The adventure starts...

We left Prague on Friday, 7/11, which was when the adventure really started. Being a fairly international city, Prague was actully pretty easy to get around. Not so once you leave Prague and go into the smaller towns of Czech. Our first stop outside of Prague is Marianske Lazne (aka Marienbad), on the western side of Czech close to the German border. Ashok had read about it somewhere, but it was not listed in my Eastern European Lonely Planet guide so we had no additional information or map of the town (minor detail)... not good when the bus station is not in town but in an area that looked pretty abandoned. Ashok called the hotel to get directions but the woman only spoke German and Russian... Great! Luckily we had a phrase book (a last minute purchase that has come in very handy) so somehow Ashok was able to find out from a local which tram to take. The tram driver was also very helpful and told us when we got to our stop and even pointed out our hotel. People here are more helpful.... even if they are a bit gruff and you're not sure at first if they're telling you off but then you realize they're actually helping you out.

Marianske Lazne was developed as a spa town for the rich in the late 1800's to take advantage of the surrounding cold mineral springs which, apparently, can cure almost everything. The main part of town still looks as grand as it did back then:

including the nicely landscaped park complete with a singing fountain (it's choreographed to classical music):

and an old-style colonnade

I feel like we've been transported back in time, and should be dressed like Jane Austen characters and stroll around with a parasol and my hand on Ashok's arm except, of course, we would be speaking German, not English.

Unfortunately for us, the weather decided not to cooperate and rained for the next 2 days. We made the best of it and went to the 130 years royal bath house (where supposedly many famous people, incuding King Edward VII went). The place was really cool and we did feel like royalty there.

The second day we took a day trip to nearby Plzen to visit the Pilsner Urquell brewery (home of the original Pilsner beer). Finding the brewery was like an Amazing Race moment (I'll spare you the details) but it all ended well and we got there in time to make the last English tour. Of the brewery tours that I've been on (quite a few by now for some reason.. hmmm), this is one of the better ones because you actually see the real brewery not just a visitor center where the process has been recreated like a theme park. The most interesting part was the underground tunnel where they used to store beer, and still use to let the beer ferment. The fresh, unfiltered beer tasted really good too (sorry ran out of battery on my camera by then but trust me it was good).