Masaryk Square is the historic heart of Ostrava, a long rectangular plaza lined with pastel-coloured townhouses, a baroque plague column in the middle, and the old town hall (now the Ostrava Museum) at one end. After decades of soot-blackened decay it was thoroughly restored in the 2000s and is now one of the cleanest, most pleasant squares in industrial Moravia.
Cafes spill onto the cobbles in summer, and the Christmas market in December is one of the better ones in the region. The plague column was raised in 1702 after an epidemic and shows the Virgin Mary atop a knot of cherubs.