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The Old Town is where you'll probably spend most of your time in Brno, and namesti Svobody (Freedom Square) is at the heart of the Old Town, so that seems as good a place as any to start. The square, which used to hold the city's main market, is a strange affair. For a start it's triangular. And while it has plenty of interesting buildings surrounding it there's nothing so distinctive as to give the square any sense of special identity (as the town halls in the main squares of Prague and Wroclaw do, for example). It's still a pleasant enough place though, especially for an al fresco beer or two in the summer.
At the centre of the square, now marooned on a traffic island, is the late 17th century plague column, an ornate affair dotted with guilded statues of some obscure saints. It looks very attractive, and is a popular meeting point.
The most distinctive building on the square is the 19th century Dum u ctyr mamlasu, on the eastern edge, with its quite ridiculous facade of 4 sub-Atlas blokes holding the building's pillars up with one hand while trying to keep their towels in place with the other. Very odd. On the opposite side of the square is possibly its most attractive building, the Dum Panu Z Lipe (at number 17); the intricate decorative facade is relatively recent (1930s) and conceals a considerably older building underneath. The interior of this historic building has been stripped out and now houses a shopping mall (some would call that progress), and the Pizzeria Arca di Adria, where I was left traumatised by an octopus (see the "Where to Get Drunk" section).
The southern end of namesti Svobody funnels into Masarykova, the busiest and main commercial street of the old town, which runs south to the railway station. At ground level Masarykova is mostly lined with shops, but above the shops many of the buildings have a fantastic range of art nouveau decoration, much of which seems to have been restored only recently. Our favourites included the red lobster pharmacy and Tres Gallos building with a statue of 3 chickens on the roof (why KFC haven't set up shop there is a mystery to me), but you can spend hours wandering up and down the street spotting something new each time.
From Masarykova if you head through the small alleyway called Pruchodni (it's hidden between a couple of shops) you'll be looking at the Old Town Hall (Stara Radnice). The town hall dates from 13th century, although it has been renovated a few times since then, making it the oldest secular building in Brno.
The first thing you'll notice heading up Pruchodni is the tower, with its green copper renaissance-style cupola on top; the tower was heightened in the early 20th century. The exterior of the tower is fairly plain, with the exception of the incredible carvings of the early 16th century gothic portal, representing the city's coat of arms and a statue of Justice. The middle of the 5 pinnacles over the door is supposed to be bent, by the way; it was the stonemason's way of having a go at the corrupt city officials who had tried to rip him off (just trying to keep the Council Tax bill down, I'm sure). Walking through this portal you'll find yourself in a short passage way that's home to a couple of Brno legends. The first, hanging from the roof, is the Brno Dragon (Brnensky drak), a symbol of the city and source of many a myth, which disappointingly turns out to be nothing more than a stuffed alligator, albeit a pretty damned big one.
Hanging on the wall under the Dragon is the Brno Wheel (Brnensky kolo), supposedly the result of a wager in which a wheelwright bet that he could chop down a tree, make a wheel out of it, and roll it Brno all in the space of day, all the more impressive considering he lived over 30 miles away. Nowadays you can't get most garages to even change a wheel in that time...
Passing the Dragon and Wheel (good name for a pub, don't you think?) you'll find yourself in the very pretty and peaceful (unless there's a tour group there) courtyard of the town hall. The rather haphazard nature of the town hall is evident from here, giving you a good idea of how bits have been added here and there over the years.
There's a nice covered well in the courtyard, along with some benches where the rotund can build up a head of steam before tackling the climb up the tower, and looking out over the courtyard is a pleasant little balcony decorated with painted coats of arms, and a rather ornate stained glass window. To have a look round inside the town hall will set you back 30 crowns. For this you get to climb up to the viewing platform that runs around the top of the tower; on your way up you pass through a couple of rooms that have interesting displays on the history of the town hall, including old drawings, plans, and photos, and various bits and pieces found in some of the archaeological digs that have been conducted here. Climbing up to the top of the tower isn't that difficult (well, we managed it); the top bit of the tower was only added in the 20th century and so they put in nice modern stairs as opposed to those ancient, narrow twisty turny ones you find in older buildings. And once you reach the top the views are definitely worth the climb; you get a really good appreciation of the lay-out of the Old Town, and the cathedral looks particularly impressive from up here.
