A Brno First!
When I rejoined Patrick at ComTech, I was based in Prague having just resigned as Executive Director of a group of power trading firms. Everyone it seems likes to visit Prague and so I often saw clients and colleagues who were passing through. However, for various reasons, I moved back to Brno (pronounced like Brrrr No) a couple of years later. Another lovely city, Brno it seems is a little too off the beaten track for most.
Brno is situated between Prague and Vienna or Prague and Bratislava. It’s actually a tad closer to Vienna than Prague and is in a region called Moravia (Prague is in Bohemia). The city is around 350k people although it is a University town and numbers swell while the students are here. There is quite an active ExPat community and so I have a good social life mostly. However, business meetings are usually located in Vienna or back in Prague and no one ever comes to Brno.
That was until last week. On February 14th, I was visited by Sean Ankers (CEO of EnergyOne) and Simon Wheeler (CEO of Contigo).
This was a first! Apparently, they had been at a meeting in a city nearby and decided to drop by Brno to see me and discuss some business matters. Cue Gary the Brno city guide! I really enjoyed showing them some of the sites here including Freedom Square, several authentic Czech pubs (including the well-named By the Three Devils pub which they found by themselves! – was this a possible referral to our meeting I wondered?), the Brno Crypt, Brno Ossuary and, my favorite, the Angel’s bum (yes – this is a cheeky little sculpture on the side of one of the churches here with a couple of lovely stories to go with it which if you have interest – can be read here) and one of the many excellent curry houses here. It ended up being a very enjoyable evening for all and it was good to catch up with the goings-on at Contigo and EnergyOne too.
