Friday, May 16, 2014
Thank you America
Just two days before Germany surrendered to Allied troops on May 8, 1945 the U.S. 16 Armored Division and Second Infantry Division rolled into Plzen in the Czech Republic, at the time Czechoslovakia. While Patton's Third Army was liberating most of Western Bohemia the Red Army was busy kicking Nazis out of the eastern part of the country. After 1948, when the communists took over in Czechoslovakia, all mention of the American liberation of Plzen stopped.Evidently elements of the Third Army hung around in Plzen helping people rebuild the town until about November. It turns out the Czechs have a long memory because in 1989 when the communists were removed from power the people of Plzen organized a festival to celebrate what the U.S. Army did for them. They also erected monuments thanking the U.S.
The appreciation hasn't waned, even in the 25 years since the good people of Plzen started celebrating. The event has grown bigger and has even had to move parts of it to a city park a few hundred meters from the square in the city center. I thought it sounded like a good time, me liking military history and all, so I went.
It had a little bit of a Fourth of July parade type feel. Every light pole on Klatovska Trida (the main drag through town) sported Czech and American flags, there was a parade with soldiers and lots of people wandering around carrying little American flags. There were even lots of WWII era military vehicles. It was really nice, almost like home.
I took the train down from Prague. It's easy and cheap at 100CZK each way. I strolled over to Namesti Republiky for the end of the parade. Along the square the vehicles and soldiers stopped for a while so spectators could inspect them. Then after a short while they rolled out to the nearby city park for a more permanent display. The square was better because the vehicles were roped off in the park, which also doubled as a reenacted military camp -- for several armies.
As you can see some of these guys worked pretty hard to make things authentic. What I thought was the most interesting thing about the whole situation was that there were people participating in what I can only describe as cosplay for several generations of soldiers. I even saw a unit of Czechs dressed up in VERY accurate modern U.S. Army class B uniforms, so that was a little strange. There were some people who just took "playing army" to a whole other level and I don't know if it freaked me out or made me feel good that someone, or a lot of someones, in a place so far from where I used to see this stuff for real every day would appreciate and love it so much to work so hard to emulate it. Shoot, there were so many "2ID soldiers" in ACUs that in certain areas I could have sworn I was in the Killeen, Texas Rosa's Cafe on a Tuesday at lunchtime -- or a DEFAC whatever.
At one point while I was walking across the square to check things out I saw a squad of MARSOC Marines posing for photos with children. It was really, really, really surreal. I stepped away from the hubub around the square after taking a few photos and wandered around the town for a short while. I was a bit hungry and maybe a little hungover and I needed some food (read beer) before wrapping my confused brain around things like a reconstruction of an ISAF FOB gate sitting in a park in the Czech Republic.
This dude was totally in character, so I took a few photos of him. He is the right age for the part and fortunately in one of the few places in the world where you can still smoke and not have people vilify you. I even gave this kid an artistic desaturation to make the photo look more "authentic" plus, he looked like he spent a lot of time working on his "thousand yard stare" so I figured some creative editing was in order. It was really cool to look at the scene and imagine that it looked almost exactly like this at some point nearly 70 years ago.
As I was leaving the square on my quest for "lunch," just before this jeep, I passed a Corvette Z06. This is a pretty rare car to see in Europe, not as rare as the 1969 Dodge Coronet R/T I saw a little later in the day, and didn't photograph, but still pretty rare. While I was walking past the Vette to this Jeep an American family was going the other direction on the sidewalk. They couldn't figure out what the Corvette was and were all quite impressed by its beauty. "What kind of car is that?" One said. "Oh that thing is cool," said another. Finally, "I think it's a Corvette." I just laughed. Then took pictures of this Jeep. You can see the Corvette down the street a ways, it's yellow. These army Jeeps have a special place in my heart because the first car I ever "drove" was my Uncle Bob's 1945 Navy Jeep. It's still around.
After lunch I wandered to the park to see what the mock encampment had to offer. There were a few things to see, like the dapper-as-hell Czechoslovak paratrooper trying to rock a Mae West like it was comfortable. That is where I saw a few other generations of soldiers represented and something I really don't think I will ever see again.
Yes -- That is a U.S. Cavalry trooper photographing a Nazi SS officer on a horse. I really don't have words for this. In America, people don't cosplay Nazis. Well, people do, but they aren't seen in public often. I suppose there is some variety of excuse for dressing like a Nazi at certain events in Europe, or North Africa. What gives this guy even bigger balls is that I'm pretty sure he was German. But he wasn't alone, which either made it better or worse, I'm not really sure.
