. So we quickly ate the breakfast of bread and vegetables and wandered around until we found a room at Pension City. We met this cool kid named Thomas who works at the pension a couple of days a week; he had nothing but hilarious words coming out of his mouth... "What do I think of the EU? ****ing EU ...

... the tour.. the beer tasting. They gave us unpasteurized, unfiltered Pilsner. Had a more unique taste then the usual stuff you get at the pubs.. and was definitely worth a taste. (in other words.. normally the beer will be pasteurized using Flash Boiling technique.. a very high temperature and short timed pasteurization technique.. and unfiltered, meaning the yeast -- used ...

Nous sommes partis en RER (genre de métro) en direction de Versaille. C'était un long trajet, presque 45 minutes... Mais ce qui nous attendait la-bas vallait grandement la peine. Surtout l'extérieur qui est aussi magnifique qu'en images. En voici un aperçu, vous verrez le reste a notre retour!

... has a peak and each is decorated with FRESH greens, a lighted yellow star in the center, and white lights forming icicles around the top edges of the roof. It is really lovely. They also have a huge tree and an ice castle where they put on shows and have public skating. In one corner of the square was a life-size crèche with a petting zoo. In another corner there was a stage where different choral groups and individuals performed. The little stalls sell everything you can ...

... we would celebrate by eating lunch out. We found a little Chinese restaurant. Very good and reasonable food. We shared a spring roll, FM had Chicken chop suey, MS had Chicken fried rice, we both had a beer. Total was less than $7.00. On the way back to the #9 we stopped in the Sony store. Since MS hadn't given Fred a birthday gift, we decided to get him a radio/cd/tape player. Now he can listen to the BBC! When we got back we went to the internet café downstairs. Both used the ...