Praha 17, or Kutna Hora: The Actual Entry
(written 2/5/07)






Here is one last picture from the Bone Church. This is actually a coat of arms, again, made entirely out of bones. Behind it, if you can see, is what looks like an igloo made out of skulls. It's actually just a giant pile of bones. Nothing holds it together! It's simply been there for so long that it has shifted and settled into place. There are four of these piles, one in each corner of the main room. They are actually the only things bearing signs that say "Don't Touch" - if you did, you might dislodge something that would create an avalanche!


The town of Kutna Hora is one of former glory. For 250 years it was one of the most important
towns in all of the Czech lands, second only to Prague. Why? Money, of course. Kutna Hora was the site of the first mint in Central Europe. (A mint is where they manufacture money.) Kutna Hora, you see, had a streak of silver running though it. They were able to mine the silver and make groshens out of it for centuries! And the groshen was a very well-respected coin; it was even used all over Europe. Here is Ellen, posing in the town square. You can tell it's Sunday because everything is shut down! Luckily, the one tourist pizza place was still open when we desparately needed lunch.

The big attraction in Kutna Hora is a tour of the old silver mine, but unfortunately, it’s off tourist season, and the mine is closed. Fortunately, there’s the old European Small Town Standby: churches!

You’ve already seen the Bone Church, but the other famous church in Kutna Hora is St. Barbara’s. You’re not allowed to take pictures in St. Barbara’s, but I can tell you this: it’s far more beautiful from the outside. The outside boasts intricate flying buttresses (arches that connect pieces of the church together), and cool looking towers. Unfortunately, these awesome features are currently masked by a mass of scaffolding. Apparently, the church has been under renovations since Communism ended (in 1989). Inside, eh, it’s a cathedral. Hundreds like it – big stones, lots of pictures of the Crucifixion, stained glass windows.

A propos my last entry about a cathedral – this cathedral actually had music piped into it! At first, I was really excited, and then I realized that it was terrible organ music. It sounded like the church’s resident rats had gotten a hold of the organ and tried to play it. Not quite the atmosphere I was going for, but at least they had music.





This is a picture of the Italian Court, the site of the first mint in the Czech republic. It's quite a shift in architecture to go from Gothic cathedrals to this very renaissance-inspired open courtyard. We were planning to go take a tour of the mint, but it was yet another entrance fee, and we were tired. Instead, we just took photos by the fountain in the center of the courtyard. This photo features Ellen, who is taking a picture of another flatmate, Marjorie.

But this is one of those things about being a tourist: the reason you get so much exercise isn’t just because you walk a lot. It’s because no matter where you’re walking, you’re either going to get lost and have to retrace your steps six times, or you don’t know the shortcuts and take obscenely long routes everywhere. And that’s just my kind of exercise.

One more thing: I love European trains. After nearly getting on the wrong train back to Prague, we hopped on the correct one, just before it started moving. It was an old fashioned train, with little compartments instead of rows of seats (yunge folks, think like the train in Harry Potter). And it was packed. The four of us shuffled along the corridors, trying to find an open compartment, moved in between the cars over open tracks (that was kind of awesome, actually), and finally settled in to the medium-speed rocking of an old Czech train.