On the weekend of August 24-26, I went with a couple of new friends of mine (who I met in Dresden) to a Czech town called Plzeň (spelled Pilsen in German). Plzeň is the legendary town where Pilsener beer was invented and is where Pilsner Urquell is brewed. We rented a car and left Friday evening. For any North American, the Czech republic is a tiny country, which is great because you can get anywhere in the Czech republic in a reasonable amount of time with a car. It only a took us 2.5 hours to get there.
We passed by several fields where hops were being grown. Hops is the ingredient in beer that gives it the bitter taste.
Once we arrived in Plzeň, we checked into our hotel, went to a restaurant to get some food, and enjoy some delicious Czech beer. One great thing about this place is that your Euro goes a long way! Typically, a 0.5L beer costs 25-30 cK, which is about 1 Euro.
We decided to check out some of the night-life. Plzeň is a town of about 180,000, so the night life was pretty busy. We did a bar crawl: We had a beer, and then moved on to the next bar.
The next day was a beautiful day. Here's a view of the street where our hotel is. We stayed at a really nice hotel called Hotel Palace, which I would recommend to anyone visiting this town.
This is a view from the bridge, where you can see the old Pilsner Urquell water tower.
Like almost every European city, here's the main square...
with a massive church sitting right in the middle.
Of course we did the Pilsner Urquell brewery tour. Here's the entrance to the brewery.
Inside the grounds of the brewery.
The entrance to the brewery.
The brewery tour started with a comical 10 minute propaganda video telling the tales of peril and triumph Pilsner Urquell went through since its inception in 1842. Back in the 1800's, the brewers of Plzeň weren't making good beer, so they joined forces to create the brewery, Pilsner Urquell. In 1842, the first Pilsner was created.
The tour then took us to their modern packaging plant. It was built very recently, so everything is very new. Unfortunately, we went on the day where they shut down the plant for cleaning.
Beer bottles and cans are packaged here.
Pipes and slides.
Here's the plan of the packaging plant. Apparently, they will be adding extra equipment into the empty space to increase their production.
This is an old water tower.
This diagram shows the process of manufacturing beer.
The copper containers that are used to brew beer. It was pretty hot in here. But nothing too exciting going on here.
This is an old container which used to be used for brewing beer.
The entrance to the vast network of tunnels that exist under Pilsen. These tunnels are the same temperature all year around (it must have been 10C), which is perfect for storing food, and of course beer.
Going into the caves.
A room containing old oak beer barrels.
Beer used to be stored in huge oak barrels like this.
This is a map of the huge network of tunnels.
Pilsner Urquell still brews some beer in old oak barrels.
Finally, a taste test. We were poured a cup of unpasteurized beer straight from the oak barrels.
You can see the beer is slightly cloudy. It was very good though.
After the tour, we headed to the church in the main square and climbed to the top of the tower. I got some really good shots of the city.
Here are a couple of 180 degree panoramic shots I was able to capture, thanks to a program called Autostitch. These panoramic shots were created by stitching together 10-12 pictures.
Beer is very cheap in the grocery store...
A panorama of the main square.
A night shot in the main square.
Another night shot.
We went to this bar where you can pour your own beer. The bar was decorated with hops hanging from the ceiling.
So far, we went through 0.4L.
We also did a tour of the tunnels under Plzeň.
A water wheel that used to power water pumps. Now it's just there for decoration.
We left Plzeň to head back to Dresden. But we decided to head towards a small town called Loket (which means "elbow" in Czech), where I have been before 3 years ago. While we were on the roads, we saw a helicopter flying around.
A horrible accident that happened recently.
Some cattle in the fields.
A monument in the main square of Loket.
The Lazy River Hostel is the place I stayed the last time I was in Loket.
The road to the main square.
The bridge that crosses the river that almost surrounds Loket.
A view of the river from the top of the bridge.
The pygmy goats that live in Loket. They're really cute, and they love people.
Some cool pictures of the castle in Loket.
One of the many museums in Berlin. This is in the Museum district of Berlin.
A cool looking building, with the TV tower in the background. I think this is a museum as well.
This is a memorial for the book-burning that took place before WWII. The plaque has a quote by Heinrich Heine: "Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen." ("Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too.")
Apparently, under this lot lies one of Hitler's bunkers. Perhaps the one he died in. This is close to the new Holocaust memorial.
Inside the Holocaust memorial.
A panorama of the holocaust memorial.
My friends posing at Alexanderplatz.
A cool picture of the bombed-out church, which is preserved this way as a memorial of the WWII bombings.
The Siegessäule (Berlin Victory Column) at sunset. Built between 1864–73, as a memorial to commemorate the victory in the Prussian-Danish war.
A panorama from on top of the Berlin Victory Column.
A picture inside of the Reichstag (officially called the Bundestag) dome. You can see where the German politicians do their work.
A cool panorama of the Gendarmenmarkt, a pretty neat square. From the left, the buildings are: Der Deutsche Dom (The German Cathedral), Das Konzerthaus (The Concert Hall), and Der Französiche Dom (The French Cathedral).
It was damn cold, but there were a lot of people there.
Club goers enjoying the view.
A picture of the group.
Another view from the rooftop.
Yet another view from the rooftop.
The rooftop bar.
A view from another side of the rooftop.