This was a little more palatable for me. There were a few German vehicles and a couple of guys dressed as normal Wehrmacht soldiers, which I also didn't find anywhere near as disturbing as the SS dude. I suppose there is a bit of a stigma surrounding the SS and considering that about 2,000 Jews from Plzen were sent to a nearby concentration camp it wouldn't have been my first choice of costumes.To his credit though, it is a really good costume.
So all this reenacting was just a bit surreal to me and I'd love to tell you that I haven't ever seen anything like it, but that would be a lie. I've been to Civil War reenactments where people actually act out battles. I suppose compared to that, this is fairly tame. This is more like a living museum. To me though this time period isn't far enough in the past. I know people who lived this. By all accounts I met at least one man who I know was in Plzen on May 6, 1945. He got blowed up pretty good during the war and his mind was a patchwork quilt of clarity, but he knows he was Patton's driver during the whole war. All of these things makes it a little more real for me and in some way it bothered me.
So I left the camp and went to look at the memorials. You may remember this monument from and earlier post about Plzen. If not, go look. With the sun up and some flags flying it is much more impressive. The theme is still the same, "Diky America" or "Thank you America."
Honestly, that isn't something I hear very often at all anymore. If I do it's with sarcasm. My social media feeds are crammed with posts about how this politician is an idiot or that action was stupid. I have friends on both sides of the aisle saying the same thing about different people.
Czechs don't usually bother me too much about U.S. politics. It does happen from time to time, but I've had people from many European nations ask me what I'd consider to be rather rude questions about my country's policies. To their credit, I've had people from many European countries say something like, "yeah, it works in my country but such and such policy would never work in yours."
It was really nice to see a message of thanks on such a huge scale in a place so far away. It made me realize that at least in some corners of the world some people still appreciate it when a nation sends people to die for them. It's also nice to hear the words "U.S." and "military" without any mention of oil. So many people think America has only ever wanted to invade countries to take oil, and rape and kill innocent people. That is only about 40 years of our military history and a lot of it has been spend fixing what England screwed up -- and maybe a little trying to be like daddy in that respect. Look at all the oil we got out of Europe -- twice. Okay, my political rant is over. Like I said, the message and atmosphere were excellent. I would even encourage other Americans who are going to be in Europe around May 6 next year to plan on making a stop in Plzen. Honestly, you'll never see anything like it at home, Corvettes aside.
Down the street from the Thank you America memorial is this more modest memeorial to European soldiers, I think. My Czech still isn't that good. It's a memorial and it's for soldiers. Then just a bit further is a memorial to the 2nd Infantry Division.
I'm not sure how I missed this last time I was in Plzen. I doubt the flags are flying all year long. The nice, and maybe not so nice, thing is that there was a strong police presence at each memorial where there were flags. While it made me think that maybe the "Thank you" message isn't shared by everyone it also impressed me that the city would bother to post at least one officer, sometimes, two at each station to keep things from being messed with.
After a long, but quick, day of wandering around Plzen I had to make my way back to Hlavni Nadrazi to catch the last train home. The awesome thing about Plzen is once you have visited the first time you never need a map. It's that small and easy to get around. Sure it's no American grid-based town, but I was able to get to the train station with no trouble. As I was crossing the mighty Vlatava for the last time I saw a man fishing. I realized I see a man fishing here every time I go to Plzen, which I realize is exactly twice but anyway I took a photo.
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't eat anything I caught out of the Vlatava.
When I got to the train station I realized how much I like it. I think it is beautiful. In fact I haven't seen too many train stations in Europe that aren't just epic. They are the beautiful impressive structures designed to do be the first great thing travelers see -- Vienna excluded. Plzen's station is one of my favorites.
I had enough time to grab a beer before I left, from the platform on the left side of the photo up there, to take the hour and a half ride back home. Of course everyone wanted to leave Plzen and I had to sit on the floor in steerage but it was a nice German train so I didn't mind.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Hungary for Christmas
I've been silent for a while, but merely because I have been busy. For a week or so over the Christmas and New Year's holiday I wasn't going to be busy. So I decided to travel a bit. I picked Budapest.People kept telling me Budapest is a lot like Prague. In a way it kind of is, and in another way it definitely isn't. The architecture is similar, there's a river and it's in Europe. The service at restaurants is a bit worse than in Prague, I know it hardly seems possible. Make sure to watch your bill to see if the tip is added to it, this was quite common there.
