September 10, 2003

We left Prague and met our bus driver, Vladimir. We would be in a small mini-bus and our luggage was pulled in a small trailer behind.

Twelve miles outside the city we made our first stop at the Lidice Monument. Lidice is a small village whose name is fixed in the minds of people in the whole world. On June 9, 1942 a Hitlerite commando occupied Lidice and executed all its male inhabitants. The women and children were carried off to concentration camps and the village was burned. This dreadful action was a part of the fascist reprisals, which followed the assassination of the deputy imperial protector.

There was a museum that contained photographs of the men killed and women and children that went to the concentration camps. There was also a short film. Afterwards we went down into the meadow where the town had stood and saw the memorial built to the 88 children who perished and the remnants of the farm where the men had been shot.

Our next stop was the Krusovice Royal Brewery. The Royal Brewery of Krušovice is one of the oldest breweries in the Czech Republic. The brewery was established in 1517 when the Svatováclavská Contract enabled the aristocracy to brew beer on their own farms. The age old recipes have improved over the passage of time through the work of generations of Krušovice Brewing Masters and with the most modern technology available today the way is wide open for the high quality product. The Královský Krušovice Brewery is presently placed 5th amongst producers of beer in the Czech Republic.

Our tour took us to all of the sections from brewing to packaging. Afterwards we were given as much beer as we wanted. We sampled glasses of both the light and dark varieties. We were also served lunch.

We continued on to the spa town of Karlovy Vary and were exited to see our Grand Hotel Pupp (pronounced poop).

We met Martin and took a walking tour of the town, which is mostly composed of neo Baroque architecture from the mid to late 1800s.

While out and about, I purchased a couple of small guidebooks and a small bottle of Becherovka. This is a concoction of 37 herbs and is 38% alcohol.

We had a 30-minute lecture about the town and then dinner in the hotel.