Travelling is good for you: Czech cuisine

Wild boar in a sweet honey and wine sauce with bacon and herb dumplings




Apricot dumplings in fresh cheese, chocolate sauce and a light coating of fine sugar




Cordon Bleu chicken with home made potato croquettes in a mushroom sauce, with red cabbage and pepper side salad


The Czech Republic is a country incomparable with any other. It is God's Own Land. A hidden treasure, protected by mountains around its entire borders, it has more than just Prague to offer to its visitors. Any visit to this land means going to Prague, but like any capital city, it is different to the rest of the country. Paris is not an example of the rest of France, London is certainly not representative of the rest of the UK and Brussels is the oddest thing you'll ever find in a country like Belgium. Thus Prague is an anomaly in the Czech Republic.

But it is a beautiful, mystical city worthy of the land it presides over. For Prague is by far the most awe-inspiring, breathtaking and humbling urban area you will ever see. For one, its acoustics are unique. In most cities you always feel the bustle of daily life, the noise, the traffic and the need to hurry. Not so in Prague. You can walk along the streets and talk to your partner as though you were in the middle of the country. The pace of life is also much more relaxed and yet serious business goes on there all the time.

But this detracts from what makes Prague the city that it is: the Czech answer to Disney - just as commercialised, sometimes too gawdy, often in-your-face, but it's certainly not fake. And it has more history in its shortest back alleyway than Disney will ever have. This is leading away from where I want to set the scene - the Czech Republic itself.

You can determine the borders of the country from any satellite maps: it is surrounded by mountains, pure, green, tree-strewn, formed by rivers, waterfalls and lakes of the clearest highland water. The villages are spread around the hills and mountains, where Czechs come to spend their weekends and summer holidays in their second home outside the town, known as a chalupa or a chata. The quality of life is far better than most other countries in Europe - people are more contented, more active, and they eat locally produced, natural fruits, vegetables and meats.

The provincial towns themselves are often Baroque leftovers from times when the city's gentry wanted to create their piece of Vienna or Prague in the country. So if you visited Jihlava, Ceske Budejovice, Pardubice, Olomouc, Brno or Ostrava, you would find the estheticness of capital cities in much smaller, less populated areas. Arriving in Liberec in northern Bohemia, I was surprised to find a Tesco supermarket smack in the middle of some 18th century architecture.

Furthermore, you can be guaranteed that your stomach will not be neglected... Czech food is not yet on the map of world cuisines, but soon enough you will find its status rising so long that the tourists come back homa and pass on their messages. Going into a restaurant in a small village near Telc called "Na Kocande" with some friends, we ordered roast duck, rabbit, boar, pheasant and plain old chicken. What arrived will forever be ingrained on the memory. French cuisine is noted for its art but you'll discreetly pop out for a bag of chips because it's not necessarily filling. By contrast, Czech food is extremely tasty and has the added benefit of filling you up.

The photos above are of the food served in Na Kocande and although everyone could do with free advertising, I recommend going into most Czech restaurants and awaiting the surprise upon your plate.