To Europe and Back

Visiting the Bone Church

We awoke, hit Bohemia Bagel for breakfast, and headed to the train station to meet Brieanne and her friend to catch the train to Kutna Hora. Our original hope was to go to Cesky Krumlov, but Kutna Hora was just an hour away (rather than 3) and seemed to be a more reasonable choice for a daytrip.

We arrived and began the walk into the center of town from the train station. Our first stop was the Cemetery Church and Ossuary, which is Kutna Hora's most talked-about attraction. Throughout the church there are displays and structures built from human bones found at the sight of the church, including a chandelier made with every bone found in the human body. The macabre attraction was interesting, but certainly not worth all of the hype I had heard.

We got a bit lost during the continued walk into town (which isn't surprising, considering we had rejected the option of buying a map at the train station for 100 CZK) but eventually made it via a slight detour. It was a refreshing experience to have avoided the crowds of Prague -- while Prague is lovely, constantly navigating crowds made me think of Times Square (and not in a good way).

We continued wandering through the center of town and reached the Cathedral of St. Barbara. For me, this was the highlight of our day. This church is also known as the Miner's Church (Kunta Hora was a famous mining town, and had the deepest silver mines in the world at one time). Many of the frescos and statues reflected this history and it was interesting to learn about. The views of the surrounding countryside were amazing from the Cathedral's perch atop a hill.

Stopping to look for souvenirs at many small shops along the way, we slowly made our way back to the center of town and choose a cute restaurant overlooking the countryside for lunch. They had a lunch menu with four choices for 58 CZK, but it was all in Czech. Between the four of us, we translated most of the lunch menu and made our choices. All of the food was delicious, and even though we each had a beer, it came to less than 100 CZK each ($4).

Taking our first city public transportation of the entire trip, we boarded a bus back to the train station to return to Prague. Several of us dozed off during the ride back, tired from the long day of walking (and I'm sure the beers didn't help).

Back in Prague, we spent a bit of time catching up on email, and then headed out for dinner. We had dinner at Kolkovna, a pub style restaurant near the Old Town, before going to check out Ungelt Jazz and Blues Club. The subterranean club felt uniquely Prague, and inspired us to try some Absinthe. Our old age was revealed when we both refused to drink it since we didn't like the way it tasted. We headed off to Marquis de Sade, a popular ex-pat watering hole, for a nightcap and dragged our tired selves back to the hostel to sleep.

posted by Heather @ 3:13 PM