The giant casks
Moravia's cellared centuries — the original cold store.
Millenium187 — Public domain · Michal Klajban — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Michal Klajban — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Michal Klajban — CC BY-SA 3.0
A city beneath the city: the Vegetable Market, trading since the thirteenth century, is propped underneath by centuries of interlocking cellars — merchants dug cold stores for their goods two and three levels down until a maze of passages ran the old town's length, restored in 2011 as an open route eight metres deep. The tour is the centuries' life, not just their stone: a wine cellar with giant casks, an alchemist's laboratory with its instruments, the fools' cage (drunkards punished publicly!), a sounding reconstruction of a medieval market — and passages that narrow and turn in calculated surprises that delight children especially. Above you the market lives on: Moravian vegetables and flowers around the Baroque Parnas fountain — so make it one visit: labyrinth below, then lunch off the market stalls above: Brno in both its layers inside two hours.
Moravia's cellared centuries — the original cold store.
Flasks and secret furnaces — the centuries' science in the dark.
Zelný trh 21, 602 00 Brno
Holy Trinity Column, BrnoA baroque column on the vegetable market in old central Brno, raised in the earl1 minute walk4.6
The Old Town HallThe oldest secular building in Brno, dating from the thirteenth century, and the1 minute walk4.8
The Moravian MuseumCzechia's second museum in age and size (1817): the Moravian Museum in the Dietr2 minutes walk4.6
The Capuchin Crypt'As you are, we were — as we are, you will be': the crypt's famous greeting at i2 minutes walk4.7
Diocesan Museum, BrnoThe sacred art museum of the Brno diocese, on Petrov hill beside the cathedral t2 minutes walk4.5The city truly is Europe's richest below ground: the Labyrinth (daily life — best for families and starts), the Ossuary (the solemnity of the dead), and the astonishing concrete cathedral of the Žlutý kopec reservoirs (for architecture and strangeness) — the underground lover takes all three on TIC's cheaper combined passes. Suggested order: labyrinth morning, ossuary noon — reservoirs another day for their distance.