Excursions

Karlovy Vary is located east of Prague and is full of wonderful sights to see! Our first stop is to Moser Glass factory. Moser is one of the finest makers of glass in the world and it was very exciting to see how the glass blowing process worked.

(Inside the Moser Glass Museum)

(A glass maker forming some of the glass and cooling down with a Pivo!)


After Moser we headed off to visit the Becherovka Liqueur company. Becherovka was originally used as a medicine and is still said to have a sort of "healing power"

(A group of guys in front of the Becherovka sign)

We did a tour of the Becherovka museum and got to taste their 3 different types of liqueurs, the overall favorite was the Lemond one. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures during the tour, but during the tasting it was okay.

(the entire group before sampling Becherovka)

After the Becherovka tour we had a walking tour of Karlovy Vary, the city famous for having around 60 healing spring that are famous for curing metabolic diseases. People from all over the world travel here to drink from them.

(One of the hot springs, but not one people drink from)

After touring the springs we took a lift up to a hilltop overlooking the city, then had some free time after to explore. Overall it was a great excursion!

(view of the city)

The Long Weekend!

This weekend a group of around 20 of us would travel to Ibiza, Spain to visit one of the world's nicest beaches. The trip started out with a minor bump. The french ATC went on strike and it made flying a mess. My flight was delayed 2 hours, but a group of 6 traveling from Bergamo, Italy had their flight canceled. They would not be able to join us this weekend in Ibiza. After our delay we were finally in Ibiza!

View from our apartment's balcony

The weather was 75 and sunny the whole weekend.
Picture from the Beach
All of us enjoying some seafood

The weekend was a lot of fun, it was nice to relax every morning on the beach. Four days in Ibiza seemed too short, but you can't complain when you are returning to a great city like Prague!

Weekend Travels!

Last weekend a group of 8 students and myself flew to Amsterdam for 3 nights in a beautiful city. We arrived and the weather was a perfect 70 degrees and sunny! We made our way from the airport to our hostel and then grabbed some dinner.

(Kevin giving a thumbs up in the street)

The next day all of us would venture to the Heineken brewery and have the "Heineken Experience," it was a lot of fun and educational.

(Matt, Mike, Eric, Mark)

After the Heineken tour we all ventured over to the "I Amsterdam" sign. What a cool sight to see! We took some pictures in front of the sign then headed over to the park to hang out and enjoy the beautiful weather.The next day we took a canal tour and visited the Anne Frank house. Then we went back to the hostel and soon enough it was time for lunch so we all tried the Kebabs and Gelatto. We would finally need to pack up and head to the airport. What a great weekend!

Excursion to the University Brewery!

The location of the second excursion for Prague students was a bit closer to home. Actually, they walk by it every day. Students spent the afternoon learning a brewery situated right here on the university campus. The brewery is a teaching and resource tool for students at the Czech University of Life Sciences. Prior to the tour, both Czech and American students sampled the beer and traditional Czech hors d'oeuvres. The social was a good time for the American students to spend time outside of class with their Czech friends!

Exciting Weekend Adventures

Students in Prague enjoyed exciting weekend trips to destinations all over Europe! Following a half day of class on Thursday, students from the Prague trip traveled by plane, train, and bus to a variety of locations including Vienna, Berlin, Paris, and Amsterdam. From the sound of the stories, it seemed to be an exciting excursion for all!

Students in Vienna enjoyed the beautiful Schonbrunn Palace, a sprawling estate on the edge of Vienna. They were pleased to find out that Vienna's love for gelato matched their own! A student that visited Berlin simply said, "It rocked!" Highlights of the trip included the Berlin Wall, Brandenburg Gate, and Reichstag building. Stay posted for more exciting adventures!

Megan and Erin enjoying gelato in Vienna!

Excursion to Budweiser Budvar Brewery (Budějovický Budvar), České Budějovice, and Český Krumlov

Ana and Hanza, our Czech coordinators, planned a whole day of events around the South Bohemia region in the Czech Republic. The first stop was a WWII monument recognizing the last battle of the war in the Czech Republic on May 11, 1945. From there we traveled on to see a small neighboring town and church, then moved down the road to the famous Budweiser Budvar brewery.

