First Snow

Living in the most beautiful city in the world doesn't always mean spending any meaningful time in that city. But when the first snow coats everything in a romantic blanket of whiteness, there's only one choice.

Today I spent several lovely cold hours walking through my city and indulging myself in the first snow of this winter. It was the perfect cold. My nose was rosy and my toes were chilly, but it was a crisp cold not a biting cold.


I love the smells in the air on a day like this. There was a fireplace somewhere burning savoury wood, sausage stands on the street were frying up fat snacks for tourists, and hot wine bubbled away waiting to warm up the weary body.

Pilsner, Pils, Pilsener

A day in Plzen, the town that sits 70 km to the west of Prague, is a lesson in the essential of Czech life: Beer. The town is the birth place of pilsner style beer, a light golden liquid that floats over your town and into you tummy with more than ease.

We went to Plzen to see the Patton Memorial Museum. This is a museum dedicated to remembering the American army's role in freeing Czechoslovakia during WW2. It is a small musem but well organized with many interesting artifacts from that time. The texts are easily read and understood in Czech and English. It is good to see how this historic moment is remembered now, after being silenced for so many years under the Communist government.

Finally... when in Rome, do as the Romans. So, we also took an hour to go through the Beer museum which detailed the history of beer in Bohemia. There was a lovely museum guide, aged close to 70, who told us stories about the history of the town and the people who had a role in its rise to Beer King. I've never seen someone having so much fun at their job, maybe she's paid in the subject of the museum! And we made a stop at the local pub to sample a bit of what we'd heard so much about: Pilsner Urquell. It certainly lives up to all the hype.