Day trip to Pilsen

To be quite honest, my expectations for Pilsen were rather low; it’s a Czech city about an hour northwest of Prague, but I felt obligated to go. Good thing.

Tyler and I (and the rest of the group of about 20, no one else from my apartment) had to get up at 8:00. The highlight of the trip was supposed to be the Pilsner beer factory and quite frankly, we had just seen the biggest beer factory in the world nine days prior, so we weren’t all that enthused.

Well, sometimes it’s better not to expect greatness, which ended up being the case yesterday. As Tyler put it midway through the day: “This shits on the Guinness Factory.” The girls cringed at the expression, but he was right, the Pilsner tour put the Irish version to shame because the Guinness Factory was a self-guided tour through what was essentially a museum of the Irish stout. Pilsner was a guided tour of the actual factory, where we got to see bottles being manufactured and saw videos of how the pride of Pilsen was created.

The trip was paid for by CEA (originally paid by us, but still) and we got a “free” 3-course meal at the factory as well. Then the historical part of the trip began.

I’ve never been much of a history buff, but yesterday afternoon was pretty cool. We went to the Big Synagogue of Pilsen (apparently they didn’t feel like being creative during the naming process; or it doesn’t translate properly). It’s the second-biggest synagogue in all of Europe (the biggest is in Budapest, Hungary). It was taken over by the Nazis in WWII, but was liberated by the American troops at the end of the war. There’s a big memorial in the center of town saying, “Thank you America!” which is located at the top of America Street. The synagogue survived not only WWII, but the Cold War as well, as it was then part of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. Pretty humbling to be in a building with such historical importance.

Before we left Pilsen, we climbed 301 steep, narrow, winding stairs to the top of a cathedral in the middle of town. The lookout tower was 102 meters high and had a great view of the city and landscape surrounding it. Good closure for very fun, enlightening, worthwhile day trip. And I sacrificed some March Madness viewing to go, with no regrets. Who would’ve thought?