Olomouc

As early as the 7th century the early Slavs built a fortified settlement at Povel, one of the three most important Moravian sites of the early Middle Ages. In the 9th century the centre moved to Předhradí, where the Great Moravian governor resided, and the settlement survived the fall of Great Moravia to become the capital of the province. The bishopric was founded in 1063, and around 1141 Bishop Jindřich Zdík moved it to St Wenceslas and built his Romanesque palace. In 1306 King Wenceslas III was assassinated here on his way to Poland, ending the Přemyslid dynasty. Chartered in the mid-13th century, Olomouc was the largest town in Moravia, and in its 15th-century golden age Matthias Corvinus was elected anti-king of Bohemia here in 1469.

The Jesuits founded the university in 1573 to win the Protestant lands back for Catholicism. In the Thirty Years' War the Swedes held the city for eight years and left it in ruins, and Brno took over as the capital. Maria Theresa made Olomouc a fortress, which withstood a seven-week siege by Frederick the Great in 1758. In 1848 Emperor Ferdinand abdicated here. The German-speaking council kept the walls standing until nearly 1900 to keep the city small and German; only in 1919 did it annex its neighbours.

On Kristallnacht in 1938 the synagogue was destroyed, and of the city's Jews fewer than 300 survived the Holocaust. Retreating German troops shot the astronomical clock to pieces in 1945, and the communists rebuilt it with workers in place of saints. After the expulsion of the Germans the city became Czech. Pope John Paul II canonised John Sarkander here in 1995, and the Holy Trinity Column joined the UNESCO list in 2000.

Olomouc's culture is shaped by its church and its university. As a bishopric since 1063 and an archbishopric since 1777 it has many churches, from the cathedral and St Maurice, with one of the largest organs in Central Europe, to St Michael and the pilgrimage basilica on Svatý Kopeček, which John Paul II raised to a minor basilica. Palacký University, the oldest in Moravia and second-oldest in the country, occupies about a third of the heritage centre, and its students set the pace of the city's cafés, theatres and festivals.

The city is the centre of Haná, one of the Moravian folk regions, and claims a playful founding legend: humanists of the Renaissance traced its name to a fort of Julius Caesar, who stands on one of the fountains, though nothing confirms it. The six Baroque fountains survived because the council kept them as fire reservoirs while other cities removed theirs.

The calendar is crowded for a city of its size: Academia Film Olomouc, a science documentary festival, in April; the Flora horticultural show in spring; Divadelní Flora, one of the largest Czech theatre festivals; a choir festival and summer concerts; the organ festival in autumn; an animation festival; and the Christmas market. The Moravian Theatre and the Moravian Philharmonic, which the city decided in 2023 to merge into one institution, are based on the main square. Sigma Olomouc play top-flight football and HC Olomouc top-flight ice hockey.

About 105,000 people live in Olomouc, the sixth-largest city in Czechia and the administrative centre of the Olomouc Region; the wider agglomeration, which takes in Přerov and Prostějov, has about 401,000. With over 25,000 students, the city has the highest density of university students in Central Europe, and its rhythm follows the academic year: during term the trams run in coupled pairs and the squares are full, while in the holidays and exam periods many student-oriented cafés and services close.

The city lies on the flat farmland of the Upper Morava valley and is an important railway junction, the first train having arrived from Vienna in 1841. It is the seat of the regional government, the archdiocese and Palacký University, and the city grew beyond its walls only after it annexed two towns and eleven villages in 1919.

North of the city, the gravel-pit lake of Chomoutovské jezero is a protected nature monument with one of the country's largest colonies of black-headed and Mediterranean gulls, and the floodplain forests of the Litovelské Pomoraví protected landscape area begin at the city's northern edge.

Olomouc's name is carried around the country by Olomoucké tvarůžky, a ripened cheese recognisable by its strong scent, pungent taste and yellowish colour. It is made not directly from milk but from low-fat quark, which gives it its name, "little quarks", and a fat content of only about half a per cent. First mentioned in 1452 and sold at the markets that made it famous, it was a peasant food made in the villages around the city until the 19th century; today it is made in Loštice, and since 2010 the name has been protected by the European Union. Tvarůžky are a classic beer snack and are eaten fried, marinated or added to bramboráky, fried potato pancakes.

Otherwise the city eats the Czech staples: svíčková, marinated beef in a thick root-vegetable sauce with dumplings and cranberries; roast pork with dumplings and sauerkraut; guláš; and koláče, yeast pastries filled with fruit, poppy seed or sweet curd cheese. Moravia grows most of the country's wine, and Litovel, just up the Morava valley, has its own brewery.

Student life fills the cafés around the squares and the university, including galleries that double as cafés, and the pubs in the old water barracks of the fortress. In December the Christmas market adds mulled wine and roasted chestnuts.