Just an hour and a half east of us over the Czech border lies a very important place: the birthplace of Pils beer!! That's right - Heineken, Amstel, Stella, AND Beck's would not exist if Josef Groll had not brewed the first batch of clear, delicious lager in the city of Pilsen 170 years ago.
Highlights of the trip:
1) The beer: isn't that the reason you travel to Pilsen?
2) The prices: the Pilsner Urquell brewery tour was less than €4 a person, our meals were incredibly cheap (especially given the amount of beer we consumed!). We also stayed in a great hotel (Hotel Rango) right in the city center for a great price.
3) The world's largest elevator: included on the Pilsner Urquell tour is a trip in the world's largest elevator, which holds 72 people! We only had 30 on our tour but Patrick's fanny somehow was too large for the doors to close...
4) Experiencing unfiltered Pilsner Urquell: included in the €4 admission fee, and professionally poured straight from a wooden barrel, is a taste of the unfiltered product in the brewery's basement. At first I was a little wary about "unfiltered" beer, but then we learned that the water they use for Pils is higher quality than that for infants, so we gladly drank it all.
5) The history: pictured here is Josef Groll, the father of Pils beer. The Pilsner Urquell brewery was not only the first brewery to have its own railroad system, but because of that it was the first globally exported beer. Who knew?
6) The Pilsner Urquell bottling facility: Watching the incredibly efficient brewery wash, sort, and recycle bottles. The factory needs only 27 employees to run at full capacity. We saw one employee and millions of bottles! When you decide to go to Pilsen, look for the lighthouse in the center of the extensive Pilsner Urquell brewery property. It marks the "sea of beer" in the middle of the city, and will help you find your way to the amazing brewery tour!
I thought I had seen Hofbrauhaus - but I was dead wrong.
Huge travel tip: next time you go to Munich, make reservations for the Bavarian show on the third floor. With reservations, you will nothave to jockey for a table, AND you can witness the amazing Bavarian Goaßlschnalzer (whipcrackers) who literally crack their enormous whips across the crowd to the music.
Not quite sure how our tiny city of Amberg landed a pretty impressive Andy Warhol exhibit, but they did! If you are living in Bavaria- it is worth checking out for the €4 admission fee. Not only do they have a few Marilyns and a Campbell Soup print, but they also featured some I had not studied in my text book that were particularly interesting for our area: four Neuschwanstein Castle prints and the "Seven Jews" series complete with Einstein, Freud, and Kafka.
Neuschwanstein Castle
I also loved the Brooks Brothers suit Andy once wore (he was not a big guy to say the least!), and the rejection letter from the MoMA - wonder if they regret that now..
Bonus: the major explanations are featured in English as well as German!
Who knew that surfing was such a big deal in Munich?? After we saw a barefoot, wet suit clad man biking past us with a surfboard, we decided to follow. Below is what we discovered:
That is a river - the man-made Eisbach river to be exact. And it was around 55° outside. Anyone want to hop in??
Everyone raves about the German train system. While I agree whole heartedly that clean, efficient, and most importantly on-time train service is amazing, I now have a new favorite mode of transportation in Germany: airberlin.
Delicious German chocolate snack
After we decided that nine hours on a train from Berlin to Amberg was a bit too much, my friends and I booked last minute plane tickets via airberlin.com. We were definite beneficiaries of their new fare structure which offers more amenities for business travelers, but rock-bottom fares for the two types of European explorers: planners and “maybe I should have thought of this earlier” travelers. For around $100 (dollars, not euros!), we were able to consolidate our nine hour journey into three, check one large bag per person, carry on two (normal size!), enjoy a refreshment, and receive the heartiest “snack” I have ever seen on an airline. Oh, and they didn’t charge us €60 to retrieve our boarding pass at the airport like RyanAir.
Chris was an instant fan!
To top it all off, we flew out of Berlin’s Tegel airport in the heart of the city straight to Nuremberg. Talk about convenience. All four of us agree that airberlin topped even Southwest Airlines in price, service, and of course food. This whole week I have been thinking of excuses to take another trip!
Honestly, I did not know what to expect from a city that was so harshly divided just 20 years ago. I guess I was expecting a sharper contrast between the two sides, but as you can see in this picture – both were pretty amazing.