I will begin with a warning: If you are going to spend more than a few hours in Budapest, you are going to step in shit. Probably my only real complaint about the city, and perhaps the people who live there, is that there was feces everywhere. Most of it was from dogs, as far as I can tell, my scatelogical knowledge is rather limited to a few types of game animals and some common livestock. I'm rethinking that, I might know more about identifying shit than your average person.
So, warning out of the way, I will preface by saying that the weather wasn't the best in the world. The sky was grey and cloudy and it was foggy most of the time I was there. That doesn't really make for a scenic city bathed in majestic light with enchanting clouds drifting slowly across the sky. Something tells me this ideal vision of Budapest is rare anyway. For the few hours that the sun did come out the light was beautiful, just like in Prague. It was warm and rich and softly filtered through some still thin clouds and what appeared to be a layer of brown smog.
As you can see from this photo, the sky wasn't exactly enchanting. There is a good view of the Chain Bridge, St. Stephen's Basilica and the castle funicular in the foreground. Honestly though, this is pretty much how I envision every city in Eastern Europe -- grey, drab and gritty. I'm going to say that movies have given me this preconceived notion.
Budapest has a few bridges. I know, it's a big surprise what with a river and all there. The shocking thing is that the Chain Bridge was the first permanent bridge that connected the two cities, Buda and Pest. The Chain Bridge wasn't built until the 1830s. It leaves me wondering how people traveled from Buda to Pest, and vice versa, for the 800 or so years before the bridge was built. I suppose it was more of an engineering challenge to build a bridge across the Danube than the Vltava in Prague.
So here is a better photo of the Chain Bridge in all its glory, taken from the Pest side of the river, with the Buda castle in the background on the hill. I was fascinated to see that the "cables" that hold this suspension bridge up aren't really wound steel cables but rather long flat pieces of steel sandwiched together. It's been there for over 150 years so I guess it works.
The other interesting thing is how easy it is to get to major points of the structure when you walk across. You can literally touch the "cables" and lighting and everything else. In fact I noticed that people had, as is the custom in Europe, placed locks on every accessible light as a way to confirm undying love for someone.
There you have it, locks on a light. This lock of love thing really doesn't make any sense to me. I suppose it's better than carving your names, or initials, in a tree.
When I got to the Buda side of the bridge I noticed something that is what I will most likely remember the most about the city.
Maybe you can see it. There is a person sleeping next to this bridge support. There is a large number of homeless people in Budapest, on both sides of the river. I saw lots of people sleeping in doorways and along the Danube Promenade. I even saw a homeless couple basically living in a doorway right next to the Parliament. I was never harassed, or felt in danger from any of them though and wasn't even approached by more than about three panhandlers over the week I spent there. At the base of the Elisabeth Bridge I even saw a small community.
There were about six or eight "bunks" set up along this Soviet Era looking bunker thing at the base of the bridge on the Buda side. It didn't appear that anyone messed with the possessions of the people who were not "home." Also, many of the homeless people had the same military-surplus wool blanket which leads me to believe that there is either some charity organization or maybe a government ministry that gives these people at least a little something.
There are of course tent cities teeming with homeless people in Prague as well, but they are hidden. I know people who are aware of where they are, but personally do not know of any.
My favorite bridge across the Danube is the Liberty Bridge.
This thing is constructed with rivets and giant bolts and a giant Turul is perched atop each tower. The Turul is some sort of mythical bird that the Hungarians really love, click the link. I suppose it's kind of like a Jayhawk but worse at basketball.
That there is a big-ass bolt.
While I did walk across four of the city's bridges, that wasn't really the point of my trip. Bridges are cool and all, but I'm more of a dam guy. So on the first day I went to look at the castle and what ever else was around the hill on the Buda side. The Pest side is pretty flat, but as far as I could tell there was more stuff there in terms of things like restaurants etc.
I will have to say the castle wasn't exactly a fairy-tale like structure. It is just a big complex at the top of the hill. There are some pretty impressive efforts to restore it though and there is currently some sort of excavation happening that you can look into. Really, in that part of the city the Fisherman's Bastion is the coolest thing around. It's a great place to check out the Pest skyline and watch tourists. I made a panoramic photo from it. The tower at the far left is part of the structure.
I didn't really want to ride the funicular up the hill to the castle. It's a bit silly really to pay $2 to get pulled 200 meters up a hill in a box on a string. I can see how it would be a "romantic" ride for some people. Instead I opted to wander around the streets and find the walking way up.
