Kutna Hora

Day 25: September 26, 2015 –

We woke up the next morning, with plans of going to the Bone Church. It is located in a city called Kutna Hora a 90 minute train ride, outside of Prague. From the apartment, we took the tram to the train station. We walked to the ticket counter and purchased some tickets, then still had about 10 minutes to spare before our train departed. There were quite a few people lined up on the platform. We didn’t really realize how many people were on the train already until we boarded. Once we entered the train car, it seemed like all of the compartments were full. We look in one by one and there wasn’t two seats together.

Finally, we arrived in a section that looked a little nicer and there was a compartment with a young mother and her two young children. We sat down in her compartment and she didn’t seem to mind. She mentioned something in broken English about her kids, and since, I like kids, I didn’t mind sharing a train car with them. So, I told her that I didn’t mind. Another gentleman came by and asked something in Czech, so I pointed to the young woman. She said something and he left. The train started to move and a teenage girl came in and sat down. The train was moving and we were getting settled in, then came the conductor arrived. She asked to see our tickets, then said something in Czech, with a militant tone, then pointed at a sign on the outside of the cabin. We knew then, that we had overstayed our welcome.

We ended up going into the next car and finding two seats that were sort of facing each other. We squeezed into this compartment with the 6 other people, who had spread themselves out. While the last train that we took, had 6 seats in the same amount of space, this train was marked as 8 seats. These passengers had just created buffer seats between themselves, so that they could be more comfortable. You could tell that our entry into their compartment was causing a few people some discomfort, because the fat woman across from me, gave me dirty looks ,and stared the whole ride.

I had a pen handy and my travel guide, so I started drawing caricatures of the people in the compartment. After a few stops, we arrived at Kutna Hora. Lots of people were getting off the train, which proved how popular of a destination the Bone Church is. There were people asking for directions about a train, which would take them to the other side of town, or city buses that were taking route. Since we didn’t have our packs, we were ok with taking a little walk. We looked at the big map outside the train station and then hiked along the road towards the Bone Church.

There were other people walking a long with us, but we weren’t surprised at how many were using public transportation instead. We saw a Philip Morris building, which showed the American Imperialism of cigarettes had even made it to Kutna Hora. As we walked we could see a long brick walk, behind which was a huge stage and a band doing a sound check. I wondered who was playing a show at Philip Morris in Kutna Hora; a city that from the look of it, didn’t have much more than a few thousand people in it.

We were a little hungry and ended up seeing a few shops on the other side of the long, two-lane, highway. One was a convenience store, which didn’t contain much in the way of a desirable lunch, and next door, there was a pizza by the slice shop. I still think that if you have the capital to buy a huge pizza oven and rent a space, that a pizza by the slice shop is a gold mine. Even in rural Czech Republic, a guy in a desolate area was managing to sell pizzas to tourists and locals.

The pizza shop was being operated by two gentleman; a young man and an older man. The younger man was wearing a maroon, Washington Redskins sweatshirt. I wondered, if he knew how controversial the logo and team name was, or whether he was just stoked to wear something American in his remote town, even if it is culturally insensitive.

Elizabeth and I ordered some slices, then I asked if they had a restroom. The young man looked at the older man, then asked him a question. Then without a word, the younger man took me through the doorway to the back. We walked through the first room, then down a short hallway, and there was the bathroom. Truck stop bathrooms around the US, all get a bump up in the rating system, because this toilet didn’t even have a toilet seat. There was running water and soap, and the toilet flushed, so that was good enough for me. After business was taken care of, I went back through the maze to the front to enjoy my slice.

The Bone Church was about a quarter mile away from the pizza shop. Outside the gate of the church was a ticket booth, where you could purchase ticket packages for entry of one, two, or three of the tourist sites in Kutna Hora. One was the Bone Church, the other was a Gothic style church close by, and the third was a cathedral across town near the palace. We purchased the pass to visit all three, because Elizabeth had heard good things about the cathedral near the palace.

