Drink beer off the tourist trail in Brno

Photo: Steve Woodhall

If Cesky Krumlov is dessert and Prague is a gourmet treat, then Brno is a workaday meal served up to close friends. Brno, capital of Moravia, has tourist attractions but isn’t one in itself.

This is refreshing if you’ve overdosed on gorgeous squares and cobbestone streets (it can happen) and you want to do ordinary things like ride trams and sit in pubs that are not full of your fellow tourists.

Milan Kundera was born here in 1929; Leos Janacek was born in nearby Hukvaldy, East Moravia, in 1854 and founded the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra here in the 1870s.

Do you remember studying Gregor Mendel’s experiments with pea plants in school genetics lessons? Well, this is where the Austrian monk made his modest little garden and watched his peas grow. The Mendel Museum of Genetics is a delightful combination of scientific museum and contemporary art gallery.

If you want to just hang quietly for a while and catch up on some English-language reading, the cafe on top of the Academic Bookshop (Knihupectvni Academia) at No. 13 Svobody Square provides a lovely little respite.

Of course, you won’t have to go without a castle: the Spilberk Castle on the hill is a repository of waves of history, from medieval times to its use as a prison during the Nazi occupation in World War II.