Brno – Unfiltered

Brno – a city where reality decided not to take itself seriously.

Day One

A Collage After Three Espressos

First steps from the station, which looks like an obstacle course with stairs designed to train alpine units. From the underpass comes an evergreen tune: "The oven fell in, the oven fell in…"

The city greets you straight away with concrete, dust and chaos. Only then does it slowly peel back its prettier layers.

That surreal welcome package looked something like this:

• A pink-purple parade of leggings and floral miniskirts — what I can only describe as a secret Brno guerrilla action against dull off-the-rack fashion.
• Above a Nepalese restaurant, a sign reading "Psychomodulační látky" (Psychomodulating Substances) from 1985. Right next to "Tattoo Lexus" and a notice: "Passage through the newsagent ahead of you." This is no longer Brno. This is the Matrix.
• And through all of this strides an orange monk past a KFC, as if he had simply popped out for a bucket of wings. A perfectly normal Thursday in Brno.

A collage after three espressos, entitled: "I am chaos, but colourful."

When I asked someone for directions to my hotel, I received an invitation for beer and pork belly. When I politely declined, I heard from behind me:
"Don't be daft, come with us — and if you're worried about the calories, just wear your control underwear tomorrow."

My suitcase rattles over the cobblestones. I look up and instead of a blue sky I see a sign:

Coffee. Wine. Relax.
Finance. Property. Together.
Because I can.

That is a character study of Central Europe in one sentence.

It is not a city of one mood. It is a city of cuts, jumps and unexpected transitions — one moment soaring, the next plunging, with no fixed rhythm. A bit of rap, a bit of pop, occasionally metal.

From the initial shock, a subtler reading of the city slowly emerges. Not only chaos and one-liners, but also the elegant proportions of the buildings, delicate ornaments, the scale of the streets and that faintly Austro-Hungarian imprint that still breathes here.

Brno told itself: If the world is absurd, we might as well make a beautiful souvenir out of it.

Two and a half hours from Prague and suddenly you are on an entirely different planet in the solar system.

After checking in, I head out to explore further layers. From a busy street I slip through a passage between buildings into a scruffy little courtyard full of graffiti and bicycles. Suddenly I am in another world — raw, unpolished, but astonishingly alive. Berlin vibes, Moravian-style.

Brno simply has no single face. And that is exactly as it should be.

In search of design I head to Object Concept Store. Small, but charming. Right next door a reward awaits — a beautiful bar with excellent coffee.

Hunger leads me to Soul Bistro. The Tikka Masala was so good that the sauce and fresh coriander looked like visual and gustatory heaven in one bowl.

The black stone monolith on náměstí Svobody (Freedom Square) is not a rocket — it is an astronomical clock. It is made up of several rotating glass sections that turn against each other; finding the exact time is a real challenge, so I eventually gave up and checked my phone.

Why is it so complicated? Because it is a symbol of Brno's courage from 1645. That year a Swedish general promised to withdraw if he had not captured the city by noon. The people of Brno started ringing the noon bells at eleven. The Swedes withdrew. End of story.

And the best part? The marbles.

Every day at exactly 11:00 the clock plays a melody and a glass marble in Brno's colours drops from one of four openings. People stand by the openings (called "pockets") from ten o'clock onwards, trying to catch it. It is a legitimate Brno sport — a mix of tourists and seasoned locals.

Your odds? Exactly 25%. One marble, four holes. Pure chance carved into black granite.

And amid it all, dwarves roam the square.

Brno is the city where noon arrives early and the dwarves arrive late.

The Dragon in the Gateway

Brno: a city where the legend does not end at the ceiling, but continues on a plate.

Hanging in the gateway of the town hall since 1568 is a dragon — in reality, a crocodile. According to legend, it was outwitted by a butcher's apprentice who used a sack of quicklime inside an ox hide. The crocodile drank from the river Svratka, the lime inside began to "cook", and… the rest hangs above me to this day.

But Brno always goes one step further. First it shows you a real dragon, then it offers you a souvenir featuring its skeleton on a ballpoint pen, a mug and a T-shirt.

Turning a crocodile into premium merch requires courage, self-confidence and a mild loss of inhibition towards reality.

Humour walks the streets here without a leash.

Right next door, on the Gothic portal of the town hall, is a deliberately crooked spire. Allegedly the master stonemason twisted it out of spite because the councillors refused to pay him the agreed fee. In Brno, everything is always a little bit "different".

I sit on a bench, watching this colourful dada universe, and the punchline arrives — a woman wearing a rucksack shaped like a fly agaric mushroom. In that moment it clicked:
"If you don't have a mushroom on your back or an orange monk beside you, you're actually the exotic one here."

How to blend in with the Brno locals:

1. Forget Prague logic.
2. Accept that the crocodile is a dragon and that the black projectile is actually a clock.
3. Buy yourself a ballpoint pen with a reptile skeleton and observe the world through the bottom of a glass of Moravian white wine.

I think tonight I will sleep like that dragon after the lime.

Day Two — 1 May 2026

Liběna Rochová: Touches

Labour Day celebrated in true Czech fashion — by shopping. Because one day without a new T-shirt or a bread roll would surely mean the end of civilisation.

