Brno

A masterpiece of landscape architecture, the Lednice-Valtice Cultural Landscape is a 200-square-kilometer testament to the power of human vision to shape nature into a living work of art. Created over centuries by the Liechtenstein dynasty, this UNESCO World Heritage site seamlessly blends two grand châteaux—the neo-Gothic Lednice Castle and the Baroque Valtice Castle—with a vast, meticulously designed English-style park. Winding paths lead past romantic follies, tranquil lakes, and hidden pavilions, each carefully placed to create a new and enchanting vista. It is a place of serene beauty and aristocratic whimsy, where every turn in the path reveals a new tableau of natural and architectural harmony. This is not merely a garden, but a grand, open-air theater of the landscape, inviting visitors to lose themselves in a world of curated natural splendor.

A fairy-tale realm of manicured gardens, romantic ruins, and opulent châteaux set amid rolling vineyards and shimmering lakes—this UNESCO-listed landscape is the life’s work of the Liechtenstein family, who shaped it over three centuries into one of Europe’s most harmonious blends of nature and artifice. The Lednce Château dazzles with its neo-Gothic façade and lavish interiors, while the nearby Valtice Wine Cellars offer tastings of Moravia’s finest vintages in vaulted Baroque halls. Strolling through the English-style park, you’ll encounter faux Roman arches, Chinese pavilions, and hidden grottoes—each a theatrical surprise. In autumn, the vineyards blaze with color, and the air fills with the scent of ripening grapes. This is not just a destination; it’s an immersive journey into aristocratic fantasy and viticultural tradition.

Venture deep into the Earth’s subterranean secrets at the Moravian Karst, a mystical underground labyrinth of over 1,100 caverns carved by the untamed Punkva River. The landscape is defined by towering stalagmites, ancient bones of cave bears, and the soul-stirring echo of water drops hitting an abyss five stories deep. Highlights include the renowned Macocha Abyss, a colossal chasm plunging 138 meters into darkness, and the breathtaking underground boat cruise along the Punkva Caves, where stalactites drip silver and the air is thick with prehistoric silence. Above ground, wooded trails offer a contrasting, sunlit serenity with sweeping views of the lush Blansko valley. The Karst is a geological masterpiece, inviting trekkers and spelunkers alike to explore deep crevasses and silent grottos where time moves in geological ticks.

Perched on a slope overlooking the historic centre of Brno, Villa Tugendhat stands as a luminous icon of modernist architecture — a house that does not merely sit in the landscape but converses with it. Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and completed in 1930 for the Jewish industrialist couple Fritz and Greta Tugendhat, the villa epitomises the “less is more” philosophy with its free-flowing interior, curtain walls of plate glass, and an onyx wall that glows like amber when the low winter sun strikes it. The technical brilliance — a revolutionary steel skeleton, a climate-control system decades ahead of its time, and the legendary retractable windows that vanish into the floor — serves a singular purpose: to dissolve the boundary between dwelling and nature. Though the Tugendhat family fled in 1938, and the house endured Gestapo occupation, Soviet stables, and a dance school, a painstaking 2010–2012 restoration returned it to its pristine, machine-age elegance. Today, UNESCO recognises it as the only modernist building in the Czech Republic on the World Heritage List, and stepping onto its travertine terrace feels like entering a manifesto of light, space, and moral clarity.

A sun-baked limestone ridge rising above the vineyards of South Moravia, the Pálava Hills are a UNESCO biosphere reserve where nature, wine, and deep time converge. This ancient seabed, sculpted by wind and rain into fantastical cliffs and caves, harbors rare steppe flora and the ruins of Dívčí Hrady (Maiden’s Castles) — twin fortresses that guard the landscape like petrified sentinels. The hills are a hiker’s paradise: trails thread through aromatic thyme meadows, past prehistoric settlement sites, and up to Svatý Kopec (Holy Hill), where a Baroque pilgrimage church crowns the summit. Below, the town of Mikulov unfurls in a tapestry of Renaissance and Baroque architecture, its wine cellars offering the region’s signature Grün Veltliner and Pálava — a wine named for the very hills that nurture it.

Dominating Brno’s skyline from its rocky hilltop, Špilberk Castle has spent centuries evolving from Přemyslid stronghold to feared Baroque bastion and notorious prison into the city’s grandest cultural forum. Today, its mighty bastions—hewn directly into the sandstone cliff—house the Brno City Museum, where permanent exhibitions trace Moravia’s story from medieval dukes to Habsburg military might and the ‘Dark Cells’ where political dissidents once languished. The castle’s terraces offer sweeping views over Brno’s red-tiled roofs, the modernist icon of Villa Tugendhat, and, on clear days, the distant Austrian Alps. Inside, rich stuccowork, barrel-vaulted galleries, and period furnishings evoke the aristocratic splendor of earlier eras, while rotating contemporary art and history exhibitions keep the narrative fresh. Špilberk is also a beloved venue for open-air concerts, theater performances, and summer festivals, when the courtyards and bastions become stages under the stars.

Perched confidently atop a granite spur, Špilberk Castle is Brno’s most formidable silhouette and a sentinel of Moravian history. This 13th-century fortress has witnessed everything from royal coronations to the house of Austria’s most brutal political prison, earning it the grim moniker ‘Pankrác’ or ‘The Jail of the Nations’. Within its thick Gothic and Baroque ramparts lies the Bombs, an atmospheric museum detailing its dark, incarceration-soaked past, juxtaposed with panoramic city views that reveal the spires of St. Peter and Paul Cathedral. As night falls, the illuminated castle creates a dramatic spectacle against the Moravian sky, while the surrounding gardens provide an idyllic escape from the bustling Southern Moravian capital below. It is a place where history feels tangible, etched into every stone and echoing through the vast halls.

Beneath the bustling streets of Brno lies Europe’s second-largest ossuary, a silent city of bones arranged in solemn patterns that speak of plague, war, and the great equalizer of death. Discovered during a routine archaeological survey in 2001, the chambers hold the remains of over 50,000 souls, their tibiae and skulls stacked with geometric precision. The air is cool, the atmosphere hushed — a place where history is not merely studied but felt in the marrow.

Twin spires pierce the Moravian sky, marking the spiritual heart of Brno since the 13th century. This Gothic masterpiece — rebuilt in Baroque splendor after the Swedish siege — shelters a luminous interior where light filters through stained glass onto the tomb of the city’s patron saint. Climb the 130 steps of the south tower for a panorama that unfurls across red-tiled roofs to the rolling hills of South Moravia, a view that feels like a benediction over the city’s layered history.

Dominating the wine-growing town of Mikulov from its limestone cliff, this Baroque château is the crowning jewel of South Moravia’s ‘Garden of the Czech Republic’. Rebuilt after a devastating 1945 fire, the castle now houses the Regional Museum, where exhibits trace the region’s vinicultural heritage, the legacy of the Dietrichstein princes, and a remarkable collection of archaeological finds from the nearby Pálava Hills. The castle’s French garden, terraced down the slope, offers a geometric counterpoint to the wild vineyards that carpet the surrounding hills. From the tower’s viewing platform, the eye sweeps across the Nové Mlýny reservoirs to the Austrian border — a panorama that has inspired poets and winemakers for centuries.