Your 30 crowns also lets you have a look around some the rooms inside the town hall. The Jewel Room had an exhibition of reconstructed 9th century skulls; basically they'd taken some old skulls dug up by archaeologists and reconstructed 3-d models of what the faces would have looked like. This display was called "Face to Face with our Ancestors". If I really wanted to be "Face to Face with our Ancestors" all I had to do was gaze at the ape-like visage of my companion, Dave, surely Darwin's missing link. The rooms inside the town hall were rather plain and not especially interesting, with the exception of their ceilings, which had beautifully painted patterns on exposed wood.
From the town hall follow the road called Radnicka and you'll come to Zelny trh, the second largest square in the Old Town after namesti Svobody. The name translates as "cabbage market" and the square's main use today is still as a vegetable market. One of the things that we really liked about Brno was that in, say, Prague a square like this would be full of stalls hawking tourist tat, whereas here it was still being used for its historical function, and was full or ordinary people going about their business. That said, the shortage of tourist tat in Brno was a bit of a disappointment...
At the heart of the square is the quite bizarre late-17th century Parnassus fountain, a weird assortment of human figures and abstract forms and shapes, God knows what the sculptor was on when he came up with it. Looks impressive though. Apparently at Christmas they sell carp (Czechs eat carp for Christmas dinner rather than turkey) out of the fountain, but as there was no water in the fountain when we were there, I don't know whether this is still the case. I don't suppose you need water to sell someone a dead carp. There's a smaller statue at the western edge of the square, looks like the holy trinity and a couple of saints but I've no idea who they are (one of them is St Primitivus, but I've never heard of him).
The buildings around the square are a rather eclectic mix of ages and architectural styles, but we felt that it hung together better and was an altogether more impressive space than namesti Svobody. In the southwest corner of the square is the baroque Dietrichstein Palace (Dietrichsteinsky palac), mostly built in the18th century and restored to its original appearance in the 1980s, it now houses exhibits of the Moravian Museum (Moravske zemske muzeum), which includes lots of prehistoric archaeological finds and a mock medieval village (which looks like modern-day Essex, I'm told). On the southeast corner of the square is the Reduta Theatre, dating from the 17th century but rebuilt a few times since and currently undergoing another extensive restoration, an 11 year-old Mozart gave a concert here in 1767. There's another theatre on the square, the Divaldo Husa na provazku ("Goose on a string") on the square's southern edge, and there's a rather nice bar around the back of it (entrance on Petrska).
The steep Petrska leads from Zelny trh up the Petrov hill. Brno's towering cathedral (to Saints Peter and Paul) sits on top of Petrov hill, and its spires can be seen from most places in the city centre. To reach the cathedral head up the set of stairs that you'll find half way up Petrska.
Petrov hill is believed to be the site of Brno's first castle, although this subsequently moved to the site of the Spilberk fortress. There has been a church on the hill since the 11th century but it has been rebuilt several times since and the churches current appearance is the result of an almost complete rebuilding at the end of the 19th century. Up close it's hard to get an appreciation of the building, mainly because it's so damned tall and it's hemmed in by smaller buildings; probably the most impressive view of the cathedral is that from the tower of the old town hall. Visually it reminded me a lot of St Vitus cathedral in Prague, which isn't a coincidence, a very high, comparatively narrow building with soaring gothic spires, although the level of detail and workmanship is nowhere near as high. The finest part of the exterior is probably the ornate porch at the front. Inside it's mostly austere; with the exception of the stained glass at the eastern end around the main altar most of the windows are plain glass, the walls and ceiling are plain, although there are a few decorative side alters, and a series of semi-abstract sculptures depicting the stations of the cross.
