Prague's quieter, Baroque twin — still largely undiscovered
Olomouc is the second-most architecturally preserved historic city in the Czech Republic after Prague, yet it draws a fraction of the crowds. Six Baroque fountains (the most outside Vienna), a UNESCO-listed Holy Trinity Column, a medieval astronomical clock rebuilt in Soviet-era socialist realist style, and a university town atmosphere with excellent Czech food at honest prices. Olomoucký tvarůžky — the pungent sour-milk cheese — is a local obsession.
Olomouc was the capital of the Margraviate of Moravia for centuries and the seat of the most powerful archbishopric in the Habsburg lands — it was here in 1848 that the young Emperor Franz Joseph I was crowned after the Vienna revolution forced his predecessor to abdicate. The city survived WWII almost entirely intact (a rare fate in Central Europe), which preserved its Baroque townscape of fountains, columns, and merchant palaces built in the 17th and 18th centuries.