We are in Brno, is the 2nd largest city in the Czech Republic, (Prague is the largest) for a couple days. We spent the morning on a walking tour of the city and learned about this charming city with many legends. My favorite story is why the town clock chimes noon when it is in fact 11:00 a.m.
According to the legend, after four months of siege, the Swedish General Torstenson declared that if Brno did not fall by midday, he would drag his whole army away. Brno citizens chimed noon an hour early, and thus the siege ended, and since then the noon bell has struck at 11:00 a.m.
In the town square one can now find a modern clock which resembles a large bullet. The clock, in my opinion, is much like a Rorschach ink blot, in that observers tend to see what they want to see. Sculptor Oldřich Rujbr and his student, graphic designer Petr Kameník, decided to create a unique clock that gives off the sounds of clattering marbles and orchestral bells instead of a usual tick-tock sound. The complicated mechanism inside the obelisk will push glass marbles in the colors of the Brno flag (red and white stripes) down a spiral while chiming xylophones and bells hidden inside. One marble is released at "Brno noon," which is 11 a.m., to mark the courage of the locals who managed to resist the Swedish siege. When we were there (at 10:30 a.m.) people had already begun to stake our their place around the "missile-looking clock" to see if they would be the lucky one to "catch" the glass marble. There are only a few seconds to grab one before they disappear back into the clock's entrails. Marbles in the obelisk symbolize the ammunition used to protect Brno's citizenry.
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