Olomouc Day 3 - Astronomical Clock and City Circuit

Today's plan was to make sure we saw the Astronomical Clock do its thing at midday. There was no hurry to start the day, which was good. Sarah had a catch-up chat on WhatsApp with Kate, and with Paul and Suzanne. I joined in for a quick catch-up too.

We were in the centre of town with time to spare, so we browsed a couple of shops. It's Monday and there were many more people about, but still not crowded—a nice change from other tourist stops we've done. 

At 11:50am we sat down near the clock to wait. We hadn’t been there long before we were asked to move because they were filming a movie or TV show. The woman who approached us looked a bit flustered when she realised we only spoke English. She basically said, “stay still here or move away.” We replied that we were waiting to watch the clock. The compromise was to move slightly aside and then stand still. 😂 That put us right in front of the clock, where I could video both the clock and the movie scene—which turned out to be a car chase involving a taxi. It was a very short scene, which took two takes, and then they were done. Between takes the clock started chiming and ringing, so it was all go in quiet Olomouc today!

The clock had chimes, bells, and moving parts you could see in motion. Better than Prague’s, but still not terribly exciting. The car chase made it all a bit more entertaining though. A small crowd gathered to watch both, but nothing like the huge attendance in Prague.

Next, we revisited the St. Maurice church tower climb, as I wanted to get some more footage and photos with the sun out today. The views were just as good, but now we had a better appreciation of where things were and what we were looking at.

That done, we needed something to eat, so we found a café up the street from the square that served hot chips and coffee.

After refuelling, we passed St. Michael's Church and then visited Vila Primavesi which, though only built in 1906, is listed as a top 10 Olomouc attraction. I think that’s because it was built by a well-to-do family. Honestly, it doesn’t look much more special than many of the other buildings around the city. On the other side, we also saw the Chapel of St. Jan Sarkander, which was small but beautiful—so the walk was worth it.

Time to head back to the apartment via a different route. This took us to another city square we had already visited, but today they were filming another car chase scene. Same cars, but this time someone was clinging to the roof of one of them. It looked a lot like Tom Cruise! Are they filming a new Mission Impossible in Olomouc?

Or maybe I made that bit up. 🤔 It definitely wasn’t Tom Cruise. The cars weren’t fancy enough and there were no helicopters or death-defying jumps involved. 😂 We watched two takes again and then continued our walk. 

Eventually, we reached the apartment, but not via a direct route—partly thanks to the railway line maintenance going on, and partly because I was playing the game “let’s find our way back without the map.” 😬

The rest of the afternoon was spent reading (A), editing a video (A), and a bit of snoozing (S). 😉

We’ve been struggling lately with the motivation to cook—or more accurately, struggling to decide what to cook. It’s difficult without a full oven and without usual household ingredients. That has lead to a few basic or repeated meals. But tonight we came up with a good solution. We had to go to Lidl anyway for breakfast and lunch supplies, so we searched the store for something quick, different, and hopefully tasty. Not an easy task. We came across pre-cooked chicken and vegetable dumplings. Two minutes in the frying pan plus four minutes steaming in a pot—and they even came with a little pack of soy sauce. Coupled with a small tub of hummus and some bread, it made for a very nice meal.