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Occupying the crucial Morava crossing-point on the road to Krakow, OLOMOUC (pronounced "Olla-moats") was the capital of Moravia from the Middle Ages to the mid-seventeenth century and the seat of the bishopric for even longer. All this attracted the destructive attention of Swedish troops in the Thirty Years' War, though the wealth of the Church and its strategic trading position kept the place going. And with a well-preserved old town, sloping cobbled squares and a plethora of Baroque fountains, not to mention a healthy quota of university students and a few interesting festivals, Olomouc has a great deal going for it. The stare mesto is a strange contorted shape, squeezed in the middle by an arm of the Morava. Train and bus terminals are a kilometre or so east, so on arrival take any tram heading west up Masarykova and get off after three or four stops. In the western half of the old town, all roads lead to the city's two central cobbled main squares, which are hinged to one another at right angles. At the centre of the upper square, the irregular Horni namesti , stands the amalgamation of buildings that collectively make up the town hall or radnice. From its creamy rendering the occasional late Gothic or Renaissance gesture emerges - notably the handsome lanterned tower soaring to its conclusion of baubles and pinnacles. On the north side, next to the arcade of shops, is an astronomical clock which was destroyed in the war. The remake chimes all right, but the hourly mechanical show is disappointing. Big enough to be a chapel, the Holy Trinity Column to the west of the town hall is the country's largest plague column; many such monuments were erected as thanksgiving for deliverance from the forces of Protestantism, but few are left standing. Set into the west facade of the square is the Moravian Theatre , where Mahler arrived as the newly appointed Kapellmeister in 1883; the local press took an instant dislike to him, and he lasted just three months. Olomouc makes a big fuss of its sculpture, like that adorning the Edelmann Palace (no. 28), and even more of the fountains that grace each of Olomouc's six ancient market squares. Horni namesti boasts two: Hercules, looking unusually athletic for his years, and a vigorous depiction of Julius Caesar bucking on a steed which coughs water from its mouth. Two of the city's best-looking backstreets, Skolni and Michalska, lead southeast from Horni namesti, up to the church of sv Michal , plain on the outside but inside clad in a masterly excess of Baroque. Firmly wedged between the two sections of the old town is the obligatory Jesuit church of Panna Maria Snezna , deemed particularly necessary in a city where Protestantism had spread like wildfire in the sixteenth century. Jutting out into the road, it signals the gateway to the less hectic part of town. The great mass of the former Jesuit College, now the Palacky University , dominates the first square, namesti Republiky, opposite which is the dull town museum and, next door, the vastly superior art museum (muzeum umeni; Tues-Sun 10am-6pm); the top floor houses a fascinating selection of twentieth-century works by local-born artists and features a viewing tower. Three blocks east of namesti Republiky, the Cathedral , or Dom, of sv Vaclav comes into view. Though it started life as a Romanesque basilica, the current structure is mostly nineteenth-century neo-Gothic. However, the walls and pillars of the nave are prettily painted in Romanesque style, and the crypt (Mon-Thurs & Sat 9am-5pm, Fri 1-5pm, Sun 11am-5pm) has a wonderful display of gory reliquaries and priestly sartorial wealth.
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