It's possible to climb part of the way up the main towers (the entrance for this is outside the cathedral, on its south side). It'll set you back 25 crowns and it's not too difficult a climb that'll take you up to a low corridor that runs between the two towers, about half way up, and which allow a ridiculously small balcony (room for two normal people or one fatty) on each tower, just under the clock faces. The views are amazing though (probably slightly better from the south tower) and it offers a good insight into the construction of the cathedral; from the corridor between the towers you can look out over the interior of the churches roof, the gap between the outside roof and the interior vaulted ceiling.
The cathedral is the source of another of Brno's many legends; in 1645 when the city was besieged by the Swedes (what they were doing in this neck of the woods is a long story...) the Swedish commander, Tortennsen, was getting a bit frustrated that it was taking so long to break down the city's defences and so he decided that he'd give it one last go, and if he hadn't taken the city by midday then he'd give up and go in search of an easier target. The city's defenders got wind of this and when the Swedes final attack was looking like it might do the job they rang the church bells for midday an hour early. Tortennsen fell for it (d'oh!) and called off the attack, the city was saved, and to this day there isn't an Ikea in Brno. Sounds a bit unlikely but in celebration every day at 11 o'clock the cathedral's bells ring out 12 times (presumably just in case there's a Swede with a long memory and a grudge in the area).
The rest of Petrov hill is a pleasant place; the narrow cobbled streets to the south of the cathedral are very atmospheric, and adjacent to the cathedral is the Bishop's Palace, an attractive renaissance affair.
On the south of Petrov hill is Denisovy Sady, previously part of the city's defensive ramparts but now a pleasant and peaceful (apart from the traffic thundering past on Husova, below) area of parks. There are interesting views from here; along Husova to the Red Church; of the south of the city; and of the cathedral. Among the parks you'll also find an obelisk that was put up after the battle of Austerliz (known to the Czechs as Slavkov), fought a short bus ride from Brno in 1805 (well, it's a short bus ride nowadays, as they didn't have buses in 1805 so it was probably a reasonable donkey ride back then). The monument was put up to commemorate the end of the Napoleonic wars, although the keen student of history will know that the Napoleonic wars didn't actually end for another 10 years, but they kept the monument up anyway, which was nice.
Coming down again from Petrov Hill towards Masarykova you'll find the Capucin Church (Kostelem Nalezeni sv. Krize a Kapucinska) on Kapucinske namesti (just off the southern edge of Zelny trh). Including the cathedral there are 9 churches within the boundaries of the Old Town, so we'd better start having a look at a few of them. The Capuchin Church, which is attached to a monastery belonging to the same order, was built in the mid 17th century, and has a comparatively restrained salmon-pink exterior, although the row of statues of saints outside the church adds a nice decorative church. The inside is fairly plain too with white-washed walls, although there are few small statues, paintings, and a fancy altar to add a bit of colour.
The church is best known for its crypts, which you can get to by the passage down the left hand side of the building. The micro-climate inside the crypt means that bodies left in there tend to mummify rather than decompose. As you can see for yourself as some of them are on display.... Mostly it was monks of the order that were interred down here, but a few outsiders ended up down here too. Possibly the most interesting is the body of Baron Trenck, an Italian nobleman, officer in the Austrian army, and lastly a prisoner in the Spilberk, he died in 1749, on the wall next to his coffin is an oil painting of him when he was still in his prime, so you can what effect being dead for over 250 years has had on him (basically, he's lost his hair and a lot of weight). Most of the bodies are in open, glass-topped coffins, and there are certainly some interesting details (one of the corpses is still wearing his boots that look like they were stitched just yesterday, for instance) but the crypts are rather gruesome (particularly the rooms where there are just rows of bodies, some of them with bits missing, laid out on the floor) and definitely not for the squeamish (was it, Dave?). It was a bit of a relief to step out into the fresh air again.
There are some nice, peeling art nouveau buildings next to and opposite the Capuchin Church.
