Pilsen: Brewery and City

Our major goal for this extended stay is to use Prague has a home base for side trips throughout the Czech Republic and neighbouring countries in central and eastern Europe.  The only things holding us back, of course, are the limitations of time and money.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERASo as soon as I had my Open Card endorsed for “Free Fare” –I will write about this separately– we planned a pilgrimage to the birth place of our favourite brew, Pilsner Urquell.  Pilsen is about one hour by public bus and just under two hours by train.  We chose the latter because trains are our favourite mode of travel.

Our pre-planning consisted of checking the train schedules—there is one every hour for most of the day and the brewery tour schedules—in October 4 per day in English.  It made for my kind of day out; not leaving home until after 9 A.M. and being back in time for dinner—theoretically, as we usually eat out on this type of occasion.

In the photo above (click to enlarge) on the left side you can see the ultra modern building where beer is currently brewed by sophisticated computerized controls.  To its right is the old brew house that served for about a century.  To the right of that, the white building is the original brewery from 1842.

It turned out to be a rainy day which did not distract from thoroughly enjoying the expedition.  As always, Karin has done a much better job of detailing the sights than I ever could.  Here it is:


Trip to Pilsen and Brewery
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Vrtbovska Garden

While the weather is sunny and dry we have the priority of visiting outdoor sites that are closed in the winter.  Last week we had a small beer at the Beer Garden in Riegrovy Park, a short walk from our home.  I won’t write about it now because it was quiet, just after opening for the day.

VrtbovskaRooftopsThen we visited an entirely different kind of garden.  Vrtbovska is a baroque Italian style terrace garden on the slopes of Petrin Hill.  It was quite interesting but I especially enjoyed the view over the rooftops from its upper end.

To see the whole garden and buildings through Karin’s eye’s here is the link to her Picasa album:  Vrtbovska Zharada 

The garden is at Karmelitska 25 just around the corner from Mala Strana nameste.  There is a modest entry fee.

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Expat Awkwardness

clip_image001I decided to buy a desk chair for our furnished apartment but didn’t like the affordable ones that came in a box from Ikea.  So we went to a Furniture Bazaar near the Eden shopping center.  They had both low priced antiques and used furniture including a dozen chairs of the style that I wanted.  But they don’t deliver “small” items.  Since it was raining I decided to come back another day.

So I picked a sunny day and after the morning busy time on the trams to go back.  Sure enough the tram I caught near the Bazaar was mostly empty, but did fill up by the time I got to the Nameste Miru transfer point.  There I had to wait awhile for the next tram, which of course, made it quite full.  But I barged on with the chair anyway and tried to give everyone an apologetic look.  People looked at me but I did not see any sour looks until the next stop when I ran the chair into the legs of one passenger in order to allow another passenger off.

Karin had arranged to meet me at our stop for a photo opportunity, but the other people getting on and off spoiled the shot.  So I just became a crazy old man with his rolling chair.

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