PLZEN

This west Bohemian metropolis with its 170,000 inhabitants is the fourth biggest town of the Czech Republic. It is located about 130 km south-west of Prague and extends over an area of a former watch castle, which was founded in the 10th century. A new royal town was founded on a chessboard plan north of the castle area on the junction of 4 rivers; Uslava, Uhlava, Radbuza and Mze at the end of the 13th century.

The church tower of St. Bartholomew Cathedral dominates the town. Also the Plzen underground is worth to mention. A network of vaults were built here in 3 floors in the Middle Ages and later. A nobly Town Hall and a number of citizen houses and stone portals represent the Renaissance period. At the end of the 19th century a synagogue was built in the Moresque-Romanesque style and destroyed medieval ramparts were replaced with a continuous area of town orchards and parks. The liberation of Plzen by the American Army in 1945 ranks among significant events in the modern town history.

Today's Plzen is a significant cultural, business and industrial centre, famous mostly due to the products of Plzen's brewery and the heavy machinery factories Skoda.
In the last years the city has been taking step by step a new, more attractive face and wishes to be an appeal 'entry gate' on the passage from West Europe.