Just around the corner on Masarykova is another church, the big yellow Church of St Mary Magdalene (sv. Mari Magdeleny), which seemed to the busiest of the Old Town's churches; the outside is a bit shabby, but studded with statues, and it has one of the tallest towers in this part of the Old Town. Inside it's the typical Brno combination of plain walls and roof combined with lots of decorative altars, statues, and paintings. The queue for the confessional seemed quite long, so possibly a good way to meet girls who like to sin (or grannies, if that's your thing, I'm not judging anyone).
From Masarykova take a quick detour east down Josefska for more churches. St Joseph's (sv. Josefa) has a rather tatty looking white baroque facade and a distinctive red spire, can't tell you what the inside was like as it was locked. As you head north Josefska changes its name to Minoritska, and you'll come across another church, St John (sv. Jan), also known as the Minorite Church. The church was rebuilt in the early 18th century, and is a tall white building which apparently looks verynice inside, but I can't tell you much more than that as I found a really good bar just round the corner and ended up in there instead. Sorry. For a quick break from churches head east down Janska to the grand neoclassical Mahen Theatre (Mahenovo Divaldo), which bears a striking resemblance to the theatres in Bratislava and Sofia, among others (hardly surprising as they were all designed by the same architects, presumably the idle buggers only had the one design). Apparently it was the first theatre in Europe to be fitted with electric light bulbs. Just possibly worth the detour is the nearby Menin Gate (Meninska brana); from the eastern end of Janska go south down Meninksa. It's the last surviving of Brno's city gates, although what you see today was rebuilt in the 19th century and remodelled in the 1970s. It's not all that impressive, and looks neither particularly defensive or decorative. Still, if you're in this neck of the woods anyway you may as well have a quick look. Inside the gate building is a small museum of archaeological finds.
Heading back up Janska, across Masarykova, and then west up Panska you'll come to one of Brno's grandest churches, the Dominican Church, also known as St Michael's (sv. Michala). The original church that stood on this site was destroyed during the unsuccesful Swedish seige of Brno in 1645. The current imposing building, with it's white baroque facade and twin green-topped towers, was completed in the late 17th century.
The winding, cobbled street of Dominikanska which runs next to the church up towards the cathedral is possibly the most picturesque part of Brno Old Town.
Just to the north of the Dominican Church is Brno's New Town Hall (nova radnice); the city authorities moved here from the Old Town Hall in 1935 but the name's a little misleading as the New Town Hall is actually housed in buildings of the 16th century Dominican convent that was attached to the church. Personally I'd have preferred it if they'd kept the nuns, but you can't have everything... It's an attractive building, apart from the big car park in front of it, and richly decorated inside too so worth a look if you get the chance.
From here going east on either Zamecnicka or Stredova will get you back to namesti Svobody, and from there going up Rasinova at the north end of the square will bring you to a couple more of the Old Town's churches. First up is St James (sv. Jakub). Work on this church started in the 1470s and was interrupted by the Hussite revolt, the tower was finished over a century later, and it has more or less kept its original Gothic appearance. With its high, buttressed walls, a nice collection of gargoyles, and towering green spire, St James is probably the most impressive of Brno's churches. One feature of the church to keep an eye out for is "the indecent little man"; no, not a kiddy-fiddling priest, it's a statue which will you find at the arch of the lowest window in the south side of the tower (it took us bloody ages to find it, we walked round the church a couple of times and eventually spotted it when we sat down for a quick beer outside the Sherlock Holmes Bar next door, so hopefully this'll make things easier for you). Basically he's a gargoyle who's flashing his bare arse, supposedly mooning the cathedral as the result of medieval rivalry between the 2 churches. Getting up close with a zoom lense you can see that not only is his arse on display, his bollocks are clearly visible too, like he's squatting over you ready for a spot of tea-bagging. Inside the church there isn't too much colour but the sheer height of the building, combined with the vaulted ceiling and slender pillars, is breathtaking and gives a surprisingly light and airy feeling, and there are some nice bits of sculpture too.
