The Vítkovice Area

The museum is in one of the oldest buildings in Ostrava, the Old Town Hall on Masaryk Square. A new permanent exhibit opened here in June 2009, containing art history collections, history of the city and the nature and landscape of the local area. The unique exhibit, and the pride of the Ostrava Museum, is the indoor astronomical clock, 225 cm high – a work by Jan Mašek. The astronomical clock offers 4 parts – its own clock face, the calendar, and the astronomical and planetary parts.

The Silesian Ostrava Castle is the city's most historic cultural monument. It was built in the second half of the 13th century, close to the confluence of the Lučina and Ostravice rivers, where a fortified Slavonic settlement had once stood. In 1872, the castle burnt down, but was later re-built. The main cause of its destruction was coal-mining, with seams worked directly beneath the castle. The whole structure sank 16 m into the ground! The castle has been reconstructed and visitors now can view in its interior several permanent exhibitions telling the history of the building and the city of Ostrava, an exhibition of torture instruments, the castle’s vaulted cellars with witches, fresh-water fish aquaria and the castle gallery.

The Viewing Tower is one of the city's most popular tourist attractions. On a clear day, it is possible to see the entire city, the nearby Beskids, and neighbouring Poland. The Viewing Tower has dominated the Ostrava skyline since it was built at the New City Hall (the largest in the Czech Republic) in 1930. The strict functionalist style of the tower creates, in the opinion of its designers, a noble beacon of concrete, metal and glass. The tower reaches 298.05 metres above sea level, or roughly 85.60 metres above ground level. The tower is equipped with an illuminated clock face, an elevator, and a lookout deck 72 metres above the ground. The Ostrava City Information Centre, located directly beneath the tower, provides information about the city, in several languages. The building also has an operating paternoster lift, one of only about a dozen in the country.

The Ostrava Zoo was founded in 1951. It covers an area of 100 hectares and is the home to nearly 360 different species of animals. One of the most popular attractions is the seasonal, commented feeding of animals, evening guided tours and a number of accompanying events, not only for children (Children’s Day, lampion parades, decoration of the Christmas tree, etc.) There are several children’s corners inside the Zoo compound. When there is enough snow, visitors may go cross-country skiing directly inside the Zoo.

Inside the former Anselm Mine (one of the first to be established at the end of the 18th century in what is today the Petřkovice District of Ostrava), the Mining Museum was opened in the early 1990s. It is the largest mining museum in the Czech Republic. The coal seams of the former Anselm Mine surface at the Landek National Nature Reserve, a world famous site in terms of geology, archaeology, history, natural sciences and mining. People were using black coal here more than 25,000 years ago. A unique exhibition of the Mining Museum highlights the evolution of coal mining in the Ostrava-Karviná region, as well as mining technology, and rescue services. The Long Tour is recommended. It is the largest exhibition of its kind in the world. The Mine Train is a small circuit for children. The site includes sports and recreation facilities, aquarium, bowling, cycling trails and a children’s corner.

Michal Mine, whose history goes back to 1843, is an extremely valuable authentic industrial site in terms of construction and technical equipment. The area was declared a National Cultural Landmark in 1995. Today, the museum provides visitors with the chance to look over all of the above groundwork areas that a miner would have to go through to get to his shift. The tour includes the dressing rooms, washrooms, registry, dispatching, and most importantly, the machine room, with its original and unique equipment that had worked until 1993, when the mine was permanently closed. The scene, intentionally left intact, without any artificial arrangements being made, gives the impression as if work there has just ended.