Sunday, April 12, 2009

Plzen II

The next day of Plzen consisted of going to the town square and climbing to the top of the cathedral tower. From the top we could see over all of Plzen, and had great views of the large synagogue, the Skoda factory and the Pilsner Brewery. After taking a few pictures we climbed back down and walked over to the Pilsner Brewery. Like I said in the previous entry, the brewery is absolutely massive and covers much of Plzen. Eva apparently does some moonlighting at the Brewery so she served as our tour guide. 

At our first stop we learned that Pilsner Urquell is owned by SAB (South African Breweries) Miller, which means that Pilsner Urquell and delicious Miller High Life are made by the same company. A PU (Pilsner Urquell) bus came and picked us up and took us to the brand new bottling and packaging plant. This sucker cost some ridiculous amount of money and apparently was one of the most state of the art bottling plants in all of Europe. While the plant was interesting, you could only view it from a catwalk overhead. The best part of bottling plant was seeing a PU fire truck. I asked why they had PU fire trucks and Eva replied:

Because this is a factory, you need fire trucks.

Makes sense. They were awesome.

The next stop was the actual brewery. First, we watched a video that made me really want to drink a beer. Then, we learned what goes into beer and saw hops and barley that goes into PU. At the next stop we learned how the beer is brewed and saw beer being brewed in copper pots. The tour up to this point was fine but everyone had one question: When can we drink the beer?

Eva took us down into the basement where PU was originally stored. When beer is made, yeast is added last to the mixture and then the beer must sit while the yeast takes the sugar and creates alcohol and carbon dioxide. Today, this is done in storage tanks but was originally done in the basement of the brewery. The basement consists of miles of tunnels all hand dug. After a quick tour of the basement we arrived at a small room full of large barrels, presumably full of beer. Some tables had been set up and an old man was positioned at a tap coming out of one of the barrels. We all lined up, were handed a souvenir mug and got a tasty glass of unpasteurized, unfiltered Pilsner Urquell. Apparently, you can only get this type of beer on the factory tour and it was delicious. 

We went to get refills but Eva was a little worried. Apparently, CIEE has a rule that you cannot be served alcohol on any school trips. But, because the brewery tour was educational a 'beer tasting' was allowed; you just weren't allowed to get drunk. We tried our best to break this rule by getting as much pure pilsner as possible.

After the brewery tour we had some lunch and headed to Točník castle. Točník was built by King Wenceslas IV as a fortress and home between Plzen and Prague. The castle was perched on a hill and, after a night of drinking, no one was too eager to hike up this hill and spend the afternoon in the hot sun. Getting off the bus, I looked around the surrounding town and it was pretty small. The landscape mostly consisted of fields, woods and small houses. As Eva explained, this was more or less what the Bohemian countryside looks like. Moreover, when the weather gets nice most Czechs spend their weekends hiking or camping around castles like Točník. We hiked to the castle and it really was incredible. Looking at the bare structure I couldn't help but think that the meager building was incredibly luxurious in its time. I tried to put myself in the shoes of Wenceslas IV but it was hard to imagine what his world was like.

Historical sites are generally different in Europe than in the United States. Once you pay admission you are pretty much allowed to wander freely and there is little security. For example, the castle was perched on a large hill with steep cliffs on most sides. Still, no guardrails or staff were around to make sure that people didn't fall or ruin the castle from the 14th century. At one point, we simply climbed up a castle wall to an inaccessible point of the wall and enjoyed the view.   

After we finished with the castle we climbed back down the hill and laid in a huge field, enjoying the warm weather. The weekend of the Plzen trip was one of the first weekends of gorgeous weather and it hugely affected how I enjoyed the trip. Seeing the Bohemian countryside in bloom was fantastic. Eva even mentioned how glad she was that we all got to see how Czechs spend their weekends during the warm months. It was a surprisingly cultural trip, considering I went mainly because of the brewery tour.

We finally made it back to Prague around 4 and I was shocked. Prior to that time, weekends in Prague had always been a little crowded but in that one week it seemed like the city exploded. The Vltava was filled with paddle boats and the sun was just setting over Prague Castle. Even after a great weekend in Plzen I was not only impressed with Prague's beauty but was happy to be back; forgetting how much I missed Prague being gone only one day. 

The bus had some issues parking because we weren't allowed anywhere near the Hilton, where President Obama was staying. The police and security presence outside the hotel was incredible. Finally, we took a nice tram home in the warm weather.

Note: Since Plzen the weather has been consistently good here. Throughout the winter the weather was cold but what really surprised me was the cloud cover. 75% of the days here had NO sunshine. I had the hope that when spring came the sun would come out but assumed that it was just wishful thinking. After all, I couldn't see how warm weather could cause the sun to shine. In any case the weather has surpassed all of my expectations and it is gorgeous here. I don't understand the drastic change but am wholly enjoying the amazing weather.

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