There are some more attractive art nouveau buildings on Rasinova (like the Sherlock Holmes bar). A bit further up from St James is yet another church, St Thomas (sv. Tomase). This big, white baroque building dates from the 1660s and replaced a 14th century church on the same site. Inside there are more white-washed walls, but a rather decorative gilded pulpit and a collection of side altars, while the ornate main altar, a collection of marble, gilding, statues and paintings, stretches all the way up to the roof. Attached to the church is an Augustinian monastery, part of which was later turned into the palace of the Governor of Moravia (Mistodrzitelsky palac), and which now holds paintings that are part of the collection of the Moravian Gallery (Moravske Galerie). (The rest of the Moravian Gallery is in the UPM and the Prazkuv Palace, both on Husova). While the palace was still the Governor's home Napoleon Bonaparte stayed here a couple of times, while he was looking for someone else to fight (short men are often like that).
At its northern end Rasinova opens out into Moravske namesti, a rather tatty park; there's a fountain here (although it didn't have any water in it while we were there); plenty of benches, making it a popular meeting spot, and a good place to pick up a granny if you're into that kind of thing; and the Soviet War Memorial is round here somewhere, although we didn't see it.
Heading southwest down Maresova (part of the ring road round the Old Town) will bring you to one last church (actually, there are plenty more churches in Brno, but this is the last one I saw) the late 19th century Cerveny kostel ("Red Church"), which obviously takes its name from the red bricks it is built from.
The church doesn't have the best of locations, marooned on a traffic island in the middle of the ring road, but I think that it's probably my favourite of Brno's churches, possibly because it looks so different from all the rest (and, stretching the point about Brno being the "Manchester of Austria", possibly because it looks like some of the red brick Victorian churches that are common in Manchester). The spire is particularly attractive. Unfortunately the church was locked, so I didn't get to have a look inside (as it's a protestant church it would probably be quite austere).
Husova runs south from here. The first thing you'll pass are some of the grand buildings of the Masaryk University, one of which has a statue of Tomas Masaryk himself (the first President of the independent Czechoslovakia, you can thank me if it comes up in a pub quiz) standing outside it (he's facing away from the University, which surely tells you something about the value of education).
To the west of Husova (pretty much opposite the Best Western International hotel) looms the wooded Spilberk hill, on top of which sits the Spilberk Fortress (Hrad Spilberk). A combination of the height of the hill, the squat architecture of the fortress, and lots of trees means that you can't really see that much from street level, not even when they light it up at night; we got a pretty good view from our hotel room though. That means to see the fortress you're going to climb the hill. It's not that difficult (if we can manage it then Stephen Hawking can manage it, with or without his wheelchair); although the hill is quite steep, the path isn't as it runs round it rather than directly up, and it's actually quite a pleasant stroll, getting away from the bustle of the city (we tarried a while to watch a big red squirrel frolicking, but then we often like to watch animals at play, until they get scared and run off....).
The hill was the site of Brno's medieval castle (before that there was a castle on the Petrov Hill, where the cathedral now stands), but in the 18th century the castle was replaced by a fortress, more suited to the warfare of the time, which is what you see today. The Spilberk never really saw much action as a fortress but instead gained notoriety as one of the grimmest prisons in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in particular form the Italian and Czech nationalists who were held here. The prison was closed in the 1850s as it was deemed to be too barbaric even for the 19th century, but was briefly restored to its former role when it served as the Gestapo headquarters in Moravia during World War 2.
Climbing up the hill you'll notice the thick brick outer walls, and then you'll pass a small memorial (featuring Romulus, Remus, and the wolf) to some of the Italian prisoners who died here. The higher you climb the more the fortress and its massive walls seem to hulk above you, and going under the main gate it really does start to feel like "abandon hope all who enter here".
There are basically two sections to the Spilberk; the main fortress building and the dungeons (or casements) under it. We didn't have the time to visit the casements (mainly because we were forced to retreat down the hill by a bloody huge lightening storm) but apparently they were the grimmest of the grim cells, where prisoners were kept chained up in absolute darkness, and were the main reason for the public outcry that lead to the prison's eventual closure.
