Woke up to a chilly, snowy Prague. More of a rainy snow, but cold nonetheless! We headed toward Charles St. Bridge again with no particular plans in mind. Having time to spare before our afternoon activity, we decided to ride the tram line to the very end, giving us a true picture of life in Prague outside of the heart of the city.
We saw houses and apartment buildings, local shops (grocery, hair salons, hardware store, etc.), as well as schools and everything else you can imagine in daily life. Definitely an interesting glimpse in contrast to the hustle and bustle we have seen of Prague in the last few days.
Our afternoon excursion was a trip to Kutna Hora, about 90 minutes outside of Prague. Kutna Hora is considered the second most important city in Bohemia (the region of Czech that Prague is located in).
Silver mining was a huge boom centuries ago. We visited Saint Barbora’s Cathedral, which is a nice Roman Catholic church. If you’re wondering, Barbora is patron saint of miners. And firefighters. And artillery. And chemical engineers. And several other things. Obviously she is a pretty busy saint!
We took a walk through the old cobble stoned part of town ending up at the town’s fountain. What they call a fountain we call a cistern with spigots. The town folks were dying from arsenic poisoning and the source was traced back to the water supply. The town built an aqueduct (thanks for the brilliant idea Romans!!) that fed into this fountain thus allowing the town to have clean water. And less dead people.
—WARNING— —WARNING—
DO NOT PROCEED
IF DEAD PEOPLE (or bones)
is too graphic for your delicate sensitivities…
(it’s going to get real)…
Speaking of dead people, we visited The Ossuary in Kutna Hora.
Why does “dead people” bring this up you ask? Because it is a chapel (sacred place) made of bones from about 60,000 people. Seriously – you read that right….chapel made of bones (okay, maybe decorated, not truly made). Might sound super creepy but it is actually truly amazing! It’s suprisingly artistic and beautiful.
The bones were from victims of a plague in the 1400’s (in other words, nobody was killed for the purpose of harvesting their bones). A Cistercian monk decided in 1511 to use the bones to make formations in very tasteful fashion. Due to a couple of chapel collapses, the formations have been rebuilt most recently in the 18th century. The final decoration added to the chapel was in 1870 and the “author” signed his work by adding his name and the date using bones.
One of the most interesting pieces is the Coat of Arm of the Schwarzenburgs. In honor of the conquering of a Hungarian fortification in the late 16th century, an emporer asked for an addition to the crest. A skull (supposed to be a Turk’s skull) with a raven appearing to poke out the man’s eyes.
Without further ado (or description), we’ll leave you with a plethora of pictures from the Ossuary…
(cue the creepy music)