A few feet away from the ticket desk stood the Bone Church (Sedlec Ossuary). As soon as you enter through the tall wooden doors, it’s as if you are entering a 1980’s metal album cover. There are skulls and bones everywhere. Bones assembled into lamps, chalices, chandeliers, and shields. If there was a place in the world that is the most “metal” it was this place. Motorhead, Metallica, and Megadeth, all should’ve either shot music videos or done photo shoots in this church. The brochure said that there were 40,000 skulls within the church. There were so many skulls arranged meticulously, that you actually forgot that these used to be living people’s heads.

From the Bone Church we walked across the road to the Church of the Assumption of Our Lady and John the Baptist. As you enter, if you look to the ceiling, you can tell that it was built and designed in a similar fashion as the Notre Dame in Paris. The biggest difference is that everything in the church seem illuminated and bright. Notre Dame felt like it was lit with candles and the walls were the color of the stone, this church, had modern lighting and cream and white painted walls and ceilings. The church had it’s fair share of paintings and stained glass windows, but the part of church that really stood out was that there were the bones of two saints. Their bodies were dressed and there were wax molds of their faces, on their skulls, and they were contained in a glass case. Very “Metal”!

From the Our Lady and John the Baptist Church, we had a bit of a hike ahead of us. Even though, the directions said, that the next cathedral was only 2 miles away, the St. Barbara church, seemed to take forever to get to, especially without any real directions.

On our way to the city center, where the cathedral was located, we stopped off at a grocery store called Albert; where we bought a few cold drinks. From there, we followed the signs posted for the city center. We walked about a mile or so, before we landed on cobblestone streets. We started seeing architecture, that could be typical in an “old town” section of a city.

There was strange the assortment of stores and there were practically no people on the streets except for us. There was a store that sold legos and had a sign out front that could lead one to believe that there was a Lego Bone Church model inside, but upon further inspection, it was a false advertisement. There was also a store open, where you could walk in, and buy a machine gun in the middle of the day. Only in the Czech Republic!

We climbed a massive hill and came upon a giant ball sculpture in front of the Jesuit College. It looked like a fun photo op for pretending to be Atlas, so we both pretended to hold up the ball with our massive strength. We walked around the corner and we could see the cathedral that we had been looking for. We continued up a long incline and on a cobblestone pathway. We walked over to the left side of the street, where there was a long wooden railing with a long drop on the other side. We could see a long, wide view of the Czech countryside, and a small town in the distance. We continued walking further up the path and we finally arrived at the cathedral.

You could tell from a distance that the St. Barbara Cathedral was built and designed with a gothic style, much like the other cathedrals that we visited. We walked through the entrance and showed the front desk person our package tickets, then entered the sanctuary and sat down. At the door, we were presented with a description card, informing us about the different murals and decor found within the building. If you followed the card, it took you on a small tour around the interior.

This church was slightly smaller than the previous one that we had visited, but it contained some of the most amazing stained glass windows, that we had seen on our whole trip through Europe. It was true that these windows were painted glass and not traditionally stained, but the level of detail and use of color, was phenomenal. There weren’t many people in attendance at the time, so we were able to take a nice slow tour of the church. We took some photos and read about the different additions and features of the building.

When we left the church, I had to use the bathroom, so we walked to a pub around the corner. It was still around 2:30pm, so this bar definitely wasn’t at capacity. There was some construction being done, so there were a few people working, and maybe two or three people there to drink. One of the beers on tap had a happy looking goat on the label, so me and Elizabeth each bought a half liter. She ordered the dark version, which she really liked, but I ordered one that was a little lighter, which was delicious as well.

From the pub, we walked a few blocks to the bus stop, then waited for the bus to come. We waited for awhile for it arrive, and we occupied ourselves in the meantime. Once the bus arrived, it slowly made it’s stops and we were brought back to the train station. When we arrived, there wasn’t many people on the platform yet. We found out that the train didn’t arrive for another hour. Over time, the platform slowly filled up and we saw all the people whom we had seen at the different churches and on the train earlier.

