Where to Stay in Brno, Jihomoravský kraj

What is Brno known for?

Brno is known as the capital of Moravia and the administrative heart of the South Moravian Region, long the second city of the Czech Republic behind Prague. Its hill fortress marks the skyline. Špilberk Castle broods over the rooftops, the cathedral of St. Peter and Paul lifts its Gothic spires on the neighbouring rise, and the Old Town Hall keeps its twisted spire above the medieval core. Music belongs here too.

The Leoš Janáček Memorial keeps the name of the composer whose work grew out of the Moravian city and its songs.

What are the main landmarks in Brno?

Špilberk Castle crowns the landmarks of Brno, its baroque ramparts holding the hill above the old town. The fortress dominates the view. On the neighbouring rise the cathedral of St. Peter and Paul lifts its Gothic spires, the Church of St. James shelters an ossuary beneath the streets, and the Old Town Hall carries its famously twisted spire over the market squares.

The Měnínská brána survives as the last of the medieval town gates, while St Thomas's Abbey, the Capuchin monastery, and the Moravian Museum gather the art and relics of the Moravian city.

What is the history of Brno?

Brno took its royal charter in 1243, the market town below the castle hill growing into the chief seat of Moravia. The charter fixed its rank. Merchants gathered under the fortified rise where Špilberk Castle would rise, churches multiplied around the squares, and by the fourteenth century the town had become the recognised capital of Moravia, a role it held through the shifts of kingdom and empire that followed.

Stone and siege marked the centuries that came after. The cathedral of St. Peter and Paul rose on its rock, the Old Town Hall gathered the burghers around its twisted spire, and Špilberk Castle turned from a royal seat into a fortress and a prison whose casemates held captives from across the empire. The Moravian city kept its place as the modern state formed, becoming the administrative centre of the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic.

Music grew here as well. The name of Leoš Janáček stayed tied to Brno, the composer whose operas drew on the speech and song of Moravia.

Where is Brno?

Brno lies at the confluence of the Svitava and the Svratka, the two rivers meeting in a basin among the hills of southern Moravia. The rivers ring the town. Špilberk Castle rises on a wooded knoll at the centre, and the old streets gather below it while the ground climbs away toward the vineyards and the limestone of the Moravian Karst to the north. This inland setting places Brno at the heart of the South Moravian Region, well south of Prague and far from any coast.

What is the climate of Brno?

Brno has a temperate inland climate, warmed a little by its sheltered basin between the Svitava and the Svratka. Summers run warm and dry. The vineyards of southern Moravia ripen through long sunny spells, while the winters turn cold and often grey over Špilberk Castle and the river valleys below.

Spring and autumn bring the shifting weather of the Moravian lowlands, mild days broken by rain and mist around the hills of Brno.

How do you get to Brno?

Brno sits on the main rail corridor between Prague and the southern border, its central station a junction for lines across the Czech Republic. Trains reach the core directly. A regional airport serves the city from the south-east, and the motorways that cross the South Moravian Region link Brno onward toward Vienna and Bratislava, while trams and buses thread the streets between the Svitava and the Svratka to the old town below Špilberk Castle.