The day begun with us more or less rushing to the train station. First we bought a ticket to the old mining town of Kutná Hora, then we also bought a ticket till Krakow, our final step on this journey. Then we got ourself some well needed breakfast. While eating our breakfast we tried to figure out which track and platform we should be standing on to get to Kutná Hora. After asking we got the information we needed. Only 8 minutes until departure.
Well onboard the train we felt a bit if relief. That would only last until we went past the sign of Kolin, the place where we were supposed to change train to another train but our train only kept going. Ooops! That was my thought, Sofia was more like “Shit!!!”. Turns out the train stops a bit after the town of Kolin, so we could change train without problems. But you always gets a bit nervous when stuff like that happends.
Well in Kutná Hora we went to the tourist information to get a map and some advice along the way. Kutná Hora is built on a hill and in the heat that was yesterday we thought we should only move down hill and not uphill. So we took the bus, it only cost us about 12 CZK each for the ride. Then when the bus hit the highest point in town we simply hopped off.
Our first stop was the cathedral of St. Barbara. A giant cathedral that took over 500 years to build. It was finished in the early 1900. With my luck it was some kind of Europe Exchange day in Kutná Hora so entrance fee’s was either lowered or removed so many places did not cost anything to visist. In the case of St. Barbaras chatedral, there was a wedding going on so the church was closed until 14:00. Only 1 hour and 30 minutes left until it would be open to the public.
We decided that we don’t want to wait for that so we went to have a look at the town. Kutná Hora like many other towns consists of two parts, the old town and the new town and it’s of course the old town of Kutná Hora that all the commotion is about. After having looked in some shops we arrived at the Hrádek / Czech Museum of Silver. They had two guided tours, one of the town and one of a silver mine and it was the silver mine that we wanted. About 30 minutes waiting time for that one.
We decided to wait for this one. Turns out we are the only ones who doesn’t speak czech so we get a folder with information that we an read while the guide speaks in czech. First we get to look at a mine replica, then some old mining equipment and then finally it’s time to get down into the mine. Now, the mine is not something you simply walk into, like Mordor. No, it’s at it’s narrowest point 40 centimeters wide, most of the time it’s about 70 centimeters wide. And the roof get’s as low as 120 centimeters, but varies greatly from 120 cm to over 3 meters.
The mine is of course situated under ground, about 35 meters and the path we’re walking is about 300 meters long. Not really an ideal place for a claustrophobic like Sofia but she did great. Before entering the mine we were given some equipment. A helmet (mine was very much needed, I kept hitting the ceiling all the time), a robe and a flash light. At one point in the mine the guide tells everyone to turn of their flash lights and we’re surrounded with total darkness. The only thing you hear is water dripping and our guides voice.
After a while we came out of the mine, Sofia was reliefed. I think she did very well in there. Despite beeing cold inside the mine we were soaking wet with sweat. This was a general thing for the entire day, it was extremely hot. Anyway, a look at the clock told us that the bus back to the Kutná Hora train station would be leaving soon so we proceeded towards the bus stop. Well at the bus stop it turns out that since it’s Friday the bus does not use this particular bus stop. AAAAaarghle! We can see the bus driving a block away.
The reason most people know of Kutná Hora is probably the Sedlec Ossuary, or the more common name of “The Bone Church”. Of course we also wanted to visit this and that was why we wanted to take the bus. But since we missed the bus there was no other option than to walk. So we walked for a while until we found a store, went in and bought something to eat and drink the refill our energy. Then outside there was two taxis so we took the taxi the last part.
Well at the Ossuary we paid the entrance fee of 90 CZK and then we could look at the macabre bone church. There were bones everywhere, used as decorations for everything. Lots of skulls in piles. The pictures in the gallery gives a good idea of what it looks like (problem is that I cannot uplead any pictures from this hotel, so pictures will come at a later stage). The bones used for this church are from a 30.000 people or so who died in the great plague. The piles and decorations were made sometime during the 16th Century.
Having seen the bone church we felt that Kutná Hora had given us it’s best so now we wanted to go back to Prague. Walking down to the train station took maybe 10 minutes, then we had to wait another 30 minutes or so at the station before the train would leave. During this wait it began to rain heavily, lucky for us the platform was under roof. Then the train finally arrived and we could take the about 1 hour long train ride back to Prague.
At the Prague main train station we thought that we should take a taxi back to the hotel. So we started to look for one. The taxi stations at the “sides” of the train station turned out to be really expensive, about 500-700 CZK to old town. We didn’t want to pay that so we went to the “front” of the station, the part of the station facing towards the old town. Just walking through the park in the front and down to the street there we found some taxis that charged more normal prices, about 200 CZK for a ride to old town.
When we arrived at the old town square we started to look for some place to get dinner. We ended up at one of the more expensive and not czech restaurants but it was okay. We were extremely hungry. We finalized the day that had turned into evening with a trldenik of course.