Prague, known as the City of Spires, is one of the prettiest cities in the world. If you love architecture, this could well be the city to blow your mind.

Have you ever wondered about the phrase “taking the waters”?

Europeans have been making their way to the handsome town of Karlovy Vary (aka Carlsbad or Karlsbad) for centuries to promenade up and down the main drag sipping the warm, vile-tasting mineral waters that bubble endlessly out of the ground.

For beer lovers, the Czech Republic offers two places of pilgrimage: the town of Plzn (Pilsen, home of Pilsener) and Ceske Budejovice, home of the original Budweiser beer.

If you’re partial to fairytales, then this extraordinary little confection will delight your inner child.

The word “confection” springs to mind for two reasons: one is the ginger-bread look adopted by a favoured backpacker joint, Krumlov House, and the other is that this town is in some ways a creation of the tourist industry post 1989.

If Cesky Krumlov is dessert and Prague is a gourmet treat, then Brno is a workaday meal served up to close friends. Brno, capital of Moravia, has tourist attractions but isn’t one in itself.

This is refreshing if you’ve overdosed on gorgeous squares and cobbestone streets (it can happen) and you want to do ordinary things like ride trams and sit in pubs that are not full of your fellow tourists.