Brno - castle to bunker

---

Our hotel sits just under the hill upon which Spielbek Castle sits. We climb our way up winding paths through the park, finally reaching the back of the castle. Another five minutes gets us to the ticket office, where we are excited to discover that we do not have to go round on a guided tour. Our excitement dissipates as we find that the castle was primarily used as a prison, and has little or no architectural merit and next to nothing in the way of historic contents. Instead we work our way round a series of exhibits that cover archaeology, the prison (the section on torture is gruesomely fascinating), its use as a prison by the Gestapo who were headquartered here, and then becomes an art gallery.

We make our way carefully back down the hill, with David in particular suffering as the steep cobbled slope is bad for both his arthritic ankle and his torn hamstring. Eventually we reach what turns out to be the highlight of our stay in Brno – a nuclear bunker. We are equipped with huge khaki army jackets to protect against the underground cold, and can then make our way round at our own pace. We can even try on the helmets and gas masks! The place started as an air raid bunker during the war (Brno was an industrial centre and was bombed by the Russians and the Western allies) and then it was adapted as a nuclear bomb shelter to serve as the Moravian administrative headquarters during the Communist era.

The centre of Brno has squares with imposing municipal buildings, where it is mostly impossible to take a good photo as every view is obliterated by either a plethora of road signs, or a 20^th century modern monstrosity of a building tucked in between the old ones. Two of the churches actually allow us to go inside, which is pretty much a first for this trip.



Hannah has a massage back in the hotel by a genuine Thai lady which she much enjoys. After that we have some Moravian sparkling wine (a bargain like all food and drink in Czech) and then we have dinner at Borgo Agnese, a lovely Italian/Czech restaurant which is not starred but probably should be. A ridiculously good meal for less than the price of three courses in a pub restaurant in England. Bloated we roll back to the hotel, and are too tired for our nightly game of scrabble.

Scroll down for more photos.

---