Madagaskar

Kaféet Pražírna har blivit en favorit bland unga kaffedrickare i Prag.

The small town of Andapa lies in a beautiful valley surrounded by lush rice paddies, fields of coffee beans and the high peaks of the Marojejy massif. It is the nearest base for exploring both the Parc National Marojejy and the Réserve Spéciale Anjanaharibe-Sud. Between these two major parks lies the smaller Réserve National d'Antanetiambo. But you don't have to be planning a serious expedition into the parks: around the town are cool, shady forest walks and there are bicycles to hire to explore the villages.

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.

With its wide streets, old colonial-era buildings, and buzzy atmosphere, Diego is an appealing base from which to explore Madagascar’s northern region. While the city has a slow-moving pace (nearly everything shuts between noon and 3pm while residents indulge in long afternoon naps), there's a plethora of good restaurants, places to stay and plenty of shopping.

En av Prags äldsta rockklubbar, Klub Batalion, har också blivit hemvist för en av de märkligaste konstnärerna i landets moderna historia.

It's as if Madagascar had conspired to provide a microcosm of its myriad travel experiences all in one place: here you'll find the isolated Sava region with its wild coastline and vanilla-scented air, the relatively sophisticated city of Diego Suarez and the country's premier beach destination, Nosy Be. Travellers will revel in the region’s diverse national parks while activity junkies will be spoilt for choice with everything from diving to kitesurfing.

Det finns gott om saker att göra i Prag, men ett måste är att utforska Gamla stan – Prags hjärta!

Vet du hur man beställer öl i Tjeckien och hur du betalar för din dryck? Carl Rüster guidar dig rätt!

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