On Friday the 26th, we had a train ride to Plzen, which is the home of Pilsner Urquell, the foremost pilsner in the world (far as I know anyway). It’s not our favorite beer but it is a favorite style. Czech pilsners tend to be light, biscuity, have a full malty body, and are easy to drink. So hence, going to the birthplace. This was another interesting train ride. The train was older and a little crappy. There were no assigned seats so we found a car and hoped for the best, but it did end up being full. At one point, before crossing the border, an employee came by to ask our destination and when we told him, he informed us that the car we were in was not going to Czech at all! Sigh. A whole lot of people had to push forward until we were on the part of the train crossing the border. It was standing room only, sadly!

At one point, someone got off and Ash and I were able to sit for another hour or so, so that kind of worked out anyway. I can’t remember what time we arrived in Plzen but it was stressful checking into the airbnb. A couple places had a third party system you get directed to (as noted in my Frankfurt post) so we sat in this little vestibule, between a sewing shop and a second hard store, and filled out all this unnecessary stuff before finally getting through to someone who gave us the key box number. The place we stayed was definitely one of the nicer ones; included a fan and a lot of space, a decent bed. We were tired from the travel but ended up at a place called the Raven Bar, which served their own beer and food. I had a quesadilla and Ash had pulled pork nachos. Pretty good stuff! We decided just to go to a convenience store for a couple cans of beer and call it a night. We literally bought 5 cans for 5 dollars. Things are cheap there!

The next morning, we walked to a little brunch place and had some decent food; I had eggs benedict and Ash had their eggs and bacon. The plan had been to walk to the Pilsner Urquell brewery and take a tour but once we got there, found out all the English tours for the day were sold out! Ash was not happy; this had been one of the things he had to do. Guess we should have booked ahead. We did manage to get some cool signs in the gift shop. The area in front of the brewery was having a little street food festival for burger food trucks, so even though we were not hungry, we had a beer there.

There was another tour option, a brewery museum and underground tunnel tour, which we’d booked for 3. The museum was pretty neat and self-guided then we met up with a guide who took us underground. Pretty neat to see tunnels and storage areas people dug out in the medieval ages. They would sometimes spend months down there during wartimes. Part of the tour ticket gave us free beer at specific restaurants, one being just around the corner from the museum. We sat there and got our free stuff, as well as ordered some food. I finally had schnitzel and Ash had another goulash. We had 4 goulashes total and the best was actually back in Munich.

Later that evening we went to a craft beer place called KEGzistence and had a couple there. Here’s the craziest thing that happened on our trip: at one point, four somewhat rowdy guys entered and headed towards the back. Ash and I were to the right where the bar was, there were tables behind us, then to our left, the doorway to a larger back area where three women had been sitting. The men headed back there and we heard some commotion, though the women didn’t seem bothered. I look over at one point and a guy has a pair of mesh underwear on and nothing else below. Everyone seems to be laughing and joking; the women, still, undisturbed by this raucous behaviour. Ash and I continue talking to the bartender and then we look over and 3/4 men back there are literally unclothed from the waist down, taking pictures and laughing. Apparently, this is a thing where they do a pub crawl, have to make it to 8 or 9 different places, and at each, put this pair of edible underwear on… except it’s supposed to be on the outside of their pants. Yeah, not here! We asked the bartender, a guy who could be no more than 25, if this was normal and he said it definitely sometimes happens. We shared that in America, the first thing that would have happened is the women would have complained. Then the establishment would have kicked them out if not also called the cops. The bartender said, “I like to say it’s a free country.” LOL, well, only since 1989 apparently! They were occupied by the Russians until that time.

That was pretty crazy to see, that’s for sure. We were not in Plzen too long because we wanted more time in Prague. At this point, we were both wearing down. It was still fun but the desire to be home – and not moving place to place – was overwhelming.

Photos from the trip. The one inside the bar (is not mine) shows the table in the foreground where the crazy. guys were and you can see where we sat at the bar. The last pic is when we had to stand on the train.