If it’s Friday – and though I’ve pretty much lost track, I think it is – it must be time to visit Kutná Hora, a small silver mining town about 60 kilometers from Prague.

Abi and I talked about taking a train and finding our own way to Kutná Hora, but after the Mennagio – Bellagio debacle, decided against it. Though our tour experience from the day before left a little to be desired, we thought we’d get the most for our time taking another guided tour, except this time one that included a bus.

Kutná Hora means ‘Mining Mountain‘ in Czech. In ancient times, the town of Kutná Hora sat atop one of the largest silver mines in all of Europe. In its heyday, most of Europe‘s silver was mined from this sleepy little town of about 20,000 people. By the mid 1700’s, most of the silver had been mined, and the town turned to tourism as it’s main industry.

Some pictures on the way to Kutná Hora:

My main reason for wanting to see Kutná Hora was to see the Ossuary, or Bone Church.

In the fourteenth century, a priest brought back a handful of soil from the holy land, and the Kostnice Ossuary Beinhaus was built on this sacred ground. Naturally, locals wanted to be buried in the Ossuary’s hallowed ground. And with wars and plagues aplenty, there were plenty of bodies around. Pretty soon, that hallowed ground was full, and bones were stacked in piles. Evidently there wasn’t much else to do way back in the fourteenth century, so some enterprising young bone stackers began making bone ‘decorations’ with their endless supply of bones.

Yes, that’s right. Decorations. Made with human bones.

Abi pointed out that this was probably the only TRUE ‘Coat of Arms’ in the world…

Someone apparently even signed their name in BONES!

Weird. Very weird.

Our tour moved on to St. Barbara’s Cathedral, a church that, because of the late hour, we weren’t able to enter.

Undaunted, our tour guide gained our group access to a small… err… fourteenth century… uhh… underground… uhh… room (to be honest, by now I was having a hard time paying attention to all this fourteenth century history.) where we saw some… umm… fourteenth century pottery on the floor.

Another giant fourteenth century church. (Along with silver, God was obviously big business in Czechslovakia back in the 1400’s)

Then we entered the Hrádek, or Museum of Silver, where we got to see some silver coins, with mint dates from 1283 all the way up to 1740. Before entering, we were warned not to steal any! Ha ha ha!

After that, we had a tour of the Town Hall, where Abi played King of Kutná Hora for a Day.

Then our tour guide took us through a small door, specially built to exactly admit a tiny King Wenceslas (or a not-so-tiny Abi) into his sanctuary.

The sanctuary was the most interesting part of the whole tour, so naturally pictures weren’t allowed.

And with that, it was time leave Kutná Hora and return to Prague. Sadly there was only time for one last delicious Czech dinner before it was time to leave Prague altogether.

Jen při loučení Praha. Těím se na brzkou shledanou!

(Translation: Good Bye Prague. I look forward to visiting again!)

Author: frenchy