Prague

Prague survived the twentieth century with her beauty unbombed and her irony intact, which makes her Europe's best-preserved argument between Gothic and Baroque. A hundred spires needle the sky, the astronomical clock performs its little apocalypse every hour, and the Vltava slides under Charles Bridge pretending not to notice thirty baroque saints staring down at the swans.

The sensible traveller crosses Charles Bridge before seven, when the statues outnumber the people; climbs to the Castle through Malá Strana's lanes rather than the tourist funnel; gives the Old Town Square its hour — the clock's show is famously brief: arrive for the crowd-watching —; and descends by evening into a cellar pub, where beer costs less than water and is taken considerably more seriously.

The Guide's honesty: change no money on the street — those rates are theater —; the Castle is a complex the size of a village: choose the cathedral and one golden lane, not everything; Wenceslas 'Square' is an avenue with a museum at its head and mild hustle at its foot after dark; and Czech beer deserves the respect of a slow first pint. Na zdraví.