Family EuroTrip, Part IV (?) – Kutna Hora, via Prague, Czech Republic

Our day in Kutna Hora, ended by our last evening in Prague, will not wait its turn in the chronological order of travels to be blogged.  A great tip from a great friend to Google ‘Bone Church’ led us there in the boat on wheels we rented: an Opel Insignia, they’re called Buicks in America.  This small town located about one hour’s drive east of Prague provided one of the most peaceful and interesting days of sightseeing during our week on some central European roads. 

With expert guidance, Ryan managed to park this house boat in the midpoint of the space between these cars, plus or minus 2 centimeters.

Kostnice is the first Cistercian abbey built in Bohemia.  It has a tiny chapel in the upper story and an ossuary decorated with human bones of all parts of the body.  The abbey was settled beginning in 1142 in the valley by the Order of the Cistercians with the ‘goal to deepen the discipline and sincerity of the monks through austerity as well as manual labor’, and therefore strove to remain fiscally independent of the town’s administration. 

Sidewalk in front of the gate to the abbey

The cemetery became famous after a king returned from Jerusalem in the 1278 and sprinkled dust from the holy land over it.  Apparently, being buried in this area was appealing because bodies decomposed to their skeletons quickly, minimizing the amount of time spent in slow and ugly decay.  The plague and Hussite wars of the 14^th and 15^th centuries filled the cemetery quickly.  The tiny chapel containing the ossuary was built in the 1500s in the middle of the cemetery, and therefore now contains the bones of over 40,000 people who were excavated. 

The little church with the ossuary

One descends the stairs toward the altar to find a massive pyramid of bones in each of the four corners of the room.  The bones interlock like Lincoln Logs; nothing was added to bind or stick them together.  The ossuary provides a powerful reminder of one’s own mortality, only enhanced in this season by seeing your own breath even while inside.

First view, above the entry stairs descending into the ossuary

One of these on the wall on each side of the entry stairs

Chandelier

A tower like this sat in each of the four corners of the room.  The bones packed together with nothing added to bind them together

A tunnel, through the middle of the tower

Close up of another tower segment

The altar

One of these sculptures stood in each niche on both sides of the altar

One tower had been fed a lot of money

A family coat of arms, with bones from all parts of the body.  Zoom in and you can identify shoulder blades, collar bones, hip bones, vertebrate, femurs, etc.  A bird is pecking out the eyeball from the skull in the lower right hand corner.

The chapel on the top floor, accessed from the stairs outside, was boneless

Someone already made this hole

'Window', where I peaked in to take the preceding photo

For only 80 Czech Korunas (about 20 per USD), you can get a combined student ticket for the ossuary and the Cathedral of Assumption down the street, all part of the same Abbey.  This cathedral contrasts the common template consisting of main tower plus twin towers.  The architecture here is Gothic.  While the insides are well decorated with Baroque paintings contributed through the centuries, the windows are not stained glass and the outer stones are not ornate.

Cathedral of the Assumption of our Lady and St. John the Baptist

Zoom in above the main door

Although originally built in the 1200-1300s, the interior decorations have evolved, and are now mostly Baroque

A panel in the floor

Organ!

The ceiling in the center, between the pews and the altar

The relic of St. Felix

Touring the attic

Pass through the attic to the balcony, view the entire sanctuary as well as the shadows of the exteriors by the entrance

In the winter, these sites close entry to visitors at 4pm, as the sun already begins to set then.  Most neighboring shops and restaurants, and even the coin operated WC closes then.  A short drive down the hill, however takes you to more Cathedrals and castles dating to the 1100 and 1200s.  The darkness and calm along the narrow cobble stone streets deepen the chill and isolation brought on by the crisp cold air and vast distance from the throngs of Prague.  Nonetheless, a thin neon sign and chalk board will invite you for a cup of hot wine or apple wine punch. 

Cathedral of St. Barbara

Cathedral of St. Barbara

Faces in the cafe

We dined at an inviting restaurant near the top of the street leading to St. Barbara’s Cathedral.  Tart, dark blueberry sized berries enhanced the rich brown gravy of my venison goulash and a generous amount of onions laced and sweetened my delightfully chewy potato pancakes.  After the prelude of a Kozel brown beer, I let the warmth of the meal draw on by sipping a shot of Fernet.  We left the town tucked into its bed of black, cold, and Goth shortly before 8pm.

Mother's 1/4 duck, served with a 'bread dumpling', fluffy and sliced, and stewed red cabbage

My venison goulash, served with potato pancakes, accompanied by Kozel, a brown beer with a light but slightly sweet finish

For our last night in Prague, Ryan and I wandered back near Wenceslas Square, busy despite the memorials.

Vaclav Havel, 5 October 1936 - 18 December 2011

After vetoing hotel bars and restaurants obviously catering to people like us, we turned onto the darker narrow street neighboring the Museum of Communism we visited the day before.  The first bar had no one inside.  The second was a shisha bar, dark with couples snuggled on recliners.  The third bar, called CafeBar was smoky, lively, full people speaking Czech, all ages represented, although more in our range.  Easy choice, we passed through the door (kind of thick curtain, made of kind of thin carpet), passed into and then out of the 2 x 3 meter room containing a dart board, pin ball machine, and kicker table, then down the spiral metal steps to find more tables and another bar in the basement.  Ryan ordered and beers and vodka shots poured into tumblers fresh from the freezer arrived via our barkeep whose appearance resembled an older version of Charlie Brown.  He persuasively convinced me to have another beer with a wordless jestful frown later and thanked Ryan gratefully for returning the extra change he gave.  The young tenant of the neighboring table was happy to practice English with us, having rare opportunities in his profession as a waiter in a sushi restaurant, as he described it.  The impeding nightly five hour pause of subway service approached and we wished him and his cohort appearing 2x older in age a happy new year, then bid a happy farewell to downtown Prague. 

CafeBar

Regal table cloth

Mmmm