A tale of two Cesky's

We left Prague and headed South almost to the Austrian border to a place called Cesky Krumlov. The plan was to go via Plzen and have a Pilsner in the place where it was born, but for some strange reason we just did not want to have a beer at that time. We did have lunch though but then moved on. Cesky Krumlov is a town right out of a movie. If a knight in armour on horseback rode past, no one would look twice, they would probably say "hello Sir Stefan" and carry on. It is a quaint little town with most of it surrounded by a river that does a very flat 'S' bend so that one part of the town is completely encompassed by it apart from a small piece of land about 15-20m wide. Our hostel was inside this little enclave, with a great view and a balcony overlooking the river. After another great meal at an out of the way restaurant that looked like it was hewn out of a solid piece of rock, we watched the sun go down on the balcony. After it got dark, there was a thunderstorm that seemed fitting.It was the first time I had experienced a storm like in the movies when out of nowhere there is a clap of thunder then the rain starts. That is pretty much what happened. The storm was fast moving though and was over in about 20 minutes, off to somewhere else. Which is what we did the next day as, disappointingly, we only had one night in Cesky Krumlov.
Ceske Budejovice is only about half an hour away and is the place where the original Budweiser beer comes from. Since the American Budweiser company sewed the Czech Budweiser for being both the first to call themselves Budweiser (but only by a few hundred years or so) and for being better than the American one, the original Budweiser can no longer call themeselves Budweiser. Clearly having more money is a better legal arguement than originality or quality. A similar arguement went on with Coca-Cola and the Athens Olympic Committe in 1996 I think. Anyway, Budvar is now the beer from Ceske Budejovice. The brewery is there, just a few km out of town and we had every intention of going to czech it out (get it?) but I had found out that it is now just a modern brewery and not too interesting. They do, however, have a special yeast beer that is sold in special places in Ceske Budejovice. We found one of these places just off the main square, and since we had seen the whole old town in 2 hours, we had a few beers there. The place is a restaurant called Masne Kramy and it was full of tour groups, one from Spain and one from Thailand of all places. We sat at the bar on stools and just watched the drama unfold. The Thai group were very demanding and it was amusing to see the staff try to keep them happy. I was reminiscing my time in hospitality and Im not too upset that I no longer have to deal with situations like that, lots of customers and lots of pressure. Still, it was good to see that the hospitality industry is the same everywhere.
The plan after this was to go to eastern Czech to a place called Olomouc but after getting in contact with a friend who lives in Germany not far from the Czech border, we changed our plans. So its off to Chemnitz in the old GDR,or East Germany.