Sitch, Rob: Cilauro, Santo: Tom Gleisner, Tom "Molvanîa. A Land Untouched By Modern Dentistry"

Sitch, Rob: Cilauro, Santo: Tom Gleisner, Tom "Molvanîa. A Land Untouched By Modern Dentistry" - 2003

Molvanîa is a small country somewhere in the Central Europe with funny people, strange customs, an even stranger language. One of my favourite quotes: "Molvanîan is a difficult language to speak, let alone master. There are four genders: male, female, neutral, and the collective noun for cheeses, which occupies a nominative sub-section of its very own."

Their capital city is called Lutenblag, the country is divided into four provinces: The Great Central Valley, the Molvanîan Alps, Eastern Steppes and the Western Plateau.  Apparently, it borders Germany, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Slovenia. It is known for being "the world's number one producer of beetroot and the birthplace of whooping cough".

Don't worry if you've never heard of Molvanîa - it is totally invented.

Although, in this case, any similarity with fictitious events, characters or places are probably not purely coincidental.

I still can't decide whether this "mock" travel book is just mocking the people who live in the area of where Molvanîa is situated but since I've heard they find it funny, as well, I might have been a tad oversensitive at times. I think we all can imagine where the ideas for the people and the customs in this weird country come from. However, it is quite funny at times, the only travel guide I ever read back to front, and I do have quite a few of them and use them regularly.

So, if you'd like to visit Molvanîa, you want to consider Aeromolv, the only flight line that offers a 10% discount per engine not in service per flight.

From the back cover:
"When sophisticated travelers get together to discuss ever more exotic destinations, the name "Molvanîa" often comes up. Not even John McPhee or Jan Morris can claim to have visited this small, remote Eastern European nation, the birthplace of the polka and whooping cough. How would they even get there? Fortunately, this definitive Jetlag Travel Guide offers everything a curious tourist will need to prepare for encounters with the Molvanîans. With winning insincerity, the authors describe the fascinating complexities of the native language: "Molvanîan is a difficult language to speak, let alone master. There are four genders: male, female, neutral, and the collective noun for cheeses, which occupies a nominative subsection all its very own."