Dobry den! We are your blogsters for this post, and we are Kate and Abbey. Kate is a Pre-Physical Therapy & Health Science major at Furman, entering her senior year. Her favorite memory from our trip so far has been walking around the city of Prague. Abbey is a Education major, and she is a rising Junior. One of her favorite moments from this trip has been seeing the different types of cultures represented throughout the Czech Republic.
We started off our day taking a bus ride to Plzen. Our first stop was the Pilsner Urquell Brewery, where we were lucky enough to go on a tour of the facilities. On this tour, we were able to see where the bottles and cans get inspected, cleaned, filled with beer, and packaged. Next we went into the cellars to learn a little history about the company and about the process of making the beer. It was at this point of the tour where we were able to try unpasteurized, unfiltered beer fresh from a barrel, which was many’s favorite part of the day. The tour ended in the souvenir shop where many of us purchased shirts, beer mugs, and posters. After the tour we went to a local restaurant to have authentic Czech food before heading to our next destination.
To wrap up our trip to Plzen, our group ended at where Dr. Svec’s family began, Radnice. This small, welcoming town is located right outside of Plzen which meant that it was just a quick little stop before returning to the big city of Prague. Our group visited a retired synagogue. This specific synagogue was the home of many Jewish families that lived in Radnice. In 1935, the Jewish community in Radnice joined a larger community, but the Jewish families did not leave the area of Radnice. There had great significance because not only does it showcase the multicultural and diversity of the Czech culture, but it also shows the importance of connection to land.
The synagogue was recently restored by an organization called GreenPeace. This organization partners with Jewish Amercians so that they can find familial ties with their ancestors that are in the Czech Republic. Since the Jewish community was forced to leave due to Nazi invasion in 1941, there has not been many Jewish families that have come back to the town of Radnice. This is something important to note because unlike the Jewish people, Czech culture has strong generational ties through families. It is common to have Czech families that live in the same town for several years, yet the Jewish community in Radnice never returned.
Although our trip is coming to an end, it is easy to say that being welcomed by the people of Radnice was a heart-warming goodbye for us, as we start to end our journey in the Czech Republic.
The attached images are from the cellars in the Pilsner Brewery when we were able to try the beer fresh from the barrel, and the second photo is from the Jewish synagogue in Radnice.