As a result I discovered some cool little streets and a few sets of stairs that were quite charming. I also found a couple of nice cafes that were not crowded. Really, not much was crowded at all. There just weren't that many tourists.
Once I got to the castle, and was pretty unimpressed by it, I noticed that there were a few guards in some boxes. It was 10 minutes until the top of the hour, so I waited to see what the changing of the guard would be like. It's relatively standard, but they have a drummer. The guards change to new people every hour and on the half hour the guys there change boxes. They do some drill and toss their weapons around a bit. It's worth seeing.
Wandering around the castle complex was nice, but it was pretty clear that is has been fixed up for the benefit of tourists. There was this though:
A staple of communist greatness, the Trabant. I'm pretty sure this is a 1.1 model. These cars were made in East Germany. There were also a lot of old Skodas and a few Ladas in town too. The owner of this particular "classic" seemed to be having a little trouble with the upkeep so he decided to stay with communist doctrine and crowdsource the maintenance costs.
Strangely enough the biggest benefactors gave him dollars. The general prevalence of old vehicles like this added to the gritty, run down feel of the city but also contributed to my favorite landmark in the entire city.
This is a Danuvia and I call is a landmark because there is very little evidence that this thing has moved in a long time. It has a 125cc "thumper" engine and was very securely attached to this light pole.
I really enjoyed the kid jumping into the frame. Sure it would have been better if the two other people weren't behind him but what are ya gunna do. You can also almost see the Basilica in the background.
Several people told me that no trip to Budapest would be complete without a trip to Heroes' Square. I even read somewhere that things like Heroes' Square help make Budapest the "Paris of Eastern Europe." I've not been to Paris, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that comparing the two cities is folly at best.
Anyway, It's a big monument with traffic going around it and I suppose it's like the Arc de Triumph. I wasn't really that impressed. I was more impressed by what was around it in the rest of the city park.
Oh yeah, I first went to the square at night. This really is all it is. My favorite photo of the monument is actually this one:
While I was wondering around, after getting of the metro, looking for the square I saw this cool pond next to a restaurant with steam coming off it. To me this was a much more interesting photo than the one before it. Right next to the square is the city skating park and that was really impressive. It is HUGE. It's not as technically cool as the one in Vienna, but I'm pretty sure it is larger. The one in Vienna has several rinks connected by ice paths. Budapest's ice park was just massive with Dracula's castle looming in the background.
I don't really know if it is Dracula's castle. That castle is actually in Romania, at least it is now, it used to be in Transylvania but Europe's borders got a little mixed up some time in the 1940s. Anyway this castle is a combination of features from a few castles all over the country. It's called Vajdahunyad Castle and it is pretty cool.
The metro takes you really close to this place and the station pops up right in the middle of this city park. The metro is also the second oldest in the world and a UNESCO world heritage thing. Honestly, I'm starting to think UNESCO is a joke.
The whole Budapest metro system is pretty crazy. It has three lines and each one is from a different era. There is line 1, the yellow line, which is the oldest one. It was not built by tunneling, but rather by digging a big trench then covering it. Because of this the metro is REALLY shallow and if you are near a station when the train goes by you can hear it rumbling past. Evidently the trains on this line used to be pulled by horses, or donkeys or something, and as far as I can tell the animals were unhitched from the trains about two weeks before I arrived.
See those men on the left side of the frame? Those guys are there to ensure that you have a ticket and validate it. Unlike some cities that prefer to have plainclothes agents sneak up on you while riding public transport and check your pass, Budapest figures the best way to make sure people buy a ticket is to put cops in all the stations. Yes, ALL the stations.
The cars are pretty tiny and all those leather straps were really annoying for me because I'm tall. Also, all of the speakers are blown so if you plan on riding this thing count how many stops you need to travel to make sure you don't miss your stop because you won't understand Hungarian even if the speakers are in good shape.
The next oldest line, line 3, appears to start somewhere in Moscow in 1972 and go straight to Budapest.
The newest line, line 2, really isn't worth mentioning. It's super modern and basically like the U-Bahn in Vienna. Why are the lines not numbered in order of age? I have no idea.
I spent a good few hours walking along both sides of the river and there is a pretty good place to walk on either side. Although there is construction at the parliament building so you have to take the long way around off the river for a bit. On the Pest side there are stairs that will take you right to the water's edge where, if you are a homeless person, you can take a shit. Getting right next to the river didn't really make the city look any cleaner.
