Policka. Does it ring a bell?

The top three Czech composers - in recognition terms, anyway - are probably Dvořák, Smetana and Janáček. All three were, well, very Czech, using folk themes or native speech-rhythms to infuse their music with a sense of nationality. Perhaps just out of the medals, in that cursed Fourth Place, is Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959). A prolific producer of symphonies, concertos, orchestral and other works, there's a bit of the Czech about his music, but also a bagful of other 20th-century ingredients, ranging from jazz rhythms to Parisian harmony to World War II gloom.

Most of his best-known work was done in Paris or the US, where he was exiled in WWII. But the story began in one of the most curious starts for any major composer: at the top of a bell tower in Polička, a town an hour or so from Pardubice in the middle of Czechia. His dad was a fire officer, watching over the city from its highest point in a tiny flat 193 steps up the top of St James church belfry, ready to raise the alarm if he spotted flames.

You can visit the flat, and it's amazing to think of a family growing up in this cramped eyrie with the bells going bong every hour. Apparently a goat lived downstairs, along with some bloke in a tiny room where the tower's only toilet was.

There's a good exhibition on the life and work of Martinů in the town's museum, which is well worth dropping into. It also has some fun stuff on the history of the town, which is a little different from most Czech places: it was definitely created, for political and economic reasons, rather than developing spontaneously, a bit like Milton Keynes. A bit. There's also chain mail you can try on - it's heavy! - and a large gallery full of beautiful glassware.

Polička also has a fine main square, with the usual complement of places to eat and drink round about, and some wonderfully intact (well, reconstructed) city walls that you mostly can walk around in summer. Not many tourists make it to Polička; they should, it's a nice little place.

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