EXPLORING PRAGUE & THE CZECH REPUBLIC

Had you thought of making one in the Czech Republic? This might not be the first place you'd think of for a long weekend motoring break but it has much to offer those in search of something a little different. Jonathan Crouch flew to Prague to experience what this vibrant country has to offer.

The Czech Republic. They call it 'the land of stories' and a long weekend is all the time you'll need to write yours. Take an easy, affordable flight from a range of UK airports to the capital Prague, enjoy the city, then get out and explore ancient Bohemia. The adventure awaits.

It's a tempting one. Prague is known as 'the city of a hundred spires', a place of architectural and spiritual richness and these days, also a cosmopolitan international capital. Get beyond its city limits though and the experience will be very different, a land of castles and culture that's still to be fully discovered by visitors after decades under communism. Take a long weekend, fly to Prague, hire a car and you can see both sides of this fascinating country.



We decided to base ourselves in the capital for our visit, a place where you can check the pulse of one of the most compelling national transformations in modern day Europe. It is, after all, only a quarter of a century since what was then Czechoslovakia emerged from the fall of the Iron Curtain with a once-jailed dissident as President, showing the rest of Eastern Europe what could lie in its future.



A place of opportunity: a place like Prague, now a compact city of 1.2million, divided by the picturesque River Vltava and linked by romantic stone bridges. Soviet agents, German militants, Habsburg colonists and Iron Age Slavic hordes have all been drawn here - not always to a warm ...