Well a ‘Powerful Vengence’ wasn’t brought about as we didn’t quite make it to the church service this morning. But we did wake to a beautiful blue sky, which put us in the right mood to have a better look at this city.
We started by heading to a couple of museums as they are free on Sundays and Wednesdays, and that was a good enough reason for us. We first went to the Museum of Modern Art which had some very cool works, and despite not really being everyone’s cup of tea, it had a whole floor dedicated to books and book covers particularly during the period between the two world wars. Having a print background I liked this, but I particularly liked the installation at the end of the room by Guy Schraenen. It was a recycling ‘mini skip’ filled with hundreds of books. The script explained that he was trying to point out the glut of information available and how this makes us ‘incapable of perceiving the world in its entirety.’ I liked that idea.
The second museum that we went to was the Archdiocese Museum. The first item you see when you get inside is the ceremonial carriage of Bishop Troyer. The cool thing about this was that it is shown in a painting further on in the museum that was dated 1783. They also have exhibits here of the treasury of the various bishops from the area. As is usual with these exhibits, you have to keep an eye out for anything that is described as a relic, as it is almost certainly going to contain a fingernail or piece of bone from somebody.
But the funniest part about this museum was the footwear, and this wasn’t part of a display, it was what they made you wear. As you went upstairs, you were given ‘Grandpa’ style slippers to put on over your shoes. I assumed that these were to protect their parquet floors, but I began to wonder if this was a little ‘in joke’ aimed at getting their own back on the tourists, as the museum staff didn’t seem to be wearing them. Or perhaps they were a means of slowing down any would be thieves trying to make a run for it. Either whey were decidedly ugly and did detract somewhat from the exhibits, as you spent more time trying to keep them on, and trying to keep a straight face every time a staff member walked past.
Between the two museums we paid another visit to the St Wenceslas Cathedral and particularly the Crypt. There was a very elaborate ‘relic’ here containing the bones of St Pauline. She is the patron saint here and there is an interesting story around her. She was evidentally possessed by an evil spirit and was healed by St Paul the exorcist. On her healing the family was converted to Christianity which was punishable by death at the time. Her father Artemisius, a gaoler from Rome, was beheaded and Candida and Pauline were stoned to death. In 1623 Pauline’s sacred relics were brought from the catacombs in Rome to be paraded through the streets of Olomouc in the hopes of stemming the plague. The city had lost thousands of people in the epidemic. Their plea was answered.
While I was reading about this, Justine was having a confrontation of her own. An old man in a suit was trying to give her a little book about Olomouc, punctuated with lots of comments like “Beautiful girl”, “Lovely English lady”, and a big wet kiss on the cheek as accompaniment. All this amidst a cloud of protests on her part as you can imagine. When she picked up the 10 Kn that he had dropped and he told her to “keep it for later.” She decided to make a run for it. The fact that he had obviously been drinking for some time already, I don’t think helped his inhibitions. And all this inside a cathedral crypt. The funny part was that after we went outside, he came up to her and tried all exactly the same lines again. He hadn’t recognized the fact that he was talking to the same person. It was obviously his ‘pick up’ line. I wonder how often it works for him.
Later in the day we decided to go for a walk in the park and through the rose gardens. Well we got as far as the rose gardens before we were confronted and were demanded an entrance fee of. What the … ?! So the museums are free, but you have to pay to look at the roses in an outside garden?! We declined the offer and went and watched some guys playing tennis instead, and wondered just how much our tennis has deteriorated since we have been away.
On reflecting over the day we decided that this is a city of contrasts. The grandiose churches, the large ornate buildings in the centre of town and around the square. But take just a short walk off the main routes and there are buildings that look decidedly decrepit and unkempt. It seems as if a lot of the buildings in the public eye had a very quick tidy up a few years ago and now they are requiring a proper refurb. But outside of this ‘old’ part of town there seems to be quite a bit of reasonably modern architecture. Unfortunately as a tourist, you so often only get to see the centre part of town, and even with the best of intentions you don’t get to see what a city is really like.
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