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| Main square, Pilsen |
Had a great day today. We hadn’t really expected that, as being in Pilsen was more for Karen’s book than anything else. We knew there was the Pilsen brewery here (where Pils/Pilsener beer was originally invented), but no more. A nice breakfast at our hotel/pension, then first stop was for some water (local water tastes very average) then towards the centre via the synagogue. This is the 3rd largest in Europe, and rather lovely, though quite neglected as the local Jewish population was mostly wiped out by the end of WWII.
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| Square from the church tower |
Next, to the main square for the information centre, and a visit to the cathedral. Again a lovely building. Quite different to any others we have seen, and rather more square in plan than most. We climbed the tower with a most attractive view greeting us after we had endured the 12-noon bells. Pilsen is on a slight rise in largely flat land, and is surrounded by vast areas of wheat, barley, grass (mown for hay) and corn, with plenty of patches of forest. The square itself is one of the largest in Europe, with baroque or older buildings around it. Pilsen is remarkably quiet. Somehow the traffic is less frantic and noisy than most comparably-sized cities, and it makes for a more relaxed atmosphere.
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| Well underground |
We visited an ethnographic museum, full of articles and furnished rooms from previous ages and a Black Forest clock collection (funny that we didn’t do that while in the Black Forest). We found ourselves 40 minutes early for a tour of the underground of Pilsen, so had a cheap plate of Chinese for lunch. Food prices are pleasingly low after Germany, really good value, and a good range of styles. The tour took us into the two level deep basements below the city, quite fun, with my helmet taking an awful lot of scrapes as passages were not built for my height. The basements were originally excavated below individual buildings to allow their residents to store food in the cool. They were gradually expanded and joined up over time, with their use expanding to include providing a safe place when the city was under attack from invaders. It was only 10 degrees when we were down there so were glad we had taken our merino tops with us.
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| Ancient blunderbusses |
We found ourselves with a little spare time before the Pilsen Urquell brewery tour so we squeezed in the city museum. This had an extraordinary collection of ancient blunderbusses, one of the best anywhere. Literally hundreds of old guns, mortars, pikes and more. The crudeness of the earliest blunderbusses was amazing. Unfortunately no photos allowed, so I had to be cunning and hide from the cameras to take photos! It was too good to miss.
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| Pilsner Urquell Brewery |
Final event for the day was the brewery tour. This was 90 minutes, starting in the modern packing plant (120,000 bottles an hour!), moving to the brewhouse, then the old cellars where beer was fermented in the cool (just 7 degrees all year) and also stored. They had a stunning 9km of cellars carved into sandstone, with up to 10,000 huge barrels in storage at times. The tour finished with a glass of naturally-brewed beer. Rather tasty. We haven’t tasted their commercial brew yet.
So, a surprising and busy day, with lots on. It’s so nice being reasonably priced again, and bodes well for Prague. It was lovely and hot again today, and was fun coming outside from the underground and the cellars into the heat. Grabbed a falafel for dinner and ate it on the way home. We tried to find a car hire place in readiness for our trip the next day but the address the guy had given us at the info centre was obviously wrong.
