Czech Republic

Beer is cheaper than water and that is not a figure of speech

Prague is one of those cities that survived everything and looks it. No serious wartime bombing, so the Gothic and baroque centre is intact rather than reconstructed, which is why it appears in roughly a third of all period films set anywhere in Europe. It is also, in high season, extremely full.

The fix is the same as everywhere: walk twenty minutes from the Charles Bridge and prices halve while the crowd disappears. Vinohrady and Zizkov are where people actually live. Beyond Prague, Cesky Krumlov is a smaller version of the same spell, Brno is a proper second city with a good bar scene, and the Bohemian countryside is full of castles nobody queues for.

Czechs drink more beer per head than any nation on earth and the infrastructure reflects it. Pilsner was invented here. A half litre in a normal pub costs less than a bottle of water in a tourist cafe, the pouring is treated as a craft with named styles, and ordering is a genuinely low-risk activity.

Annual events and festivals

• Masopust (Feb) — the Czech carnival, with village processions and a great deal of pork.
• Burning of the Witches (30 Apr) — bonfires nationwide to see off winter.
• Prague Spring (May-Jun) — a classical music festival running since 1946, opening on the anniversary of Smetana death.
• Prague Fringe (May-Jun) — English-language theatre and comedy across small venues.
• Colours of Ostrava (Jul) — a music festival held inside a decommissioned steelworks. Extraordinary setting.
• Karlovy Vary Film Festival (Jul) — the most important film festival in Central Europe, in a spa town.
• Czech Beer Festival (May) — seventeen days, over a hundred beers, in Prague.
• St Wenceslas Day (28 Sep) — Czech Statehood Day, with pilgrimages and celebrations.
• Signal Festival, Prague (Oct) — light art installations across the city over four nights.
• Christmas Markets (Dec) — Old Town Square and Wenceslas Square, with trdelnik and hot wine.