Brno


Brno is the biggest city in the eastern part of the Czech Republic and the second-largest city in the country. When the area was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until World War I, the city was known under the German name Brünn. Located only 100 km from Vienna and 45 km from the Austrian border, it is again a popular day tip destination, since the opening of the borders. The city is famous for numerous show caves, but actually they are located in a small karst area to the north of the city, which is called Moravian Karst.

The city itself has a lot of subterranea, actually the full variety which is typical for historic cities. Of course, there are cellars which were used for storing goods and vegetables, there are crypts and ossuaries, and all the military structures which are a result of two world wars, like air raid shelters and atomic bunkers There are historic cisterns in the castle, but also abandoned cisterns from the 19th century water supply. The first site which was open to the public was the Kapucínská krypta, the burial site of the Cappucin monastery, but it was closed to the public while the monastery was actually forbidden during communist times. It was the first site which was reopened, even before the end of the Cold War. But after the opening of the borders and the increasing tourism, finally the country became part of the EU and this resulted in much better funding, by entrance fees, municipal investment and European funds. The need to make the medieval cellars safe, to avoid collapse finally started the interest in the cellars. The first museum was the Muzeum brněnského podzemí (Museum of Brno Underground) which was established in the cellars under the Vegetable Market in 2009. Numerous historic cellars exist under the city, the cellars are actually not connected, so they do not form a labyrinth like in some other cities. Nevertheless, the number and size of the cellars is quite astonishing. For the cellar museum, some of them were connected. The discovery of a massive catacomb with the bones of thousands of people fueled public interest. Soon numerous other underground sites were restored and opened to the public, several quite recently during the pandemic. Today there are eight sites which are operated by the TIC BRNO.

Another exceptional site is actually not underground, but it contains numerous cave replicas. It is called Pavilon Anthropos and is dedicated to the development of man during the Prehistoric and shows numerous replicas of cave painting.