I didn't find any stairs to the water on the Buda side, but the view of parliament was pretty good.
Along the river on both sides there are numerous retaining walls and random doors leading into what I can only imagine are Soviet Era bunkers, or in some places garages. At one point I saw an iron door open and a man walk out to go about his day. I'm pretty sure he lived in whatever was behind the door.
The man didn't emerge from this door. This is by parliament, so I'm guessing security was a little tighter.
However a church/monastery was built into a cave on the Buda side and there were plenty of alcoves and doors in the wall for that complex. Most of the alcoves served as defacto trash bins.
Another place worth a visit in the Great Market Hall. It's an indoor market, wow right. It's a two-story building that looks like a train station. On the ground floor you can buy produce and sausage and things you'd find at a supermarket. Upstairs there are food stands and some flea market type shops where you can buy all manner of tchotchke. Locals definitely do their shopping there, but mostly downstairs. If you want a cool souvenir it's a good place to go. There isn't a lot of ventilation and there is cooking happening upstairs so it's a little smoky, but you won't really notice until the light is right.
I got lucky when I went back to take some photos and there was a bit of light. Even though I have always struggled with photographing light as it travels through smoke. I am always amazed about how they do it in the movies. I know they just blast the scene with a hazer and expose for the dark parts but still it's challenging for me.
The above photo is from upstairs and you can see a little of the light hitting the smoke, but it's the best way to show the size of the place.
This one really shows the produce and stands on the ground floor and of course the smoke trapped in the upper area. Sadly, the market was closed when I returned on December 26 to buy some gifts. Oh well, so were some of the museums I wanted to see.
One of the other things I wanted to do was to visit one of the many spas in Budapest. The place is famous for them and I've read Pest means oven in some Slavic languages, this is actually true, and the Hungarians just kept the name. I chose to go to the Szechenyi bath. I chose it mainly because I knew it would be open.
There were some warm outdoor pools and some nice indoor pools, although they were smaller and more crowded. I spent about 6 hours at the place relaxing and moving from sauna to sauna with a soak in a warm pool from time to time. Some of the saunas were too hot for me at 70 degrees Celsius though. I'd sit in there for about two minutes burning my feet and back and then I'd leave and jump in the nearby 18 degree dip pool. I honestly didn't get anything out of that, I'm not sure why it's so popular. What I did find that was excellent was an aroma steam sauna. It was about 50-60 degrees and so full of steam that you couldn't see more than two feet. The place was mentholated or eucalyptus scented, I'm not sure. It was like sitting in a giant Vicks Vap-O-Rub steam room. I spent a long time in there just sweating and breathing. It was great and I was very relaxed after the day there. Of course I didn't take my camera, because it's a pain to lug around, so I took a photo with my phone. Plus, I'd rather not be running around with a huge camera making other bathers nervous, even though people were snapping photos with point and shoot cameras and no one seemed to mind.
The place was really affordable and they offer towel and swimsuit rentals for a great price, the deposits are pretty high though. If you plan on going all you really need to know is that you should take your own flip flops or slippers. I did not and ended up spending something like $10 for a pair of flip flops. While it was a rip off, it was nice to have them.
Due to the city's gritty feel and the number of homeless people I think it has some really great opportunities for street photography. Thanks to the sheer size of the rig I usually use, it is pretty difficult to pull off a lot of Bressen type work. You can tell from the photo of the two reading homeless guys that it's difficult to have subjects who aren't camera aware. I was able to pull it off a few times though. I really would like to go back with a smaller rig and see what I could do.
As you can see it's not impossible to shoot from the hip with a D3, but you only get one shot because the shutter noise gives you away instantly.
Overall, I liked Budapest and wouldn't mind going back when the weather is warmer and there is more sun.
Monday, September 23, 2013
Motorcycles, Drugs and Beer an Unexpected Journey
The fourth-largest city in the Czech Republic is a place called Plzen and it's not really set up for tourists. This can be seen negatively or positively, depending on how you feel about tourists.The biggest reason to visit, if you are a tourist, is the Pisner Urquell brewery. I won't go too far into the history of the beer here, if you want you can click this link and let Wikipedia tell you all about it. Suffice it to say that Pilsner Urquell is part of a giant brewing conglomerate, like so many beers, and Gambrinus, which I prefer, is brewed in a different brewery on the same property.
