Olomouc vital statistics:
- Population (1997): 100,000 (city proper); 480,000 (metro)
- Latitude & longitude: 49˚ 36′ N, 17˚ 15′ E
- January average temperature: High 0.6˚C (33.1˚F), low -5.1˚C (22.8˚F)
- July average temperature: High 23.9˚C (75˚F), low 12.1˚C (53.8˚F)
- Time zone: GMT+2 (6 hours ahead of U.S. EDT)
- Language: Czech
- Currency: Czech Koruna
- Exchange rate: US$1=22 koruna
- Average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the city center: $403.70
Olomouc (pronounced “OH-loh-moats”), in Moravia, the eastern half of the Czech Republic, is a very pretty small city. But in July, I can attest, this college town is dead as a doornail.
Don’t get me wrong — Olomouc has its share of sunny cafés to sit at, fronting great people-watching squares. The problem is, there are hardly any people to watch! I knew beforehand that Palacký University in the middle of Olomouc contributes quite a bit to the town’s character, and that during summer break it’d be slower than normal here. But I thought Olomouc was a large enough city to take that hit and still have some summer liveliness. Nope.
In some ways, Olomouc is a difficult pill to swallow after Prague, which is overflowing with life in the summer. But there’s something to be said for a breather, too. A couple of days were more than sufficient for me to see all of Olomouc’s sights, leaving me the rest of the week to blog away about Prague and to prepare for another exciting upcoming destination, Kraków, Poland.
I arrived in Olomouc on 4 July 2018 (happy 242nd birthday USA!) after a short, unveventful train ride from Prague. My Airbnb apartment here is cheap, yet very central. A few minutes’ walk brings me to Olomouc’s scenic Upper Square.
Again, love the pastel colors. The Upper Square isn’t technically fully pedestrianized, and you’ll see the occasional taxi trundle through here, but especially in July, you can wander right through the center of it without worrying about traffic (5 July 2018).
Naturally, I had to enjoy some food and drink in a café along this lovely square. Unfortunately, the weather on Friday, 6 July didn’t cooperate. I had to beat a hasty retreat indoors when a truly Biblical thunderstorm struck and overwhelmed the leaky awning above me. But not before I enjoyed (from left) a “martini” (so tarted up it tasted more like a mojito, which is not necessarily a bad thing), a big ol’ ice cream sundae fortified with egg nog, and a shot of the local Moravian firewater, a plum brandy called slivovice that’s more or less identical to the țuică I enjoyed in Romania (6 July 2018).
The Town Hall sits in the center of the Upper Square. Its most memorable feature is the very distinctive astronomical clock on the lower part of its clock tower (5 July 2018).
Every day at noon, the mechanical figures in the middle of this photo turn slowly around for a few minutes as tinny music plays. It’s a gimmick that drew all 30 or so tourists in town this day. Even I managed to get up early and arrive just as the clock was chiming noon. The cute twist to this astronomical clock is that, after the Nazis destroyed it during World War II, the communists who came to power in Czechoslovakia afterward decided to rebuild it along “socialist realist” lines. Instead of medieval town characters rotating around, you’ve got workers, peasants, soldiers, scientists, hardworking mothers, and so on. The mosaics at the bottom depict a plumber and a chemist (6 July 2018).
The 12 mosaics along the sides each show a different month’s agricultural activity. Unlike Kutná Hora, there’s no silver here. Olomouc’s wealth has always come from farming (5 July 2018).
As expected, this astronomical clock lists all of the saints’ days. But notice the red strips here and there? They mark birth or death dates of communist luminaries like Marx, Lenin, and Stalin (5 July 2018).
Olomouc’s squares are studded with playful fountains. This one depicts Julius Caesar, the legendary founder of Olomouc, astride a water-spewing horse. There is archaeological evidence for a Roman military encampment here, but it was centuries after Caesar (5 July 2018).
This is Olomouc’s claim to fame. It is the tallest and most ornate plague column in the world. Following the Black Death and the various other plagues over the centuries, Europeans erected columns like this to give thanks to God and the saints for delivering them from pestilence. In the early 1700s, a man in Olomouc decided his city, which was in decline and was no longer the biggest city even in tiny, mostly rural Moravia, needed the biggest one. And here it is in the Upper Square (5 July 2018).
I was here (5 July 2018).
A zoom-in on the top of the column. That’s the Holy Trinity plus the Archangel Michael at the top. At the bottom is the Assumption of Mary. And in between, see that little gold ball? That’s a cannonball-shaped reminder that Olomouc — then part of the Austrian Empire — withstood a Prussian siege in 1758 (5 July 2018).
This playful modern dolphin and turtle fountain, just a few years old, is my favorite one. On sunny days, I always saw little kids splashing around in it (5 July 2018).
Passing the turtles and dolphins, a short, wide street leads immediately into Olomouc’s very pretty Lower Square.
Of course, I had to eat in one of these cafés too. But the angle of the light at the time wasn’t good for my selfie, so I have no photographic proof. You’ll just have to trust me (5 July 2018).
Olomouc’s Lower Square has its own, less impressive but still photogenic plague column (5 July 2018).
Olomouc’s final marquee attraction, St. Wenceslas’ (he shows up a lot in Czechia) Cathedral, is a 15-minute walk from the two squares.
St. Wenceslas’ Cathedral is viewable from all over town, including from the street not far from my Airbnb (6 July 2018).
Three Gothic spires! Very impressive. Like many churches in Europe, it’s not as old, in its current form, as you might think. There have been various incarnations of a cathedral on this site over the centuries, but what you see here was completed around 1900. Make that Neo-Neo-Gothic (6 July 2018).
Inside, you’ve got the expected tall, narrow, (neo-) Gothic nave… (6 July 2018).
…and some nice stained glass (6 July 2018).
The Archdiocesan Museum, next door to the cathedral, was once the Moravian residence of the Czech Bohemian kings. Later, when the archbishop moved in, he apparently decided to keep up appearances.
The archbishop’s carriage. Truly a pimpin’ ride, as they said in the 18th century (8 July 2018).
So Olomouc clearly has a vibrant past. But when I’m scoping out possible residences, I’m more interested in a lively present and future. And maybe there is a mini-Prague-like scene here when classes are in session. But in July, even (and in fact, especially) on weekends: crickets.
Charming pastel paint jobs and cobblestone streets. With no one to enjoy them but me (5 July 2018).
Cue tumbleweed (6 July 2018).
Here and there among the cobblestones, you’ll see plaques like these:
These mark the former homes of Jews and others who were carted off to concentration camps during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. The couple on the left were both deported to Terezin concentration camp in 1942; the husband died at Auschwitz but the wife survived the Holocaust. Emanuel Spitz, on the right, was deported to Terezin the same year and died there on 11 March 1944 (5 July 2018).
Even in July, you can see plenty of signs that this is a college town. It’s a lonely place with most of the students gone.
A couple of the main buildings of Palacký University (5 July 2018).
The graffiti in town is particularly colorful and, as far as I can tell from the few English tags, pretty philosophical (9 July 2018).