As we wandered around the city, we noticed that the former East Berlin is perhaps even a little nicer than the West as most of the buildings were built after the wall fell. Regardless of which side you are on, Berlin is a cosmopolitan city with plenty to do during the day and night for history buffs (i.e. Christina), architecture buffs (i.e. Dianne), and celebrity buffs (guess that’s me!).
The Berlin Wall deserves its own entry, so aside from that, my top three highlights of our 24-hour tour of the city were in a convenient cluster within 5 minutes of each other:
1) Reichstag – we stumbled upon a documentary about Berlin and the history of this parliament building, which was projected at night on the outside of an adjacent building. The architecture and grounds are unbelievable and dwarf the capital building and the mall in DC.
The history film was projected on this building
2) Brandenburger Tor – the last remaining gate of the first Berlin wall built in 1730 to regulate trade through Berlin. It was also used as a checkpoint for the modern Berlin Wall. This Tor (gate) easily rivals the Arc de Triomphe and is even featured on German 10, 20, and 50 euro cent coins as a symbol of division and unity.
3) Hotel Adlon – OK I know this isn't historical, but I cannot help but enjoy seeing the window from which Michael Jackson so famously dangled his newborn son Blanket, covered in a blanket of course. Bonus: it is the perfect distance from the Bradenburger Tor for great photo-ops.
I think that's the window just a few floors up! Credit to Dianne for the picture.
Europe is inundated with history older than the United States. While much of this is fascinating, I very much enjoyed our trip to Berlin for a dose of modern, yet sobering, history.
Berlin Wall marker - thanks Xtina for the pic!
The guidebooks recommended it and I 100% agree – the Checkpoint Charlie Museum is fabulous. Checkpoint Charlie was one of the main gates between East Berlin (Soviet Union) and West Berlin (governed by the US). Though the actual checkpoint is still standing (pictured on the right), the interesting history is in the museum.
It is unbelievable to think that the wall existed in even my lifetime. I was particularly struck by the picture below drawn by a young child living on the Soviet side – while I was drawing daisies, turtles, and wide smiling self-portraits, another child around my age was drawing this portrayal of their own childhood.
Perhaps even more disturbing were the accounts of those who tried to cross the border. Zip-lines, canoes, secret compartments in cars, and shopping bags were among the examples of successful crossings at the museum – most accompanied with the actual transporting vessel and story from those who used them. People so badly wanted to cross the border that impressive ingenuity emerged from their desperation. One man constructed the largest hot air balloon in ever built at that time and escaped in the night. Another built a one-man submarine that propelled him across the river.
One main airplane used to fly over the wall
Accounts like these of life divided by the wall made the Checkpoint Charlie Museum a real highlight of our trip to Berlin. It is worth the steep admission fee (again – bring your student ID!) and at least an hour and a half of your trip – even if you are not a history buff.
When my Aunt Susie sent me a YouTube video of the "Miniatur Wunderland" in Hamburg, I immediately added it to our must-see list for our trip. Allotting 30 minutes tops for the museum, we walked over to the gorgeous red brick clad harbor on our way to dinner and bought our tickets thinking €9 was a little steep for some miniature exhibits... (tip for European travelers: bring your student ID if it does not have an expiration date - it will come in handy!)
I think all six of us agreed it was €9 well spent after we ventured around the world in 80 minutes! With 215,000 figurines, 930 trains, and 3,050 switches to control it all, there was more than enough to look at. What surprised us most was it was not just for children. The builders incorporated a senses of humor throughout the project - probably made the 850,000 man-hours spent go by a little faster. We found naked people, murder crime scenes, flashers, and public urination right in the middle of the Swiss Alps, a €3.5MM airport with planes that take off and land, and, of course, Las Vegas.
Horrible accident or perfect time to get it on?
I don't know how to convince you that the Miniatur Wunderland is well worth a stop other than the pictures and videos below, plus the testaments of five other adults - two of which were men. I highly recommend a stop if you are ever in Hamburg - and don't forget your student ID!
Bank robbery in progress - thank goodness someone notified the Polizei
It's a bird... it's a plane... it's SUPERMAN (top left) to save the car driving off of the cliff!
I wonder what the weight limit is on a miniature treadmill??
The soccer stadium literally looked real. And there was a game going on!
Probably a big chunk of the 215,000 people on display
.JPG)