The brewery was really the main reason for the trip and it's really close to the train station, so if that is all you want to see it's easy. I wanted to see some of the city and talking about my big reason for going right out of the gate isn't my style.
So, here is the train station. It's the main station, but I'm pretty sure there isn't another one. It is an interesting looking structure to be sure. Incidentally, round-trip train tickets from Prague cost 180kc; more on train tickets later.
The first place I wanted to check out was the city center. The city isn't that big and the center is a short walk from the train station. While heading there we, once again I have my Australian flatmate in tow, took a slight detour and found a monument to the U.S. Army soldiers who liberated Plzen from Nazi occupation on 6 May 1945.
It's a very nice monument, it's not gaudy and it gets straight to the point, "Thank you America!" It's not something you hear very often anymore. Evidently, when the government in the Czech Republic was communist, this liberation is something that wasn't talked about very much. As soon as the regime changed this monument was built.
There is even a convient map in the monument so geographically challanged Americans who make it here can see the route Patton took. The fact that the city was liberated by elements of Patton's Third Army also explains the Patton Museum that is in the town. Sadly, on this trip I didn't make it to that museum, but it's a good reason to go back.
From the army monument it is a short walk to Namesti Republiky or Republic Square. I think every Czech town has a Namesti Republiky. It's a nice town square with a big church in the middle, this one happens to be St. Bartholomew's Cathedral.
It's really your standard cathedral-in-a-town-center fare. We didn't go inside, but perhaps on the next trip. Besides it's wan't anywhere close to noon and what fun would climbing the bell tower be if I couldn't deafen the Aussie with another cacophonous trip to the top. Also, we were distracted by the more impressive magistrate courthouse facing the church. Aside from the fact that it was beautiful, it was also open -- on a Saturday. It wasn't too long before we figured out why.
Evidently, this is the place to go get married. Sure in the US people get married at the courthouse all the time, but I've never seen a whole wedding party pull up to a courthouse in decorated cars. There were guests, as you can see in the photo, and the whole bit. This was pretty funny considering the church, where you might think a wedding usually takes place, is literally 100 meters away from the courthouse.
The date on the courthouse says 1558 and I have no reason to doubt it. Look at the paintings on it. This photo just can't do them justice, they are striking.
Just a few doors down from the courthouse are some wedding shops and a hairdresser. Talk about your one-stop-shopping. You can roll into Namesti Republiky, get your hair did, pick up a dress and either get hitched in the courthouse or the church then file your wedding license all in the same place. WalMart has nothing on this.
From Namesti Republiky we went to find some food. Fortunately, there are plenty of restaurants nearby. I have a friend who grew up in Plzen and he suggested a few places, fortunately we stumbled past one while looking around. It was good and inexpensive, less than Prague prices anyway. This was where we discovered that Pilsner Urquell tastes much better closer to home.
There are many brands of beers in the Czech Republic, but really just two types. As far as brands go, I am not a huge fan of Pilsner Urquell. Oh and those two types are light and black (světly and černý in local parlance). Light is not what you think though, it isn't low calorie it's just not dark. Either way, Pilsner doesn't travel well. It's skunky as all get out in the states. It is a lot better in the Czech Republic, but it's a little too hopy for my tastes. Not off-puttingly so but if I have a choice I'll drink something else, Kozel černý mainly.
After lunch we wandered on over to the brewery just in time to miss the 12:45 English tour. Check the website for tour times. I was all good though because a group of motorcycle enthusiasts had ridden to the brewery and parked out front. There were quite a few cafe racers, which I like and also happen to be quite the in thing these days.
What you see above is the front gate to the brewery complex. The built it to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the brew. It's kind of like the Brandenburg Gate of beer I suppose. Below are some of those cafe racers.
As you can see there were some Suzukis, Ducatis and BMWs. I even saw something called a JAWA, but I didn't take a photo of it because I didn't like the angle and wasn't sure what it was. It's a Czech-made bike and while weird looking, it's not really very inspiring.
The bikes were cool and the gift shop was fairly unimpressive. There is a Pilsner Urquell gift shop in Prague with similar prices, so it wasn't worth buying anything. Besides, I don't really have a need for a beer branded golf bag. There were however some steins that were very cool and I might have to pick one up for my Uncle. The great thing about the gift shop is that there is a beer hall downstairs, shocking I know. As we had time for a few beers before the next tour, we imbibed.
