Early September is possibly the best time of year for a stay in Olomouc. The summer holidays are over but the weather is still good; university students are making their way back into the city for a new academic year, and the cultural program of the city is at its busiest.
The Moravian philharmonic orchestra holds its season opening concert on the first weekend of September, but it has to compete with the colour and multi-national pomp of the Marshall Radecky celebrations.
Also on the first weekend of the month is the Ring of the Black Widow Gothic "Mumraj" at Sovinec castle. My dictionary translates mumraj as "hustle and bustle, pandemonium, bedlam, hubbub", and it’s a weekend long festival of gothic music, dance, and theatre. Apparently when Katerina of Eder, a former owner of the Sovinec estate was left a widow, one of the methods she used to determine to whom she would offer her hand in marriage was to hold a knight’s tournament. Admission to the modern version of the tournament is 80kc and all parts of the castle are open to visitors. The theatre, music juggling, sword fighting, and period costume parades all take place in the upper courtyard, while the knife-throwing and archery demonstrations are in the lower courtyards, and the food, drink and craft stalls are all just inside or just outside the main entrance gate-tower.
Lovers of classical music find plenty to occupy their time in early September, with performances of the Annual Baroque Music festival on the first three Sundays of the month. There are also two performances each week of the International Organ Music Festival on the largest pipe organ in Central Europe, at St Moritz cathedral. Attendees at both festivals are expected to dress as well as possible, with many of the ladies in heels and most of their male companions in suit and tie. If your travel wardrobe doesn’t quite stretch that far, you might peek into St Moritz on the afternoon before a performance and be lucky enough to catch a rehearsal. When I did just that during last year’s festival, the musician was making a seamless switch from whatever piece he was rehearsing into some 50’s rock and roll that seemed remarkably at home in the house of the lord.
The Days of European Cultural Heritage took place on the second weekend of the month, with free access to all cultural monuments, including some that are usually off-limits to or restricted from the public, such as the red evangelical church, archbishops palace and Hradisko monastery. Specific to the 2005 cultural days was a commemoration of the 5th anniversary of the Holy Trinity Column’s entry into the UNESCO world heritage list. Members of the Moravian Theatre performed excerpts from ten baroque operas on the steps of the column and a colourful light show and fireworks display showed the column in its full majesty.