Things to do in Brno

Landmark · Černá Pole, north-east of the centre

Mies van der Rohe's 1930 house — a founding building of modern architecture, with an onyx wall and windows that sink into the floor, and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Local tip: Tickets sell out weeks ahead and there is no walk-up. Book the extended tour if you can; the basement machine room, where the motors that lower the windows still sit, explains the house better than the living room does.

Food · Old town

A sloping square that has been a working vegetable market for eight centuries, with a baroque fountain in the middle and the ossuary beneath the church at its top corner.

Local tip: Buy fruit and vegetables here rather than at the supermarket — it is cheaper and much better in season. Then go under St James's Church next door: the ossuary holds the remains of tens of thousands of people and is the second largest in Europe after the Paris catacombs.

Landmark · On the hill above the centre

A thirteenth-century fortress that became a Habsburg prison, now the city museum, with casemates cut into the rock and the best view over Brno.

Local tip: The park around it is free and is where the city goes on a summer evening. Walk up from Husova and come down the other side into Staré Brno — twenty minutes, and it reorganises your mental map of the city.

Nature · North-west, end of tram 1

A long dammed lake with boat services, wooded shores, swimming areas and a castle at the far end, reachable on a city tram ticket.

Local tip: Take the tram to Bystrc and then the public boat up the lake to Veveří castle — it runs on the standard transport tariff rather than as a tourist cruise, which almost no visitor realises.

Nature · About 30 minutes north

A limestone landscape of caves and gorges, with the Punkva Caves and the Macocha abyss — a 138-metre sinkhole you can look into from above and boat through from below.

Local tip: Book the Punkva Caves online well ahead; slots sell out in summer. Get there by train to Blansko and a local bus rather than driving, because the car parks fill before the caves do.

Nature · Masarykova čtvrť and Veveří, west of the centre

A wooded ridge running through the middle of the western suburbs, with a hilltop park, an open-air pool and a public observatory at the top.

Local tip: Kraví hora has a planetarium, a swimming pool and a view, and is almost entirely used by locals rather than visitors. Go up on a clear evening; the observatory runs public sessions and the walk down through Masaryk quarter's villas is the prettiest in the city.