Dave and I have switched countries! We are currently in the Czech Republic. Leaving Rachel and Matt’s place in Germany somehow we managed to get on the wrong train. We finally found our way to the right train and instead of our trip to Pilsen only being a 3 hour trip with one stop over it turned into an 8 hour trip with 4 different trains and 1 bus. It was crazy! We made it okay and we were happy to check into our $65 Courtyard Marriott room in Pilsen.

Dave and I wandered to the old city square to find some food. We stopped in a little restaurant off of the main city square that advertised the local beer: Pilsner Urquell. Each restaurant that we passed by had a sign outside for what beer they served. This has to be the tastiest soup ever! really. it is. I kept seeing Garlic Soup on the menu in Germany and I decided to give it a try finally while in Pilsen. I was not disappointed. Our whole meal was about 280 CZK which is only $14, which is awesome for two main dishes a soup and two .5 liters of beer!

While planning our trip we noticed a city called Pilsen on our way to Prague from Nuremburg. Immediately we thought of pilsner beer. We looked up the city of Pilsen on Wiki Travel and sure enough, it is the home of Pilsner Beer! If you know us well, you know that we like our beer.

We took a tour of the Pilsner Urquell Brewery. Pilsen was the birthplace of Pilsner beer, the first beer that you could see through. Beer before the Pilsner was invented in 1842 was dark beer. The tour lasted about 2 hours and took us through the many stages of beer. I had been to the Anchor Steam Brewery in San Francisco last year and I had high hopes for the tour.

My hopes were squashed like a fly swatted by a fly trap.

This tour was not even close to being on par with the Anchor Steam tour. For one, we had to pay! The tour cost 150 czk each ($7.50)! Our english tour guide was very hard to understand, and he had a very monotone voice. Oh yeah, and they made you pay to take photos. I didn’t pay knowing that the brewery tour couldn’t be earth shatteringly interesting that I would die if I didn’t have photos of it. One last thing, bring a jacket if you decide to go on it. We drank our ONE beer in a 40 degree cellar where we were stuck in the cold for about 30 minutes. I was wearing shorts.

All in all, even after the boring brewery tour, I enjoyed Pilsen. The architecture in the town square is worth the trip alone.

This church boasts the highest tower in the Czech Republic.

Look at that sky! It was really rainy on Tuesday evening in Pilsen. We got some really cool skies out of it though!

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I am catching up on this past weekend of posts. Internet has been a bit hard to come by, so I am posting these entries as I find a connection. My Iphone is currently going through internet with drawl as it hasn’t had a connection since we left Boston. I might forget how to text when I get back to the states!

The old town of Cochem, Germany.

We headed to the town of Cochem on Friday night after our long hike up to Burg Eltz. We had one mission in mind, to find some good food and get Dave some beer. The Mosel River and Rhine River Valley are known for their sweet wine. Think of this area as the Napa Valley of Germany. Finding beer in wine country proved to be a bit difficult. When we did find beer it would either be wheat bear, not particularly our favorite or beer mixed with lemonade. The lemonade beer is quite refreshing on a hot day. We managed to find some beer for Dave, which made him a happy traveler.

Matt and Dave having a good time drinking some German Beer and Wine.

Dave took this really cute photo of Rachel and me.

I tried the Hawaii Schnitzel which had pineapple, cheese and berries on top. That is my favorite version of schnitzel so far.

Saturday morning the four of us explored the Cochem castle. Most of the little towns along the Mosel River also have a corresponding castle. The Cochem castle was amazing! The tour was great. We only paid a few Euros to go inside the castle on a tour and we could take photos. At Burg Eltz we were not allowed to take photos inside which was a dissapointment. Our tour was in German but our tour guide was really funny and even took time out to explain some important things to us in English.

Look at all of these gorgeous ceilings!

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