Prag

Fort Dauphin (Taolagnaro) could be one of Madagascar's premier resort towns if it weren't so far from everywhere else. The setting is superb, like a gateway to some tropical paradise, strung out along a peninsula between sea and mountains. And, if you've driven for days through the spiny forest to get here, or even if you've flown out over the trackless highlands of Madagascar's interior, this prosperous mining centre, with its sealed roads and street lights, looks for all the world like a mirage of modernity.

Eastern Madagascar is travel the way it used to be. There is a wildness here of primordial allure, from the misty mountains of Masoala, down the huge coastline with its pounding sea and overhanging palms, to the lush waterways of the Pangalanes Lakes. This part of the country is largely cut off from the rest, and from itself, by a degraded transport network, including some roads out of an engineer’s nightmare. Travelling here requires a combination of plane, car, 4WD, motorbike, scooter, pirogue (dugout canoe), ferry, cargo boat, taxi-brousse (bush taxi) and motorboat. This inaccessibility results in isolated communities and, for the traveller, a constant sense of coming upon undiscovered locales, including entire national parks. There’s no doubt it can be frustrating at times, but Eastern Madagascar produces more travellers' tales than anywhere else. If you value that, come here first.

A reef stretches over 450km along the southwestern coast of Madagascar, making it the fifth-largest coral reef in the world. Running from Andavadoaka in the north to Itampolo in the south, it's the main attraction in the region, with its own changing personality.

Morondava is a terminally laid-back seaside town with sandy streets and gently decaying clapboard houses. There is not much to do or see in the town itself, and most people come here on their way to and from Parc National Bemaraha, Belo-sur-Mer or Réserve Forestière de Kirindy. It's also the starting point for the gruelling three-day, off-road 4WD adventure that connects western Madagascar to Tuléar in the country's south. Closer-to-town attractions include the iconic Allée des Baobabs.

Den populära restaurangen i Prag SaSaZu serverar den bästa asiatiska maten i Prag.

Till skillnad från sin systerkrog i Gamla stan finns här på Prague Beer Museum personal som dels är kunnig, dels faktiskt verkar bry sig om sina gäster.

While it's the beaches that are the big attraction in the area north of Tamatave, with the quiet sand fringed coves of Mahambo being the best option, this region also holds other attractions including a tumble-down fortress in Foulpointe and an excellent zoo in Ivoloina. If you have your eyes set on the beaches and islands even further north then head to Soanierana-Ivongo, which is the ferry port for Île Sainte Marie. Beyond lies the daunting RN5 that can only be traversed by a reliable 4WD.

Tana, as the capital is universally known, is all about eating, shopping, history and day trips. Bypassing the city would be a mistake: Tana has been the home of Malagasy power for three centuries and there's a huge amount of history and culture to discover, as well as some unexpected wildlife options.

Ingen annanstans i världen är de senaste 1 000 årens arkitektur så samlad som uppe vid Pragborgen, Hradčany.

Madagascar's most important seaport, Tamatave is a hot, dusty and chaotic town full of decaying colonial buildings, roadside markets and throngs of pousse-pousse carts. The emphasis is on commerce, not tourism, apart from being an important transit point.