Ahoj!!! ( remeber the meaning?...if not, it's hello)
If you read the other posts about Prague, you know that I was last year in the spring semester studying there. As an erasmus student I loved (and I still do) visiting new places, cities around the world. I stayed in Prague for five months and I tried to see everything that I heard its interesting to see, but I wanted more. So one day me and my friends from erasmus, we decided to go in a city called Kutna Hora. This place is quite close to Prague, we went by train, around one hour till Kutna Hora. The main train station in Prague is called "Praha hlavní nádraží" and from here you can take a train to wherever you want. National and International, cool right? I think I paid around 150 czech crowns for one way ticket as a student and we were six or seven students, they gave us a cheaper price because we were a group.
Kutná Hora is a city situated in the Central Bohemian Region of Bohemia, which is now part of the Czech Republic.
So we took this train and we decided that we will spend the day there, exploring the city and visiting the main atractions. We got there so fast and in the train station in Kutna Hora they had an information office, which was very helpful for us because we got the informations we wanted to know about the city and also a map with the main points. We had a walk to the town, we saw on the map that there are several things we needed to see so we just went to buy tickets for entering in those places. They had different packages, with what you should visit for 150 czech crowns or more. But we took this one and it included 4 or 5 places you could enter and see.
The symbol of Kutná Hora is the unique late Gothic Cathedral of St. Barbara.This Cathedral is really so beautiful and it is one of the most famous Gothic churches in central Europe and it is a UNESCO world heritage site.
This is the place, the Cathedral of Saint Barbara, I enjoyed visiting this place, it's full of history and the style of the building, gothic style, I really like it.
Also inside it was so interesting, me and my friends we liked it so much.
This photo is also from the inside of the cathedral, I loved the way they painted this vitrals(stained glass windows), you can see the story in those stained glass windows. So amazing and special. I really enjoyed watching these and other objects inside the cathedral.
Another place we visited was the Church of the Assumption of Our Lady and Saint John the Baptist. This church is also a Gothic baroque church and it's also listed in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The Church of the Assumption of Our Lady and Saint John the Baptist is one of the most important czech gothic buildings and also one of the oldest of baroque gothic style. When you go inside you are able to see all this paintings and all this special monuments they have inside. I spent some time there, trying to see all the paintings, reading what was it about and trying to acknoledge more information about the place and the history of it. I'm passionate about it and I like to learn new things.
This is the entrance, you can see that the building looks so gothic, but I like gothic style.
In you cross the road here there is a small place where you can have a coffee or something to eat, we had a break here, had a coffee than we continued our trip. Not far from this place is what we really wanted to see : Sedlec Ossuary or l"the Church of bones", why? because in this place I heard an intersting story.
First of all, I'll post a photo, then I'll tell you about it!
The "myth" about this place is that a half-blind monk exhumed the bodies of the people who died and were burried there, in the cemetery of the church. He took those bones and he started " decorating" the place with those bones. There are between 40.000 bones or even more. He decorated the whole place with parts of bodies. Creepy right? When you enter here they have a information paper in almost every language so you can read about the place and the history. They also had it in romanian, so I was happy that I could read it. Many of these bodies were injured during the "black death" and you can see the skulls they have been seriously wounded.
If you are wondering why this place is like this with more than 40.000 dead people and their bones decorated in this ossuary. It's because in 1278 the King of Bohemia sent the abbot of Sedlec Cistercian Monastery to Jerusalem. When this abbot came back from the "Holy Land" he brough a jar with soil from Golgotha, they knew it was " Holy Soil", he put this small amout og ground in the cemetery here. After this many people from all over the places wanted to burried in this cemetery, Sedlec. Then in the mid of 14th century the "Black Death" came and a lot of poeple died and that's why we have so many people here, this cemetery was small for all this people so they had to expend the place and after that I guess it wasn't enough space, so they exhumed the bodies of people used their bones to decorate this place underneat.
In 1870, František Rint, a woodcarver, was employed by the Schwarzenberg family to put the bone heaps into order, yielding a macabre result. The result it the photo I posted it above, with the skulls.
Even though this place was a bit creepy, because of all this skulls and bones I think it's unique and I haven't seen anywhere something like this before. It's not the place where you want to stay the whole day but it interesting and you should visit it.
I also read about the fact that they did some movies in here, creepy enough to have a good movie, hahaha! :)) Well, it's special, and it has this interesting history, and you can read so much more about this on the internet.
Kutna Hora was an interesting city with a lot of historical places, old ones and important as I said that they are listed in UNESCO heritage. Really old ones and facinating.
I enjoyed my day out in Kutna Hora, apart from visiting those places we went in the city centre had there lunch and enjoyed the weather. They have little shops with souveniers and handmade stuff, like clothes, shoes, jewellery and much more. Plus lots of coffee places and restaurants. There are plenty of things you can do in Kutna Hora, we did some extra ones apart from the ones I already told you about. If you want to visit it make an intinerary and discover it piece by piece.
Czech Republic has a lot to offer and especially Prague, so go visit Prague and enjoy it fully. If you have the time visit also Kutna Hora, it's worth it!
For more informations about Prague, read my other posts!
Have a nice day! :)
