Brno

Brno served as the capital of Moravia from the Middle Ages until 1948. In 1645, during the Thirty Years' War, it held out against a Swedish siege, the only Moravian city to do so; the cathedral bells still ring noon at 11 o'clock, a custom linked by legend to that siege. In the 18th century Špilberk Castle was turned into a Baroque fortress, and its casemates later became one of the harshest prisons of the Habsburg monarchy.

In the 19th century Brno became an industrial textile centre, and in the 1850s Gregor Mendel carried out his pea experiments in the garden of St Thomas's Abbey, laying the foundations of genetics. Between the wars the city flourished as a centre of functionalist architecture, with the exhibition grounds opening in 1928 and Villa Tugendhat completed in 1930 for Greta and Fritz Tugendhat. The family fled the Nazis in 1938, the house was confiscated, and it later had many uses before its restoration in 2010-2012; UNESCO listed it in 2001.

With ten universities and tens of thousands of students, Brno has a young, informal feel and a lively café and bar scene. It is also the seat of the Czech Constitutional Court and Supreme Court. The city has a diverse religious landscape, including the first purpose-built mosque in Czechia, opened on Vídeňská Street in 1998, alongside its many churches and the Agudas Achim Synagogue.