Plzen

We arrived in Plzen in mid afternoon and quickly got orientated and found our hostel. By the time that we got settled in and organized it was pretty much dinner time so we made our way out and towards the city center in search of a place to eat. After wandering around for a little bit we eventually found a decent place and sat down to enjoy a delicious meal. After dinner we decided to check out some of the night life and so we spent the rest of the evening in one of the pubs enjoying the locally brewed Pilsner beer.

The next morning we made our way back into the city center where we admired the Church of St Bartholomew and several other old building faces in nam Republiky (old town square). After checking out the town square we made our way to the Brewery Museum which is located in an authentic medieval malt house. At the museum we learned that beneath the city of Plzen there are several kilometers of tunnels where the residents would hide in times of danger, store food and beer, and collect water from wells. So at the museum we signed up for an hour long guided tour through some of the tunnels and got to see some old wells, storage chambers, and artifacts that had been uncovered in them. After touring the tunnels we wandered through the fascinating Brewery Museum and got to see several of the old instruments used for brewing beer as well as learn how it was done. By the time that we finished with the museum we had just enough time to grab a bite to eat and run over to the Pilsner Urquell Brewery for their daily guided tour. The tour through this brewery, which is just as famous if not more so than the Budweiser Budvar Brewery, was interesting although I thought the one at the Budweiser Budvar Brewery was better. During the tour we saw much of the same stuff as the Budweiser tour but also some multimedia presentations which just advertised their beer. The free beer at the end was still really tasty though. After our brewery tour we returned to our hostel for a short rest before heading out to get some dinner. That night we ate at the Brewery Museum's restaurant, which was rated the 3rd best pub in the Czech Republic according to the Pilsner Brewery, and then just returned to our hostel for a fairly early night.

The following morning we decided that we had seen all there was to see in Plzen so instead of spending half the day there as we planned to we just packed our bags and made our way to the train station. At the train station we quickly boarded a train bound for Prague which was our next destination.






The town hall in Plzen with a statue to its left.












The Church of St Bartholomew in the old town square.














A manikin sifting through malt in the Brewery Museum.