Skip to content
Olmarova Upper square · Olomouc
Forty-four rooms

Rooms

The rooms are listed from the roof downwards, the order the surveyor used in 1894 and the housekeeper uses still. No two rooms of a type are quite alike, because the walls are too old for that.

A drawing of the attic roof truss: principal rafters, a collar, a king post over a tie beam, a roof light in the slope and a bed set between the timbers.
Section through the attic: trusses of about 1760, re-tiled 1902.

Under the tiles

Twelve rooms sit between the principals, so each is a different width. The gable brick was never plastered: the conservator's report of 1987 recommended leaving it as it was, and nobody has argued since.

Rafter Attic Room

Second floor · 12 rooms

The roof was re-tiled in 1902 but the trusses under it are older and still stand where they were. The beds go between the principals, the gable brick is unplastered, and the floor is the original oak, laid across the joists. Headroom is generous in the middle of the room and low at the eaves, as in any attic.

Sleeps
Two, in twin beds that join
Outlook
Roof lights over the courtyard
Ceiling
Open trusses, 2.1 m at the eaves
Floor
Oak boards, wool rug
Bath
Shower room, no tub
Size
24 to 28 square metres
Note
Stair access only above the lift landing
A drawing of the first-floor ceiling cartouche: a scrolled oval frame with a fruit swag and the painted date 1721. 1721
The salon cartouche, distemper on plaster, signed in the north-west corner.

What is overhead

The salon ceiling next door carries fruit, a lute, a pair of dividers and a grey sky. The rooms themselves are plainer: cornice, a plaster rose, and a frieze that was uncovered in 1987 under eleven coats of limewash.

Painted Ceiling Room

First floor · 8 rooms

These are the tall rooms of the house, running along the street front beside the salon. Windows reach nearly to the cornice, the shutters still fold into their boxes, and the walls are limewashed in the ochre the conservators matched to a fragment behind a skirting board. They are the quietest rooms at the front, because the glass is thick.

Sleeps
Two, in a double
Outlook
Riegrova and the corner of the square
Ceiling
3.6 m, moulded cornice
Floor
Parquet, laid 1908
Bath
Bath and shower
Size
30 to 34 square metres
Note
Two of the eight have a writing alcove
A drawing of the astronomical clock seen from a first-floor window: a round dial with an hour ring and a calendar disc, set in an arched niche.
The dial as it reads from a first-floor window: hour ring outside, calendar disc within.

About the clock

The clock on the town hall wall is why guests ask for three of these rooms by number. It has a calendar disc, a procession at noon, and a face that is easier to read from a first-floor window than from the paving below. The other seven rooms of the type look onto the square without the clock in view.

Clockface Room

First and second floor · 10 rooms

These rooms face the square side of the house, above the passage arch. Double glazing went in behind the original frames in 2016, so market mornings bring in light and very little noise. The furniture is walnut; the house gave up reproduction baroque after a bad experiment in the nineteen-eighties, and nobody has missed it.

Sleeps
Two, in a double or twins
Outlook
The upper square; the clock from rooms 21, 23 and 31
Ceiling
3.2 m on the first floor, 2.8 m above
Floor
Parquet
Bath
Shower room; two rooms have a tub
Size
26 to 31 square metres
Note
Ask for a clock room when you write; there are only three
A drawing of a courtyard room: a shallow segmental vault over a deep window reveal, with the linden tree outside.
Segmental vault, deep reveal, and the one tree the courtyard has.

The linden

One tree fills the courtyard. It was planted after the war on the stump of an older one, is pollarded every fourth winter and is in leaf from late April. That makes the rooms on this side darker in July, and several guests book them for that very reason.

Linden Courtyard Room

Ground floor and mezzanine · 14 rooms

They lie behind the passage, around three sides of the courtyard, in the wing a slower builder finished in 1748. These are the quiet rooms: you won't hear the square or the trams, only the gate closing at night. The ceilings are vaulted in shallow segments, and the window reveals are deep enough to sit in.

Sleeps
Two; four of them take a third bed
Outlook
Courtyard and the linden
Ceiling
Segmental vault, 2.9 m at the crown
Floor
Terracotta tile, rugs
Bath
Shower room
Size
22 to 30 square metres
Note
Step-free from the passage; the easiest rooms to reach
In every room

The same in all forty-four

  • Linen changed every third day and on request
  • Kettle, loose tea and a Moravian ceramic jug of water
  • Desk or writing shelf, and a reading lamp that is bright enough
  • No television, but a radio and a shelf of books in Czech, German and English
  • Windows that open, with a hook to hold them
Ask reception about a room