We took a day trip to Kuntna Hora, about an hour from Prague, again with Tours By Locals. This time our guide was Michal Stanislav, and he is without a doubt the best tour guide we have had in our travels. He runs his own tour company (as well as working for Tours By Locals) called Real Prague Tours. If you want to tour Prague or any of the surrounding areas, this is your guide! He is engaging, well educated on the local subject matter, and just a great guy to be around!
Michal first took us into the “Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Baptist”. That’s a pretty fricking long name for a church!! Why can’t we just called it “Church of Mary and the Baptist Dude” and be done with it?? We all know who they’re talking about!
This is officially the oldest cathedral in Central Europe. The former monastery was founded in 1142, and then built between 1280 and 1320. It was burned and abandoned in 1421 during the Hussite Wars (too many wars to keep track of if you ask me), and then rebuilt at the end of the 17th century. They like to take their time with the rebuilds around these parts. The interior is spartan but beautiful, despite how long it took.
There are glass panels in the floor where you can see the original foundations from the 13th century. Why people feel the need to throw money in these vaults is beyond me.
In a sign of our upcoming “bone church” visit, there are some skulls in the walls of the church. To be honest with you, I can’t remember if Michal told us why they are here…except maybe to scare the children? A lot of religion seems intent on scaring the little buggars.
They definitely love their dead bodies in the church here. This is the body (with a wax mask) of Saint Felicis. Again with the scaring of the children! It must be horrifying to grow up attending a church filled with dead bodies and various body parts!
This is the cathedral’s most valuable relic, a solid gold monstrance. This is the device that holds the supposed “body of Christ” before you eat it. Again with scaring the kids!
These figures were outside of the church until fairly recently. They are made of sandstone, so they didn’t weather well. They didn’t want the originals to deteriorate any further, so they brought them inside the church.
Here is an exterior view of the cathedral. For being so old, it looks exceptionally well taken care of, particularly when you bring all the sandstone stuff inside.
We then visited the biggest tourist attraction in Kuntna Hora, the Sedlec Ossuary “Church of Bones”. This is the entrance to the rather small church.
The ossuary is estimated to consist of the bones of between 40,000 and 70,000 people. I don’t know about you, but those are two very different numbers! The church was built around 1400 in the middle of a very large and very populated cemetery, where thousands upon thousands were buried after dying from the Black Death. They had nowhere to put all of the bones that were dug up during the construction, so they decided to put them inside the church. Hey, why not…we can scare some kids!
We were told not to take photos inside, even though there are thousands of photos online, so I’m going to post some that were taken by others.
The church currently looks slightly different as they are undergoing renovations to the various piles of bones. According to legend, in 1511 a half-blind monk was tasked with stacking up recently exhumed bones (sounds like a fun job!). Apparently the place was a mess until 1870, when Frantisek Rint, a wood carver, was hired to put the bone heaps into some sort of order, which is how we ended up with so many odd configurations. I’d hate to see what his wood carvings looked like!? Each corner of the church has an enormous pile of bones. Here is one of those huge stacks!
This chandelier of bones is said to have one of each bone in the human body. I’ll bet they didn’t include the really tiny bones in the ears. Hell, even our feet have 26 bones each!
There is even a coat of arms made of bones for the House of Schwarzenberg, a German and Czech aristocratic family who was instrumental in funding the church.
After exiting the church I saw this marker on the ground at the front gate, and thought it was pretty cool.
One last shot of Sedlec Ossuary as we departed. It’s really quite small, but well worth the visit.
There was a Lego store near the church that had Tom’s “Simpson’s Doppelganger” sitting on a bench, so I had to get a photo!
On our way to our last stop we saw these markers on the ground, which we have become quite accustomed to based on our time in Amsterdam. These markers indicate Jews who originally lived in the building we were passing who were murdered during the Holocaust, a somber reminder that the history of WWII is never very far away.
We also ran across this peculiar statue of a bird/car combo. First the bird…
…then the car. WTF?? They have some weird art in the Czech Republic!
We then visited our last stop in Kuntna Hora, Saint Barbara’s Cathedral. This is one of the most famous Gothic churches in central Europe, as well as a UNESCO World Heritage site. I love the flying buttresses on the cathedral’s exterior!
Saint Barbara is the patron saint of miners, which is quite fitting, as Kuntna Hora’s wealth was based entirely on it’s silver mines. This cathedral was built for the local mining community, by the local mining community. This fresco in the cathedral is a nod towards their profession.
They also had a fresco depicting the minting process in the city. This was a cathedral for the laborers, not the nobles.
Construction on the cathedral began in 1388, but with numerous delays, it wasn’t completed until 1905! Holy crap, that’s like a CalTrans schedule!! It has a beautiful organ, capped with all manners of gold!
The Last Supper is displayed prominently in the cathedral, along with the 12 Apple-Sauces!
On the back of the altar is my favorite reason for plants to exist…wine grapes! Could those be Pinot Noir?? Inquiring minds.
The cathedral is adorned with this statue of a miner, letting everybody know who this cathedral is for!
This is the Soch Gallery of statues as you walk north from Saint Barbara’s Cathedral.
Another excellent view of Saint Barbara’s Cathedral!!
Which meant it was time for a group photo!
Up next, we take another trip with our awesome guide Michal about an hour northeast of Prague to visit the Terezin Concentration Camp.