Finally, a two-car commuter train showed up and it was 15 minutes earlier, than we thought we were supposed to be getting on a train. About half the people on the platform started piling on, so I assumed that this was the right train. I even had someone ask me, if this was the train to Prague and I said, “I don’t know.” We soon found out that, clearly, we were wrong. However, once the train started moving, we figured, we might as well see where this train was going to take us. We sat down in a compartment with two gentleman. One was older and the other was probably in his 30’s. We asked them if this train was going to Prague. They asked each other, then started debating about whether we were going to Prague or not. They were really getting heated with one other, then the younger guy pretty much shrugged his shoulders and it was over. He probably thought the old man was crazy. Then, he motioned to us that he would make sure that we made it to Prague.

When the train arrived at it’s final stop, the younger man gave us the “follow me” look. So we looked at each other, as if to say, “Should we be following this guy?” We let him walk a few feet ahead of us and down the steps in front of us. He looked up the staircase and gave us the “Come on! I’m going to help you!” face. So naturally, we followed him. He took us to the main part of the station, where he showed us the big board and pointed out that we could get to Prague on track 3 in about 15 minutes.

We motioned to him that we would be fine, then started walking back towards the platform. There was a little snack shop on our way and Elizabeth said that she was hungry, so we stopped in for some snacks. I bought a Lion bar, which I had never had before, and some chips. Elizabeth bought some ketchup flavored potato sticks.

As we looked around the platform, we were joined by all the same people who had absent-mindly gotten on the train 15 minutes too early. So, 15 minutes later, we all got on the train when it arrived.

When we arrived back in Prague, I wanted to stop at a thrift store to see if I could find some old Czech graphic t-shirts. We went into one store called London Calling, but everything was in English and was really pricey. Some of the clothes were used and from the 90’s, but it seemed like just as many were new, but designed in a retro style. There was definitely a theme to the store, but the theme was not necessarily London, but America. There were lots of shirts that had a generic photo of a building or a woman in revealing clothes and it would just say, “New York” or “Las Vegas” or “Los Angeles”. Basically, clothing perpetuating American stereotypes to people that didn’t seem to appreciate their own culture. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any shirts with Czech writing, that I could wear in San Diego and feel eccentric, so we moved on.

There was an independent clothing store close by, with original designed t-shirts and sweatshirts, but with the conversion of crowns to dollars, I was looking at about $25 for a t-shirt, which I would be hard pressed to spend in the states, unless I really liked the shirt, or if it was for a band that I wanted to support.

We were getting hungry again, so we walked up the street from the apartment, where there was an Albert grocery store. There we picked up some veggies for dinner and some cheese and crackers for our trip to Munich in the morning. When we came back to the apartment, the girls were in the kitchen cooking dinner as well. I pulled out the leftover potatoes and beef, that I had hidden in the refrigerator, and mixed it with some veggies, for a delicious meal.

We were leaving for Munich at 5:14 am, so we were going to need our sleep. Elizabeth and I both took a shower, and then we packed up our bags and chilled out for the rest of the night. The girls were going out, because it was a Friday night and they invited us to join them, but unfortunately, the days of partying all night and hoping to make the train in the morning, had passed us by.

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Pizza Shop Vítězná, 284 03 Kutná Hora, Czech Republic
Located minutes away from the Phillip Morris building, this pizza spot in the middle of nowhere is a dining oasis on your walk to the bone church. While their restroom should only be used in the case of emergency, if you hungry for a large slice, this might be you only spot for hot food for at at least another mile.

Pilsner Restaurant 3377 15, Kutná Hora, Central Bohemian Region, Czech Republic
Located a street away from St. Barbara Cathedral, this bar with Kozel beer on tap, is quiet during the day, but looks like the type of place that can get rowdy at night. We stopped in for a pint and to use the restroom, to find colorful locals, who were day drinking.