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The favoured Czech holiday destination par excellence is Croatia – with its miles of sandy beaches, beautiful coastal towns and exquisite Mediterranean cuisine. Well, actually, not many Czechs go for the cuisine - in fact a huge number of Czech tourists bring their own food with them. That obsessive self-catering seems to have irritated the Croatian authorities to such an extent that they’ve now banned tourists from bringing in meat and dairy products, to the fury of thrifty Czech visitors.

Many fans of classical music in the Czech capital have been closely following the Prague Spring Festival drawing to a close this week. But how many knew that some of these classical musicians also play football? On Sunday members of the BBC Symphony Orchestra faced the Czech Radio Symphony in a 5-aside football friendly in Prague’s Hanspaulka district.

The former Czech president Václav Havel has largely refrained from interfering in or commenting on domestic politics since stepping down as president five years ago. But this weekend he seemed to cross that fine line between general philosophising on the state of society and making overtly political gestures, when he said people in Prague should not vote for the right-of-centre Civic Democrats in the forthcoming elections.

At midnight on Monday, protesters Jan Tamáš and Jan Bednář will suspend their three week hunger strike over the government’s plans to allow a US anti-missile radar base into the country. Their cause has received international publicity and sparked controversy in Prague where some politicians have called them blackmailers, while others have offered to take up their cause. On Monday Dominik Jůn caught up with a clearly malnourished Jan Tamáš to find out how he felt and whether the protest had had the desired result.

A week before a key vote by EU environment ministers on tightening GMO cultivation rules, leading Czech scientists have called on European politicians to start a rational debate on the future of genetically modified plants. Claiming that GMOs are safe both for consumers and the environment, Czech experts would like to see the European Union embrace a more liberal attitude towards biotech crops.

The Khamoro Festival is an international Romany Festival held in Prague each year. This year saw the 10th anniversary of the event, which features Romany performers and musicians from around the world, celebrating their rich cultural heritage with a packed programme of performances. One of the highlights is a vibrant procession of dancing and music which winds its colourful way from Mustek to Old Town Square. Jamie Brindley followed the procession yesterday.

Prague City Hall has launched a new campaign to clamp down on litter in the capital. As of July 1, those caught littering in the city can expect big fines. Councillors say the new system has already been proved to work in other European capitals, though critics say the clean-up drive just stinks.

On Wednesday the Constitutional Court ruled that health care reforms introduced by the government this year did not contradict the Czech constitution. The ruling came six months after the opposition Social Democrats and the Communists put forward petitions against the reforms, which, as of January 1, have required patients to pay 30 crowns (almost 2 US dollars) for every visit to the doctors’. The verdict was close with only 8 out of 15 members of the court ruling in favour.

A major new exhibition entitled “Biedermeier Art and Culture in the Czech Lands, 1818 to 1848” has just got underway at Prague Castle. Indeed, organisers are saying it could well be the Castle’s biggest show of the year. The term Biedermeier takes in literature, painting and even life-style, though it is most closely identified with elegant furniture which was made for central Europe’s emerging middle classes in the first half of the 19th century. Kateřina Horníčková of Prague Castle’s culture section told me a bit about the phenomenon of Biedemeier,

A loosely-knit association of doctors, prominent personalities and civic leaders has come together under the umbrella of an anti-gambling group calling itself Stop Hazard. They have put together a petition which seeks to pressure the government into passing new legislation to curb the number of slot-machines and other gambling venues in the country.