Freddie's land of radost

Roger Ratcliffe reports from Bohemia.

There was plenty of rhapsody. Music filled the narrow streets of Prague's Old Town after dark, while hen parties and stag nights from across Europe appeared to be doing the fandango – among other things – in the huge Wenceslas Square.

Okay, there was no sign of scaramouch, although to be honest I wouldn't have recognised it, but we did have some thunderbolt and lightning and the beer taverns were definitely magnifico-o-o-o.

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I don't know what inspired Freddie Mercury to write his mock opera Bohemian Rhapsody way back in the Seventies. At that time Bohemia was part of Czechoslovakia and well and truly under the Soviet Union's thumb. I suspect he was probably tapping into what the Czech's call radost – their word for joy. Because whatever else the Communists managed to do, they never killed this nation's appetite for fun.

Two decades after a million people filled Wenceslas Square for the Velvet Revolution, fun is there in spades. You can sense it even in the air of places like the once-wealthy Bohemian silver mines city of Kutn Hora, an hour or so by bus from Prague, where one of the greatest Gothic cathedrals in Europe was built in the Middle Ages to try and put a brake on the populace's jollity.

And in Prague itself – capital not just of Bohemia but also the modern Czech Republic – radost is a way of life.

Which makes it a great place to visit. Don't worry about all those stags and hens, who are well catered for in the kind of bars and clubs you wouldn't dream of visiting at home. What the Czechs do well – better than most other people in Europe – is generate a great ambiance in their taverns (the local name for bars), many of which are so old that in England they'd probably be under the care of the National Trust.

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For the bohemian-spirited there's a lot of jazz. There's also plenty of rock and blues, and many taverns burst with the sound of accordions, violins and mandolins – classic German beer hall bands but with less lederhosen.

Besides their motto of radost, the Czechs have a tongue-twister of a saying that translates as "where beer is brewed, life is good", and that sums up the city's most famous beer shrine, U Fleku, which looks more like a museum than a tavern. The building dates from 1499, and part of it is taken up with a micro-brewery producing what is claimed to be a black lager, which despite it's treacly look is a very light-tasting version of Guinness.

You can also eat here – it's the standard Czech fare of goulash, smoked pork, sauerkraut and dumplings – but beer and music is really what U Fleku is all about.

Other taverns are crammed with Prague intellectuals – perhaps pondering those famous words, "I drink therefore I am" – and it can be hard to find a seat. U Zlatego Tyra (The Golden Tiger) in Hosava was once the regular hang-out of Vaclav Havel, the playwright and anti-Communist dissident who became first president of the Czech Republic. Shortly after taking office he had a photo call here with Bill Clinton and a couple of foaming glasses of Pilsner.

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The most fascinating tavern is an old roman wine cellar called U Zlate Konvice, deep beneath Prague's old town square, where a huge number of stuffed wildlife specimens including bears, deer and wild boar make the place seem surreally crowded.

Outside, the square is one of the best places to be in the city at most times of day and night, a massive street theatre of bizarre fashions, off-the-wall buskers and ranting protesters. It's like the Edinburgh Fringe and Speaker's Corner fighting for attention among the crowds of tourists.

The other lively spot, Charles Bridge, bristles with baroque statues on its 500-metre course across the Vltava River and becomes another kaleidoscope of entertainers and hawkers during the day.

Fascinating Prague may be but you have to get out and see the Bohemian countryside, which has managed to remain pretty much unchanged over many decades. Some say it looks like parts of England did 50 years ago before hedges were ripped out and wayside trees felled. There's certainly no shortage of charming Constable-like idylls the further away from Prague you go.

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Most people head for the castle at Karlštejn, which looks straight out of a Disney fairy tale. At the other end of the emotional scale is the haunting Nazi concentration camp at Terezn. But with a little bit more time and effort you can reach the lovely old city of Kutn Hora, now a World Heritage Site.

Next to the mountains of Kuttenberg, it grew extremely rich in medieval times when there was found to be silver in them hills. In 1308 the city became home of King Wenceslas II's royal mint and produced the silver groschen, a hard currency for all of Central Europe which was a kind of euro of its day.

By the time the seams of silver ore were exhausted in the 16th century it was full of grand buildings, not least the stunning Cathedral of St Barbara with its twin spires soaring above the city and the former Royal Mint, known as the Italian Court because coins were designed and stamped here by craftsmen from Florence.

Most visitors go first to the Sedlic Ossuary, near the railway station. The small building was originally a Roman Catholic chapel, but since the 16th century it has been packed with the skulls and bones of between 40,000 and 70,000 people, estimates of the number of dead exhumed from a nearby cemetery. Many had died from the Black Death. Their bones have been arranged in such bizarre ways the effect has been described as looking like the Addams Family's Christmas decorations.

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Strange it certainly is, as well as pretty grotesque, and the atmosphere in the Ossuary (the name given to any collection of bones) was pretty sombre until someone in our party said they thought Ossuary was a town in Yorkshire.

GETTING THERE...

Jet2.com flies to Prague from Leeds-Bradford and Manchester Airports. Flights are from 19.99 one way including taxes.

Roger Ratcliffe stayed at the Ramada Grand Hotel Symphony, on Prague's Wenceslas Square. For details visit www.ramadainternational.com

The U Fleku micro-brewery, beer hall and restaurant is at Kremencova 11, New Town, Prague.

Kutn Hora is a 75-mile journey from Prague's Florenc bus station.

YP MAG 30/10/10

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