Brno

Under the Capuchin church, rows of monks laid straight on the bare earth that mummified them, plus a few embalmed nobles gone leathery with time. The sign at the door reads, more or less, as you are now, we once were. Reviewers call it eerie and unsettling and mean it as praise. Be respectful, no selfies with the dead, and note they charge extra if you want to take photos.

• Quiet
• Adults only

The second largest ossuary in Europe, around 50,000 plague, cholera and war dead stacked in artful vaults down the steps outside St. James church, sealed and forgotten for centuries until roadworks found them in 2001. Smaller than Paris and people will tell you so, maybe twenty minutes end to end, but the way the bones are arranged is quietly staggering. (Our addition, the one glaring gap in your list.)

• Quiet
• Adults only

Three vast 19th-century underground reservoirs, brick arches doubled in a few inches of black water, columns vanishing into the dark, with acoustics reviewers compare to the Basilica Cistern in Istanbul. There is a light installation through the vaults. One of the most photogenic places in the country and almost nobody outside Brno knows it is there.

Best shot The brick vaults mirrored in the black water. Long exposure, and a tripod if they allow it. The shot of Brno.

• Quiet
• Solo-friendly

Medieval cellars tunnelled under the old market square, with an original pillory among the relics and, the guide will happily tell you, worse. Confined and cold and genuinely good, run in small groups. English tours exist despite what some reviews claim, and you should book ahead.

• Solo-friendly

The lightest stop on this list, and honest is honest: it is less dripping crypt, more interactive exhibition about coin minting and the legend of the Brno dragon, that stuffed winged crocodile hanging in the old town hall. Reviewers call it good for children, which tells you the register. Mint your own coin for pocket change and move on.

• Solo-friendly
• Kid-heavy

An air-raid shelter tunnelled into the hillside below Petrov, so obscure it has a few dozen reviews, run by two enthusiasts who will pull the English speakers aside for their own small tour. Bring a layer. Ask for the guide with the blue dreadlocks.

• Quiet
• Solo-friendly

A limestone landscape of caves north of the city built around the Macocha Abyss, a 138 metre sinkhole named for a stepmother who, the story goes, threw her stepson in. A walk through the caverns, then a boat along the underground Punkva river, then a funicular up to the abyss. It is spectacular and it is on every tour bus route, twelve thousand reviews deep, so book the boat well ahead.

Best shot The Macocha Abyss viewing platform over the 138 metre drop, best with morning mist rising out of the hole.

• Touristy

The Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, neo-gothic spires rising over the city from their own hill. The Brno skyline’s one true gothic note, and its bells famously ring noon an hour early.

Best shot The neo-gothic spires of Saints Peter and Paul on their hill, floodlit once the light goes.

A decommissioned nuclear bunker under Špilberk hill that you can actually sleep in, behind blast doors, on a bunk in the dark. Reviewers put it best: forget comfort, but it is clean, the staff are lovely, and there is breakfast and, improbably, wifi. Less a hotel than an experience, and the most on-brand night in the country. No hostels, but a nuclear bunker, absolutely.

• Adults only
• Quiet

A 19th-century neo-Renaissance palace turned hotel in the middle of the old town, grand staircase and all, for when you want your gloom with room service. (Our addition, not from the list.)

• Quiet

A reservation-only cocktail bar with no menu and a circus-of-curiosities theme, where drinks arrive inside props and smoke and the odd theatrical flourish. Hidden, strange, exactly your kind of night. (Our addition.)

• Adults only

The Bar That Doesn’t Exist. A big, dark, beautiful cocktail bar with a wall of bottles and a reputation to match, which means it fills up fast. Go early or book. (Our addition.)

• Adults only
• Party scene