South Moravian Region: 37 places worth a day trip

One of the oldest breweries in Moravia, first mentioned in writing in 1298. It sits in a village north of Brno below the local chateau.

Brno's historic brewery on the grounds of a former Cistercian convent in Staré Brno. Its gate faces Mendel Square, next to the abbey where Gregor Mendel did his work on heredity.

A brewpub in Brno's Jakubská street, one of the first to open after 1989 and still brewing on the premises.

A Brno craft brewery in the Slatina district with a wide range of ales and lagers and its own taproom.

In the cellars of Valtice Chateau, it presents the 100 best wines from each year's national wine competition. Tastings run in timed sessions.

The Dietrichstein chateau above Mikulov keeps a giant wine barrel from 1643 that holds more than 100,000 litres. The town is the heart of the Mikulov wine subregion.

A wine village under the limestone cliffs of Děvín, with old cellars and views over the Nové Mlýny reservoirs.

A modern hilltop winery near Popice looking straight at the Pálava hills. Known for Riesling and the Pálava grape from the surrounding slopes.

A wine town famous for its almond orchard with a lookout tower among the trees, blossoming pink in early spring.

One of the oldest and most celebrated vineyards in the country, on a sunny spur in a meander of the Dyje inside Podyjí National Park. Reachable only on foot or by bike.

The former Premonstratensian monastery of Louka in Znojmo has vast wine cellars, now used by the Znovín winery for tours and tastings.

A lane of small whitewashed wine cellars with blue painted ornaments, protected as a folk architecture reserve since 1983.

Hundreds of wine cellars climb Stará hora hill above the village, many dug into loess over several levels.

A hill of wine cellars and vineyards above Bořetice, crossed by wine trails and known for red wines.

Often called the largest wine village in the Czech Republic, with hundreds of family wineries and cellar lanes.

A town famous for apricot orchards as well as red wines such as Frankovka and Modrý Portugal.

A pilgrimage hill with a Baroque chapel above Blatnice pod Svatým Antonínkem, surrounded by vineyards of the Blatnice appellation.

The Gothic ruin of the Rosa coeli convent stands above a small town known for its red wines.

Cellars begun by the Knights Templar in the 13th century run under the village in a cross-shaped labyrinth, today among the largest cellar complexes in the country.

Several hundred press houses and cellars stand side by side in the Búdy area outside the village, one of the largest cellar colonies in Moravia.

A wine village between Velké Pavlovice and Čejkovice, known for red wines and long rows of cellars below the vineyards.

One of the Modré Hory villages that grow blue grape varieties, with vineyards and a small ski slope – a rarity in wine country.

A wine village north of Mikulov with one of the longest cellar lanes in the area.

A row of cellars cut into loess near Znojmo, their façades traditionally painted blue.

A border village of the Znojmo subregion below the Šobes vineyard, with a late-Gothic pilgrimage church.

A modern winery near Znojmo whose curved roof doubles as an open-air amphitheatre above the vineyard rows.

A Slovácko wine town known above all for Riesling, with cellars in the chateau grounds.

The Liechtensteins' Neo-Gothic summer residence at the heart of the Lednice–Valtice Cultural Landscape (UNESCO), one of the largest designed landscapes in Europe. Its park hides a minaret over 60 m tall.

A memorial on Pratzen Heights to the fallen of the 1805 Battle of Austerlitz, the Battle of the Three Emperors.

Mies van der Rohe's functionalist masterpiece in Brno, completed in 1930, with an onyx wall and windows that sink into the floor. Book tours well in advance.

A 13th-century royal castle later turned into a feared Habsburg prison; visitors can walk through the casemates.

A Gothic castle on a rock spur that was never conquered and has kept its medieval look.

Under St James' Church lie the bones of an estimated 50,000 people from the old town cemetery. Rediscovered in 2001 and opened in 2012, it is said to be the second-largest ossuary in Europe after the Paris catacombs.

The Augustinian abbey in Old Brno where Gregor Mendel crossed peas and worked out the laws of heredity: his story, the garden where he grew them, and the abbey's basilica and library on guided tours.

A 138-metre-deep chasm in the Moravian Karst. Combine it with a boat ride on the underground Punkva river.

Limestone hills rising out of the Moravian plain, a UNESCO biosphere reserve rich in orchids and steppe flora.

The Dyje winds through a deep forested canyon along the Austrian border; the viewpoint looks down on Hardegg castle.