About five minutes before we missed the 14:15 tour we realized it was time to go. Beer is distracting, especially when it is unpasteurized, super fresh and cheap. We chugged our suds and made for the visitor's center, a whopping 25 meters away. We arrived in plenty of time to plunk down the 200kc each for the tour, and extra 100kc for me because I bought a photo pass. I know, I know I could have just not bought the photo pass and taken pictures anyway, but my camera is rather large and difficult to hide and it sounds like a car with ignition-timing problems that keeps running after you shut it off. I didn't want to get in trouble, so I forked it over. The fee only gets you a tour of one brewery, the Gambrinus tour is another 200kc. Next time, even though I'm pretty sure it's similar.
We met our guide, boarded a bus with about 15 other people and went to the bottling facility.
It's a bunch of squeaky-clean beer bottles. I did notice some things right away. I will preface this by saying the only other time I have been in a brewery that produces beer on such a massive scale was in Colorado at the Coors brewery. The Coors facility does things quite a bit differntly and even though it was a while ago I remember the differences. As soon as we walked into the observation area of the bottling facility it was very humid. They wash the bottles and fill them in the same place. Coors is brewed cold, filtered cold and shipped cold -- it's kinda their thing. I'm even fairly certain the refigerated railroad car was invented by Coors so they could ship it farther and still keep it cold.
I don't think this guy is named either Laverne or Shirley but he is working the quality-control section of the line before the bottles go into the filling machine. Down at the bottom is a soldier who didn't pass muster presumably heading off for another shower.
As far as I could gather from our guide the beer is "filterized" in this facility too, but we didn't get to see any filters.
The brewing takes place in another building and we took the bus over there. We saw the old brewhouse and the new one. They looked a lot alike. There were also some interesting interactive displays where we were told we could do whatever we wanted. It was basically smelling hops, eating barley and splashing water on your friends. There was some yeast in a test tube though, we didn't get to touch that.
These are some copper kettles in the old part of the brewhouse. Not much to say here.
The new brewhouse uses stainless kettles now and they are a bit bigger than the copper ones. I think they still use some copper kettles for part of the process. The wort is cooked three times, so they need a lot of crockery.
We got to watch a movie about the history of the beer. It was a bit of a dog-and-pony show and I felt bad for Brewmaster Vaclav who was featured about every 30 seconds. He didn't look super thrilled to not be brewing beer.
You can look in these microscope things and see yeast doing its thing, which is eating sugar and pissing alcohol. Really, it's not so appetizing when you consider beer is tarted-up yeast urine. Nope, I'm wrong, it's still appetizing And check out the hand-model barley action from my Australian partner in crime. I think he is on the wrong career path.
Another interesting fact about the brewery that I forgot to mention is that it houses the largest elevator in the Czech Republic. I took a photo from it, but not of it. It only took us one floor, which was kind of disappointing.
The best part of the tour was the tour of the cellars. They were a bit cold and kind of dark and the floor, and walls, were pretty wet but it was very cool.
They ferment the beer in these giant open barrels. You can see the date the beer was placed in the barrel and the temperature also how many times the barrel has been used. They will use a barrel six times before they either clean it or destroy it, I'm not sure on that. Either the guide didn't say or I forgot.
After it's fermented and it has that nice white foam on top it is transferred to a closed barrel where it is aged. That pump thing on the floor to the left is what they use to move the beer.
There is even a nice man who pours you a fresh, unpasteurized and "unfiltrated" beer from these barrels.
After the tour was over, it takes about an hour and a half but seems much quicker, it was time to head back to the gift shop/beer hall and have a few more beers. Duh.
We only had a few beers and were getting hungry again. Unfortunately the restaurant portion of the beer hall had been completely reserved and getting food there wasn't going to happen.
This is just a random photo of the old brewery I liked. It serves as a good transition point for the search for food and the trip starting to get a touch surreal.
We left the brewery after those beers and went in to town to find food. We didn't really see anywhere we liked until we came to a McDonalds. Fortunately, there was a Mexican place across the street we went there. I don't remember where it was, but it is across the street from the McDonalds. It is the best Mexican food I've had in this country.
It was not seasoned perfectly, but it was actually spicy and the tomatillo salsa that came with it was actually pretty good. We of course had beers with our burritos. I'm fairly certain that there is an international law prohibiting the consumption of Mexican food without beer.
