Brno, a city in the Czech Republic and home to 381,000 inhabitants, is the former capital of Moravia, one of three historical Czech lands, along with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. In terms of international tourism, it’s totally off the map. We visited there almost by accident; we were heading back to Vienna from Bratislava by train, and as we had a few hours up our sleeve we decided to take a detour into the Czech Republic. Brno was at the railway junction where the line east from Vienna dissects the line north from Bratislava, and that was the only reason we went there.

When we exited the train we found literally no one who spoke English in the station building. Our phones didn’t work there, meaning we had no internet access, and for the first time in our travels we felt right out of our comfort zone. Not to be phased by our situation, we waved a few Euros at the newsagent outside the station to procure a map and off we went exploring for a couple of hours through the old city centre.

Though we never spoke to a soul while we were there, we thoroughly enjoyed our visit, and made it back to station in time to catch our train to Vienna. We plan to return one day to see the many sights we missed.