Budweiser is one of Czech's most popular beers, and has been brewed solely at the same location since the 1800s. We got a great tour around the brewery, and got to see each of the many processes in making beer. The bottling room, full of large machines moving empty, full and recycled bottles to the different stations for washing, filling and packaging, was especially interesting. After the tour, the brewery restaurant served us a great lunch of potato soup, salad, wiener schnitzel and crepes for dessert.

Ceske Budejovice and it's Cerna Vez, or Black Tower, was our next stop. We climbed its 225 steps to reach the top of this great tower overlooking the city.

We then visited the stunning town of Ceske Krumlov, and its Castle Chateau. The rain didn't stop us from having a good time walking through the cobblestone streets to the base of the huge castle. Once inside, we were taken on a tour that described the castle's history starting back in the 1300s! After our tour in the castle, and a few stops along the way for photo taking, we headed to dinner and then back to the campus.

So far, all has been great here in the Czech Republic!

Orientation to the City of Prague

Monday, May 17, 2010:

Today, we got a tour of the campus, and went into the city center. While on the tour in downtown Prague we saw most of the city's most beautiful sites. Today was full of pictures, "Czech out" our shutterfly website for more of the amazing adventure. Prague 2010 Shutterfly Pictures

(Students, Mark, Matt, and Eric)






(Students gazing at the beautiful Prague Castle and Cathedral)










(The entire group of American and Czech Students with Prague Castle behind)





(All the guys standing in front of the John Lennon Wall)

We have arrived to Prague!

Ahoj!

The group has made it safely to Prague, and we are all very excited to be here! We have had an eventful few days learning the campus, public transportation routes, and the whereabouts in downtown Praha. The Czech students and coordinators have done a great job of making the group feel at home here in the Czech Republic.

Our welcome dinner was a hit, we were served delicious chicken and steak, sandwiches, salad, french fries and cake. Not to mention the great pivo (beer in Czech) and Becherovka (a very famous Czech liqueor). It was a great night to get to know each other more, as well as to get to know the Czech students.

(Student Managers, Sean Odneal and Mike Swigunski with Anna Vichova, a Czech Counterpart)

Karlovy Vary

Tuesday June 9 we had an excursion to Karlovy Vary. This is a very well known Spa Town here in the Czech Republic. There are 12 natural springs that people travel from all over just to drink the water. The story behind these natural springs is if you drink the water, then your body will be healed and you will have great health from then on.

Karlovy Vary also offers the Becherovka liqueur and Moser Crystal. Becherovka is one of the most famous Czech liqueurs and it is said to be the 13th spring you are supposed to drink from. Many people who believe in this have 40 milliliters of Becherovka a day. They usually have 20 ml in the morning and then 20 ml accompanying their dinner.

Moser Crystal is very famous for its crystal creations. You can find Moser Crystal all over the Czech Republic and the products they provide are wide ranges of hand-made glass.

From its beginnings, Moser Glass have developed a formula for manufacturing glass as hard as rock and as brilliant as lead crystal, without using lead.

The composition is highly suited to engravings and much more ecological than lead crystal.

Moser glass is potash-lime glass. The raw materials used for making it are silica, potash, other chemical substances and recycled glass. The manufacturing process then determines its hardness, brilliance, and colour.

In making Moser crystal, the glass is heated in the furnace to a temperature up to 1470°C. The melting lasts about 15 hours. The molten mixture becomes an incandescent substance, which it "cools" to around 1280°C, the glassmakers are able to start to use it to form objects.

Moser uses pot furnaces. Each furnace has six to eight pots (glory holes) from which the glassblower, using a long iron blow-pipe, lifts out the required quantity.(http://www.pragueexperience.com/places.asp?PlaceID=667)

On the way home we stopped at Lidice, Czech Republic. This town is very historic and its most famous event happened on June 10, 1942 in World War II. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/lidice_1942.htm

Excursion to South Bohemia

Tuesday May 26, we went on another excursion. This time we went to South Bohemia where we visited the original Budweiser Beer. The tour guide was very nice and very informative. From Budweiser brewery we went to Czesky Krumlov. There is a castle and a very historic town there. We got to tour the castle and tour the city. The castle is absolutely gorgeous and again the students were really enjoying everything about it.

As everyone stayed here last weekend and the Italy Student Managers and students came to Prague, all of the students were preparing their first weekend away on their own. Some students are planning on going to Barcelona, Amsterdam, and Budapest. They are all very excited to get outside of Prague now and go experience everything about Europe that they’ve only heard about. It will be a true test for them to see if they can be on their own for a weekend away in foreign places they’ve never been before.

