A hot summer holiday alternative? Czech!

But the problem with summer in Europe is that your friends aren't the only people there! Visiting many destinations means dealing with hordes of tourists, along with booked-out accommodation and inflated prices.

I think they're all good reasons to explore lesser-known parts of the continent... and one of my favourites is the Czech Republic, with blue skies and an average high of about 24 degrees this time of year. Especially once you head out of Prague, there's a huge variety of amazing places to discover.

The city of Kutna Hora has two World Heritage listed churches, but it's a third one, decorated with human bones, that gets most of the attention! The bones that cover the Sedlec Ossuary are from people buried on the site in the 14th century, and they've been arranged to look like chandeliers or drapes - or even just a tower of skulls. While it can seem a bit creepy, there's also something quite beautiful about the artistic quality.

You'll find another impressive piece of religious architecture at the Pilgrimage Church of Saint John of Nepomuk, built to honour a Czech clergyman killed by the king in 1393. Legend says five stars appeared above him when he died, and that's the theme of this beautiful church with a ground plan of a five-pointed star, surrounded by a cloister with five chapels and five gates. Inside, colourful carvings, golden stars, and marble arches create a dazzling atmosphere.

Slipping an apple into your bag at the breakfast buffet is easy enough, but stealing a whole palace? That sounds difficult! Let alone stealing two, which is what happened with Lednice and Valtice Palaces. Once the main residences of the Liechtenstein family, they were taken by the Nazis in World War II, but Czech authorities never gave them back and the Liechtensteins are still fighting to reclaim them. The palaces are set within a 280-square-kilometre estate of gardens and parks that make for a wonderful day (or two) of exploration.

The Czech Republic is dotted with castles and one of the most spectacular is Kromeriz, not just for its elegant design or exquisite gardens, but because of what it holds inside. Its rooms are filled with one of the country's best art collections, as well as priceless artefacts like historic coins and manuscripts from Mozart and Beethoven. Walking through its grand halls, you'll find new delights around each corner, from the tens of thousands of books in the library to the games room with walls covered in horned hunting trophies.

The name is not hyperbole. There's something special about Bohemian Paradise, a natural playground of forests and mountains north of Prague. The most dramatic features are the rock formations - tall towers of sandstone battered by the wind to create shapes that remind me of fingers, or petrified trees, or the turrets of castles. In fact, some of them have actually been turned into castles, as I discover when I follow some of the hiking trails that lead through the lush foliage to viewpoints, villages, and palatial old residences.

When it comes to Budweiser beer, most people think of the American brand, but a brewery in the Czech Republic has the same name and the two have been locked in a David and Goliath battle over the trademark for years.

The Budweiser name comes from the city in the Czech Republic where it's brewed, which is also where the US company first imported their product from in the 1870s. To decide if this one's better, you can tour the local brewery at Ceske Budejovice to see the operations and then taste some beer straight from the tank.

While there's plenty of stylish heritage in the country's historic centres, you'll find a masterpiece of modern architecture in the city of Brno. It's here that the Tugendhat Villa was built in 1930, pioneering for its time with an iron framework that needed no internal walls, filled with light and decorated with custom-designed furniture and fittings.

The Tugendhat Villa was claimed by the Gestapo in 1939 and even used as horse stables by the Soviet military, but it's now a World Heritage Site and open to the public.

The modern world marches on, but a little slice of traditional life has been protected in the village of Holasovice, where 23 houses painted with colourful facades, set around a central green, offer an insight into rural life of the 18th century.

Most of the houses are still residences, the large gardens behind them used as farms to grow crops for the community, with some of the larger homesteads sporting buildings like granaries further back. But there are also a few houses that have been turned into museums and cafes so you can go inside and see the interiors.

Holasovice, like many of the other unfamiliar sites, demonstrates how much there is to discover in the Czech Republic on an alternative summer holiday.

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