We walked back across the river to the train station dodging Gypsies and syringes, it's not the best neighborhood near the train station, and made it with plenty of time to catch our train leaving at 19:00. We even figured we had so much time that we would buy a couple more beers for the ride home. I'm not sure you're allowed to drink beer on the train, but I've never been told no and I'm not blatant about it or belligerent so I figure it's okay. We got to the platform, witch was suspiciously devoid of anything looking like a train, and took a seat. I assumed that it was coming from Cheb and would just roll up and move on. It turns out I missed the A4-sized paper changing platform 1 to the back of the terminal, so we missed the train.
I didn't think this was too much of a problem, because as far as I could tell our tickets were valid for 24 hours. I bought them online and printed them out. At the top of the ticket it clearly showed the ticket as being valid for the whole day. I took this to mean any train. I figured it was no big deal, there would be another train in an hour.
We left the platform and went to sit outside the station and wait, and maybe drink a beer. On our way out of the station I noticed there was a butcher truck. You might be thinking to yourself, "it was a roach coach with a deli theme." You would be wrong. This was a full-on butcher truck with slabs of meat and cheese on display. Even after the burrito I was up for a snack so I saw something that looked interesting and ordered 100 grams of it for us to share. It was ham with cheese and some other meat in the middle. The lady working the truck sliced off 100g of the stuff, wrapped it in butcher paper and everything was good to go. We walked over to the bus stop to sit down and eat and drink.
We ate this thing and it was really good, drank one of our two beers each and watched the man across the parking lot sleeping in a doorway shift his position a few times. It was a while before he moved the first time and we were a bit curious to know if he was actually alive. When it was about 25 minutes before eight we decided to find the right platform and not miss the next train.
As we made our way to the concourse and were trying to see which platform we were supposed to get to I was accosted by some drunk guy with a few of his friends and a 1.5 liter bottle of Gambrinus in tow. He asked me something in Czech and I replied that I didn't understand Czech. Turn out he didn't understand Czech either because he was Slovak. Although he introduced himself as being Kenyan. I spoke with this guy, roughly I'd hardly call it a conversation, for nearly 15 minutes about pretty much nothing. Whatever we were talking about there was cause for him to show me his Slovak national identification card. If I were to guess I think we were talking about how much better Slovaks are than Czechs. He did say that Slovaks were nicer and more generous. This conversation took too long and we were once again in danger of missing a train. At one point the guy's friends became so upset with him that they took his beer from him and threw it away.
As I was trying to extricate myself from the conversation the random Slovak guy finally noticed my taciturn Australian friend. "Where are you from?" The requisite reply of "Australia" was met with a very interesting response.
"Oh, here I have for you," he exclaimed and started digging in his bag. He withdrew a small bag of very potent smelling marijuana. As everyone knows, Aussies are internationally renown notoriously fierce stoners. We tried to decline this offer while he fumbled with his stash, but it was to no avail.
"Is gift. No money. Take it." It's rude to decline a gift so we accepted the weed and headed off in the direction of the wrong platform, again.
Fortunately there was a conductor there who pointed us in the right direction and we made the correct train with two minutes to spare. We even found a compartment with just one person in it straight away. No problem; all we had to do now was dispose the the ganja, because it was so pungent that I could smell it despite the fact that it was in my friend's pocket six feet away, get our tickets checked and relax with our final beers on the easy ride home.
Well, the conductor didn't like the printout of the ticket I bought online. He was having problems scanning it and God forbid he enter the number into his machine by hand. The conductor on the first train didn't have any issues with my similarly poorly printed outward ticket. I was scolded for having a bad print out and told that he would not be so nice to me next time and kick me off the train, or something. Because I'm going to be taking that train again within the time period of the conductors memory. After closer inspection of the ticket, there were seat reservations on it, so it might have been a good thing the ticket wasn't scannable.
After the ticket fiasco our compartment mate introduced himself. This guy is the Czech equivalent of the American you never want to sit next to on an airplane. He wanted to have a chat, but he didn't speak English. He did however speak some German and some Spanish. My German is rudimentary so I did the best I could, but my Aussie friend got the worst of it. He did apologize for the conductor though and explained that he was a Schwanzkopf.
This guy wanted to know what we thought of the beer, probably because we were drinking. Then he wanted to know what we thought of Czech girls, we didn't have any of those with us. Then, once he found out I was American he wanted to know what I thought about Obama. He really didn't believe that I was American and I had to prove it with my passport.
Then my Aussie friend left for the bathroom and it was my turn to chat in Spanish. The train ride is about and hour and a half. Thankfully our chopsy cabin mate got off at Smichov leaving us with 15 minutes of peace.