From the outside the fortress looks pretty imposing, surrounded by a huge, deep ditch with thick walls. Even if you don't want to go inside the fortress itself it's worth having a walk around the ramparts, if only for the views out over the city, which are amazing. inside the fortress are a couple of courtyards, and drab walls and uniform rows of windows certainly makes it feel like being in a prison (not that I ever actually have been inside a prison, of course), but there are a few surprising decorative touches, such as the interesting star-patterns on the doors, the Spilberk well (well over 100 metres deep; luckily there's a big iron grate over it) and a carillon (a set of bells that plays a different tune on the hour; I'm not sure how old that is but considering one of the tunes we heard it play was "Love Me Tender" I'd say it's unlikely to have been here since the fortress was built).
The fortress building itself houses the Museum of the City of Brno (Muzeum Mesta Brna) which is made up of 5 different sections; a ticket to see all 5 sections costs 80 crowns (on weekends you can also pay to climb up the clock tower). It's closed on Mondays. The museum sprawls out over 3 floors, and even taking most things quite quickly it took us about 3 or 4 hours to see everything. Don't worry about getting lost as there are plenty of attendants (they considerably outnumbered the visitors when we were there) to point you in the right direction. Everything in the museum is labeled in Czech but in every room there were translated sheets in various languages (including English, Italian, and German) that are either handed out by the attendants or left hanging on the wall for you to use.
The first part of the museum is entitled "Spilberk from Castle to Fortress" and details the castle that used to start on this site before it was replaced by the current fortress. You can see parts of the exposed foundations of the old castle, some archaeological finds from it, and also an interesting section on the castle well (including the story of some stupid sod prisoner who managed to fall down in the 19th century, or it may have been a particularly stupid escape attempt; it was too deep to get his body out so they just left it there, I'm not sure if they'd have explained to the other prisoners why the water was tasting a bit funny). There was also a multimedia display on how the Spilberk has appeared in photos and pictures over the past few hundred years.
Next up is "Spilberk - Prison of Nations". This is housed in the some of the former cells; unlike the cells in the casements under the castle this is where the higher class prisoners would have been kept; these cells all had windows and were quite airy and bright, but even so still felt quite oppressive (although that might have just been the amount we'd drunk the night before catching up with us). Each cell tells a different story; there was one that detailed what happened to Italian prisoners, one that had a gruesome collection of torture implements, one showed what happened in the Spilberk under the Nazis, and one cell had replica furniture and a couple of dummy prisoners to show what it would have looked like while it was still in use (bigger than our hotel room, actually, but no satellite tv, minibar, or en suite bathroom).
On the first floor is "Brno on Spilberk", actually a general history of the city, with copies of ancient documents, and lots of emphasis on the Swedish siege of 1645 (including scale models of the city) and the industrial revolution. This is the part of the museum with the most exhibits.
There are 2 sections on the second floor. Firstly is "From Renaissance to Modernism" an uninspired collection of paintings from the city collection. There are only a few early paintings, the vast majority are 19th to 20th century. There were one or two interesting works, but nothing outstanding, and nothing by anyone especially famous, we basically skipped through this bit. On the same floor is the much more interesting "For A New Brno" which details the boom in modernist architecture that happened in Brno during the inter-war years, including designs and plans of buildings that were never actually built (had the Centrum building been completed according to its original plans, Brno would have boasted Europe's tallest building at the time).
The museum is very good value for money. We had imagined that we'd be able to see everything in an hour or so but as I said, even skipping bits we were in there for a good four hours (the fortress also houses a good and reasonably priced restaurant, Restaurant Club Ogilvy, so if all that sightseeing gets a bit much for you you could always do what we did and recuperate in there with a quick meal and a couple of pints).
Basics - Getting There - Getting Around - Places to Stay -
Where to Get Drunk - What
to See and Do
BRNO PAGE 1 - BRNO PAGE 2