To see a little of the Czech Republic countryside, we took a day tour to two nearby UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Kutna Hora and Sedlec. Kutna Hora was a major European city in the 14th to 17th centuries due to prosperous silver mining. The neighboring town, Sedlec, is the site of the Gothic Cathedral of our Lady and the famous Ossuary...
Yes, Ossuary, as in bones,
human bones. An abbot in the late 13th century went to Palestine and brought back a small amount of earth from Golgotha and sprinkled it over the church cemetery. Wealthy people began paying to have their bodies buried on "holy land." When the cemetery was full, the church excavated older bones and stacked them in a chapel beneath the church to make room for more "patrons" in the cemetery. Some of the bones were arranged to form elaborate wall hangings, chandeliers, and molding. In the photo above, Rolf is standing among the bones in the Ossuary.
Next stop was Kutna Hora, where we went inside St. Barbaras Church from the 1300's. Most of the church was finished within the last few hundred years, but it has some original fresco paintings from the 1300-1400's that depict scenes of daily life in a silver mining town.
The photo above is a view of the vaulted ceiling and clerestory of St. Barbaras Church.
From the church, we walked into the historical downtown of Kutna Hora, seen across the valley in the photo above. Later we went on a tour through the old silver mint and saw silver coins that were minted 500 years ago!
Then we had just 35 minutes on our own to explore the old town square before getting back on the return bus to Prague. We had failed to take a picture of the exterior of St. Barbaras Church (thinking we would have plenty of time after the guided portion of the tour), so we ran, quite literally, to the church and back. On our way we took a sightseeing detour through the streets in the old part of town, shown in the photo above.
Yes, Ossuary, as in bones, human bones. An abbot in the late 13th century went to Palestine and brought back a small amount of earth from Golgotha and sprinkled it over the church cemetery. Wealthy people began paying to have their bodies buried on "holy land." When the cemetery was full, the church excavated older bones and stacked them in a chapel beneath the church to make room for more "patrons" in the cemetery. Some of the bones were arranged to form elaborate wall hangings, chandeliers, and molding. In the photo above, Rolf is standing among the bones in the Ossuary.
Next stop was Kutna Hora, where we went inside St. Barbaras Church from the 1300's. Most of the church was finished within the last few hundred years, but it has some original fresco paintings from the 1300-1400's that depict scenes of daily life in a silver mining town.
The photo above is a view of the vaulted ceiling and clerestory of St. Barbaras Church.
From the church, we walked into the historical downtown of Kutna Hora, seen across the valley in the photo above. Later we went on a tour through the old silver mint and saw silver coins that were minted 500 years ago!
Then we had just 35 minutes on our own to explore the old town square before getting back on the return bus to Prague. We had failed to take a picture of the exterior of St. Barbaras Church (thinking we would have plenty of time after the guided portion of the tour), so we ran, quite literally, to the church and back. On our way we took a sightseeing detour through the streets in the old part of town, shown in the photo above.
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