Brno Old Town

Brno's old town is small enough to cross in twenty minutes and holds more than that suggests. Zelny trh, the cabbage market, has been a working vegetable market since the thirteenth century and has Fischer von Erlach's Parnas fountain in the middle of it. The Old Town Hall gate carries the Brno dragon - a stuffed crocodile hung there for centuries, of unknown origin, with a legend about a beast that terrorised the town - and a deliberately crooked pinnacle above it, which the stonemason is said to have bent after being underpaid. Beneath the centre run two visitable underground systems, the Zelny trh cellars and the labyrinth under the market. Above ground, Brno has one of the best concentrations of interwar functionalist architecture in Europe, of which the Villa Tugendhat is the famous piece. Namesti Svobody has an astronomical clock shaped like a black bullet.

What's there

• The crocodile in the gate - hung for centuries and called the Brno dragon.
• A crooked pinnacle - bent, by tradition, over an unpaid mason's bill.
• Underground cellars - two systems open beneath the market squares.
• Interwar functionalism - one of the best concentrations of it in Europe.

When to go

April to October. A day.

Good to know

Underground routes are guided, timed and book up. Villa Tugendhat sells out months ahead and needs separate booking. The black clock on Namesti Svobody is disliked by a good share of locals.

Nearby

Spilberk and Petrov are on the hills either side of the centre.

Key facts