Dvořák's summerhouse in Vysoka: music of the countryside

Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) is the most familiar Czech composer. His warm, colourful and melodic music is full of the spirit of the Bohemian countryside - and coming to his composing haunt in the countryside south of Příbram, a pleasant cycle ride away, you can see where his inspiration came from.

In this quiet village, surrounded by woods and birdsong, Ant was inspired to write some of his greatest works, just before his trip to America that inspired his smash-hit New World Symphony No 9. Here in Vysoka he wrote the Symphony No 8, the second set of Slavonic Dances, and his great opera Rusalka.

Getting here is a nice little bike ride of 10km, an easy hour or so along quiet tracks and paths. En route you pass a bus stop called Rusalka. While waiting for a bus you can sing the Song to the Moon, one of Dvořák's greatest hits. (The water sprite of the title is asking the moon to make her human so she can be with the bloke she's fallen in love with. Operas were like that in the 19th century. It was used in the film Driving Miss Daisy.)

The opera was composed in the country house of Václav Kounic, Dvořák's brother-in-law. The composer would stay here in the summers of the 1880s, chilling with his family after the busy winters spent in Prague.

You can visit the house; it's been restored to show how some of the rooms looked then, with period furniture and pianos that he probably played and composed on. They also stage concerts and exhibitions, and the tranquil country setting is a delight.

Dvořák liked the atmosphere in Vysoka so much he bought a summerhouse of his own on the opposite side of the village, named inevitably Villa Rusalka. It's still owned by a branch of the Dvořák family, but isn't inhabited and isn't normally open to the public.

There's a stone memorial to the composer just outside it, celebrating some of the works he wrote here. (The villa itself is in the background of the picture on the right.)

Thanks to the comprehensive Czech network of bike paths - Mapy is the app to have - you can go back to Příbram by various other routes, perhaps whistling summery tunes from the Eighth as you go, and perhaps stopping off at a local pub along the way.

Dvořák - son of a butcher, family man, proud Czech, train spotter, pigeon-breeder, and all-round normal sort of chap who happened to be a master musical craftsman - would surely approve of that.

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