Olomouc

Olomouc was for centuries the capital of Moravia and the seat of a bishopric, and it kept the architecture that came with that: the second-largest heritage-protected area in the country after Prague, arranged around two linked squares. Its showpiece is the Holy Trinity Column, an enormous baroque plague monument some thirty-five metres high, so elaborate and so large that it holds a chapel inside and was listed by UNESCO in its own right. Around it stand a row of baroque fountains carrying Roman gods and, on the town hall, an astronomical clock that was rebuilt in the 1950s in a mosaic style showing workers and athletes instead of saints, a curiosity nowhere else. Add a large student population, cheap beer, and the local pungent cheese olomoucké tvarůžky, and you get a lively, genuinely Czech city that most visitors to the country never reach.

History

An early Slavic stronghold stood at Povel as early as the 7th century, and a new centre, where the Great Moravian governor lived, grew at Předhradí, survived the fall of Great Moravia around 907 and became the capital of the province of Moravia. The bishopric was founded in 1063 and raised to an archbishopric in 1777; in 1306 King Wenceslas III was assassinated here on his way to Poland, ending the Přemyslid dynasty, and the town, founded as a city in the mid-13th century, was the largest in Moravia and competed with Brno to be its capital. The second half of the 15th century began its golden age, when Matthias Corvinus was elected King of Bohemia here in 1469 and the Peace of Olomouc was agreed in 1479, but the Swedes took the city and held it from 1642 to 1650, and Olomouc lost its place to Brno; the Holy Trinity Column was listed as a World Heritage Site in 2000 (Wikipedia, Olomouc).

What to look for

• The Holy Trinity Column - the vast baroque monument with a chapel inside it.
• The astronomical clock - the town hall clock rebuilt with mosaic figures of workers.
• The baroque fountains - the sequence of Roman gods across the old town squares.
• Saint Wenceslas Cathedral - the great church with the country's tallest spire in its group.

When to go

April to October is mildest for wandering the squares; the city is a student town, so it is liveliest in term time and quieter in August. Christmas markets fill the main square in December. The astronomical clock performs at noon.

Things to know

Olomouc is a real working city rather than a preserved showpiece, so alongside the baroque there is ordinary modern Czech streetscape. The astronomical clock disappoints those expecting something like Prague's, since its figures are mid-twentieth-century mosaics rather than medieval saints, though that is exactly what makes it interesting. The local cheese has a famously powerful smell.

Nearby

The Moravian wine country lies south; Brno and the Moravian Karst caves are within an easy train ride.

Key facts