Our First Weekend

For the first weekend in Czech Republic, the group decided to experience the culture of Prague and stay for the weekend. Some of the Italy group had never been to Prague either, so they made the journey and we all visited the culture together.

Touring the city with everyone was a great experience. Most of the Prague group felt so comfortable with the city already that they were able to lead the Italy visitors around and show them their favorite places in Prague. We visited Wenceslas Square, the Astronomical Clock, Old Town, Charles Bridge, and Prague Castle (Hradcany Castle).

Another big part of the Czech culture is their beer. Walk around and ask any Czech local what they're known for and you will get the same answer, "Pivo" (beer in the Czech language). There happened to be a beer festival happening north of the city, so the group made the journey to really experience some Czech culture. We experienced true Czech Cuisine, some great beer, and some very different but good music.

It was a very eventful weekend but every one seemed to really enjoy the culture and wished they could experience it longer.

Skoda Automobile and Czech Paradise

On Wednesday May 20, the group made their first excursion to the Skoda Car Factory and also to Prachovske skaly (Czech Paradise).

Skoda Automobile is a car manufacturer in the Czech Republic. Skoda dates back to around the 1890s where, like many well-established car manufactures, started manufacturing bicycles. Vaclav Klement, who was a bookseller by trade in Mlada Boleslav, in today's Czech Republic, which was then part of Austria-Hungary, was unable to obtain the right spare parts to repair his German bicycle. Klement returned his bicycle to the manufacturers, Seidel and Naumann, with a letter, in Czech, asking for them to carry out repairs, only to receive a reply, in German, stating: "If you would like an answer to your inquiry, you should try writing in a language we can understand". A disgusted Klement, despite not having any previous technical experience, then decided to start his own bicycle repair shop, which he and Vaclav Laurin opened in 1895 in Mlada Boleslav. Before going into business partnership with Klement, Laurin was an already established bicycle manufacturer from the nearby town of Turnov. (wikipedia.com) Skoda's history from here is very complex and a much more detailed history can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0koda_Auto Skoda became a subsidiary of the Volkswagen group in 1991 and car sales reached 674,530 in 2008.

The group was able to experience some typical Czech cuisine at Skoda that is actually prepared right there in Skoda's Museum.

From Skoda the group went to Prachovske skaly (Czech Paradise). Czech Paradise are sand rock formations. It is a great place to go hiking and see the outdoors. Some of the terrain can be very steep and rocky, but the views that are seen here are very pretty. Hiking up to the top of the rock formations and the tops of the large hills allowed the group to see for miles at the Czech landscape.

Prague Orientation

The group received their first tour of Prague yesterday. Vlasta, the Czech coordinator took the students to some magnificent places for their first exposure to this very historic city while making the group familiar with some European traits; using the public transit and walking almost everywhere.

At the first stop, Malostranska metro stop, Vlasta began his very detailed tour of the history of the city. The first piece of history was the Vrtboska garden. The Vrtbovska garden is situated on the slopes of the Petrin hill and is one of the most important boroque gardens of Prague.

The Italian style terrace garden was built by the Vrtbovsky palace in 1715-1720 for Jan Joseph, the earl of Vrtba, the highest chancellor of the Prague castle. The very intelligent solution proved by a convincible style interpretation was designed by Prague-born Frantisek Maxmilian Kanka. An important role was undoubtedly also played by his colleagues, sculptor Matyas Bernard Braun, who provided all the sculpture for the garden, and painter Vaclav Vavrinec Reiner, the author of the frescoes (any of several related painting types, done on plaster on walls or ceilings).

The tour continued on to several other smaller locations including the John Lennon wall, Charles Bridge, and one of the oldest working Astronomical Clocks in the world. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Astronomical_Clock )

The small tour given by Vlasta was a great orientation to get the students acquainted with Prague and get their confidence in themselves to now go out and take on the town and find out more on their own.

After the tour of the city, the students made their way back to campus where they enjoyed a Welcome Dinner hosted by our Czech friends. It was a very pleasant night as dinner was provided for us and we were able to meet and greet the Czech students.

Students stayed after the dinner and participated in a local fun game that the Czechs enjoy to play a lot, Foosball.