Ostrava

An ironworks complex whose fires went out in 1998, its blast furnaces and gas holder left standing in their rust. Inside the round gas holder a concert hall called Gong was built, and in two science centres by the furnaces children work the machines.

A glass viewing level added in 2015 to the top of Blast Furnace No. 1, reached by lift and holding a cafe. A separate guided tour climbs the furnace's steel stairs on foot, so some people go up through the smell of iron instead.

The city hall built in 1930 carries an 85.6m tower, the tallest of any town hall in the Czech Republic. Its lift rises to a 73m viewing deck, where on clear days the Beskydy range shows to the south.

The largest mining museum in the Czech Republic, built on a former colliery, where a miners' cage takes you down into the tunnels. Underground visits start only at fixed hours, and helmets go on once you are inside.

A mine left as it was when the last shift ended in 1993, now listed as a national cultural monument. In the miners' changing hall, clothes and boots still dangle from chains hauled up to the ceiling, so visitors pass below with their heads tipped back.

A nightlife strip packing dozens of bars and clubs into a few short lanes, open until dawn at weekends. While it is light out the shutters are mostly down and the lanes feel empty, so go on a Friday or Saturday night.

A castle raised in the thirteenth century where the Ostravice and Lucina rivers meet. Mining underground made the ground subside, sinking the whole castle by more than 16m, which is why the base of its walls sits buried below the surrounding land.

A limestone hill village a 40 minute drive south, where climbing the round Truba tower on top lays the timber house roofs out below. The Sipka cave beneath the village yielded the jaw of a Neanderthal child.

A cluster of mountain lodges on a Beskydy ridge, where folk style timber lodges designed by the architect Dusan Jurkovic stand. Libusin, the lodge that burned in 2014, has been rebuilt, and a treetop walkway runs along the ridge.

A museum by the Tatra works in Koprivnice to the south, with cars and trucks the company has built for over a century. Crowds gather at the Dakar Rally winning trucks, and a room honours the runner Emil Zatopek, born in Koprivnice, and his wife Dana.

Mine waste piled into a hill that still smoulders within, steam rising through cracks in the ground. The warm soil grows plants rarely seen elsewhere in the region. From the top, all of Ostrava spreads out, dotted with steelworks and mine towers.

A sprawling castle ruin on a wooded hill, with deer grazing in the game park below. The composer Leos Janacek was born in the village in 1854, and the house he used in his last years is a memorial. In summer the ruin hosts Janacek concerts.

The house where Sigmund Freud was born in 1856, in the small market town of Pribor. The rented rooms above a blacksmith's are furnished as they were then. He left at three, but is said to have remembered the town all his life.

Topping the Moravian-Silesian Beskids at 1,323m. It counts as one of the rainiest places in the country, so time the climb for a clear day. Several trails converge on the summit hut, and summer weekends bring a steady stream of hikers.

A hilltop estate over the river with a Red Castle and a White Castle side by side. In 1806 Beethoven stayed as Prince Lichnowsky's guest and left after a quarrel, so the castle now stages an annual Beethoven festival. Reach it from Ostrava via Opava.

Wallachian timber houses, churches and water mills were moved here to form this open-air museum, opened in 1925. It splits into three sections: the wooden town, the mill valley and the village. On fair days people in old dress demonstrate crafts.