Discover Olomouc

Why visit Olomouc

Olomouc is the unsung great Moravian city — a university town with 100,000 residents (a quarter of them students), a historic centre as well-preserved as Prague's, and almost none of the tourist mass. The two squares at its heart — Horní náměstí and Dolní náměstí — are joined by the elaborate Astronomical Clock (heavily modernised by socialist authorities in 1955 with proletarian heroes replacing the saints, a fascinating mid-century artwork in itself) and dominated by the staggering Holy Trinity Column — a 35-metre baroque pillar built between 1716 and 1754, considered the most opulent example of the genre in Central Europe and UNESCO-listed on its own. The 11th-century St Wenceslas Cathedral, Olomouc Castle, and the lovely Archdiocesan Museum complete the religious core. Try the local Olomoucké tvarůžky, the famously pungent ripened cheese with a museum-grade reputation; sit out on a Horní náměstí terrace at sunset; and detour to the baroque Holy Hill (Sv. Kopeček) basilica on the edge of town. Two hours from Prague by direct express train.