While Brno is busy chasing marbles and discounts, I head to the Museum of Applied Arts for the exhibition Liběna Rochová: Touches.

Liběna Rochová is the queen of Czech design. Her work unites haute couture, art and extraordinary discipline. Garments that are not merely clothing, but emotion and material in motion.

The contrast between the dramatic black silhouettes and the delicate, ethereal white models was precisely the visual cleansing my nerves needed after yesterday's Brno chaos.

The museum itself has an excellent design shop and a café called Robot. Digital projections, a robotic arm serving coffee, a minimalist futurist interior… Paying for coffee here feels like a sci-fi performance.

This City Is Like Medusa's Head

They called it the "Moravian Manchester" — and not without reason. In the 19th century it ranked among the most important industrial cities of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Textiles, spinning mills, cloth-making — everything pulsed here.

Today it blends Secession with industry, functionalism with humour and a light Dadaist personality disorder. And here I am, lamenting the fact that in 1913 I could have bought a villa here for 290,000 crowns.

The Brno Tourist Information Centre (TIC) is, incidentally, one of the best in the Czech Republic. Instead of dusty postcards, they have a modern design concept store full of local designers and objects that actually make sense.

Dominikánské Square

Try pressing your ear against the base of one of those cones and whispering something. The acoustics play strange games here.

Then there is "Justice" in front of the Supreme Administrative Court — a statue of a man lifting an enormous block of stone. The people of Brno immediately renamed it "The Bailiff Moving the Fridge".

A little further along stands another Brno photo stop — an enormous statue of Jobst of Moravia on horseback, with impossibly long legs, by Jaroslav Róna. Stand directly beneath the horse's head and look up, and you understand why it is such a hit.

Parnas as an Anomaly

The Parnas fountain on Zelný trh (Cabbage Market) feels in this Brno context almost like a time traveller who has lost his way. It is the moment when Brno tried to be "plump" and ornate, but the rest of the square simply refused to let it go any further. While the rest of the city bets on Gothic severity or Functionalist clarity, Parnas is a Baroque "explosion" in the middle of the market — a stone "whipped cream" full of sculptures.

Day Three — 2 May 2026

Climbing Špilberk Castle

The view from the castle walls of Špilberk towards the Petrov cathedral in the morning sun is simply "spot on". The perfect moment for a deep breath.

From up here, Brno is suddenly calm, spread out in your palm — from Petrov all the way to the chimneys of the "Moravian Manchester". Total zen. I suspect the sky bought its blue today at a sale — it is so deep it borders on kitsch. Perhaps Pantone will add it to their swatch book as Pantone Brno Blue.

Just as you convince yourself that Brno is all austere Gothic and Functionalism, a golden Orthodox dome pops up below Špilberk. Brno simply refuses to fit neatly into boxes.

First it shows you the "ugly" scars, the dust and the chaos near the station, then gradually, layer by layer, it lets you look beneath the surface. From raw graffiti courtyards through minimalist galleries to that unexpected calm on the walls of Špilberk.

Brno is not perfect. But it has come a long way in how it treats public space, in its gastronomy, and in the way it affects people. The visual noise has receded, the city has opened up and instead of chaos that drives you away, it now offers an atmosphere that invites you to stay. It is not impersonal. On the contrary. It is full of an infectious optimism. And in the end it embraces you more warmly than you expected.

All roads lead to Zelný trh — the Cabbage Market. And where better to have lunch than at Būcheck? A food truck bearing Gault & Millau stickers for 2025 and 2026. Those are not there just for show. In the gastronomic world that is a seriously big deal — confirmation that Brno really does play in the top league when it comes to food.

A glossy bun, a proper meat texture, cheese exactly where it should be, and none of the surrounding academic fuss. This lunch delivers a hit to your taste memory so powerful you will never forget it.

The food here is excellent almost everywhere. And the ice cream? Even the ordinary vanilla or chocolate is taken to perfection. But more on that another time.

The Worst Experience Came Last

The public toilets at the main station are hidden underground, reached by descending dozens of stairs with a suitcase and a backpack. After a digital payment, you squeeze through a narrow turnstile in which you can easily get stuck even without luggage.

And the most important point: if this is a problem for an ordinary traveller, what about a wheelchair user, a parent with a pushchair or an elderly person on crutches?

Leaving Brno feels like a disciplinary test in orientation, speed and physical fitness. The final platform number is announced, people sprint through underground corridors, the signage is inadequate and orientation is supplied by a local "conductor". Boarding the train with luggage feels more like an obstacle course than 21st-century public transport. And anyone with any kind of disability is effectively excluded from the system on the spot.

Epilogue: Return to Reality

Or so I thought.

On the train back I settle into business class, order a wrap and briefly believe that a dignified return to civilisation awaits me. The wrap is excellent, I grant that. But the table is the size of a large postcard, and once the meal is over a new discipline begins: static endurance with a plate balanced on one's thigh.

The gentleman opposite is in the same situation. He is drinking coffee and afraid to move. We sit facing each other like two statues waiting to be freed from the crockery.

The Wi-Fi occasionally drops out, sometimes so does the power, and the waiter collects used crockery in his arms because a tray would apparently compromise the minimalist concept of suffering.

This is no longer a return journey.
This is meditation in motion.