No rest for the wicked today and this day was going to be a long, but fun one.  I planned a few side trips from the major cities on this trip and today was the first one.  I was off to Kutna Hora, Czechia, a 2 hour train ride from Prague.  Why would I be heading to a place that most have not heard about?  It is very unique, as you are about to see.  Kutna Hora has a long history, mostly associated with a near by silver mine.  Walking to my first destination, you can tell there has been some wealth here, because the buildings are gorgeous.

 

 

 

One of the two main attractions here is what lies below this Roman Catholic chapel, the Cemetery Church of All Saints.

 

 

 

Fairly innocent from the outside.  You can tell the cemetery was crowded and this posed a problem around 1400 when the church was built on top of a very popular cemetery.  What do you do with all the bones that are unearthed?

 

 

The upper chapel is normal and non-descript, but as you can now guess, it is all about what lies below here.

 

 

The task of relocating the 40,000 - 70,000 skeletons was given to a half blind monk that decided to turn the Sedlec Ossuary below the chapel into something to remember.  The arrangement of bones here is something else.  I have been in other 'attractions' like this, Paris Crypts, but they do not compare to what this guy has done.  I always say displays like this have a Disney like quality to them, because of how numb we have became as a society, but while you are in the space, it sinks in.  These were real people!  What an extremely unique place to visit and well worth the side trip on its own.

 

 

But that isn't it for our little out of the way town of Kutna Hora.  It also has another World Heritage Site, St Barbara's Church, which I didn't research much at all before getting there.  What a wonderful surprise.  This Church is easily one of favorite in the world. 

 

I also failed to mention that I met a Chinese mother and daughter on my train ride out and we took all of these sites in as a group, plus the ride back to Prague.  They were on a month long trip through the same parts of Europe that I was visiting. 

 

 

This church has some of the greatest vaults and detailing that I have ever seen.

 

The history of the church's construction and addition was also amazingly done. 

 

 

All of this would have been enough for one day, but I still had many miles to go before I called it quits for the day.  Back to Prague since I only had one more day in the city.

 

 

My late afternoon and evening was all about the Prague Castle area. 

 

I was surprised by a few things that were going on around the castle.  First a bird and raptor exhibit.  Poor little cute guys and gals. 

 

 

St Vitus Cathedral.

 

A good place to stop for ice cream.

 

 

Everything in Prague has an authentic richness to the design.  Well thought out, detailed and ultimately crafted.

 

My second surprise?  An architecture of Czechia exhibit.  Bahaha.  Naturally I took in this exhibit, which showed me a lot of the riches of a country that I wasn't that familiar with outside of Prague. The models of their sites were, again, extremely well done.

 

 

Many, many steps back down to the river.

 

But even it had a truly, remarkable photo-op.

 

I stopped off, on my walk to the Charles Bridge area, for a decent dinner of roasted duck and a few more beers.  The picture looks a little dry, but it was another great venue and dinner in Prague.  My waitress was even a little bored and we tried to converse a bit.  I think she got a kick out of broken Czech from Google translate, but it was fun.