Olomouc Chess Festival

ARRIVED in Olomouc late yesterday afternoon, with the weathermen predicting lots of sun during the chess festival and a minimum overnight temperature of 14C.
The city's pride and joy is the Holy Trinity Column in Upper Square, the column having been designated a world heritage site by Unesco.

The column yesterday evening

Building began in 1716, partly in thanks to God for the end of a plague that had run in the Moravian region from 1713 to 1715.
The column was completed in 1754, and by then was already so famous that Maria Theresa, ruler of the Habsburg lands, attended its consecration.
It is an example of a Marian column, ie one erected with a statue of the Virgin on, or near, the top in a baroque style to celebrate Roman Catholicism, which is ironic in that Moravia was a hotbed of Protestantism until it was driven underground and largely eliminated by the Jesuits.
In the chess, the first rounds of the five main events - open, seniors and three round-robin norm tournaments - start today at 1600.