Day Trip to Kutna Hora

Day Trip to Kutna Hora

Because the Kutna Hora Bone Church Is a Must-See

Visitors to Kutna Hora, about an hour from Prague by car, might pay lip service to wanting to see this one-time silver mining town to view St. Barbara Cathedral, but I suspect the real draw is the Kutna Hora bone church, more formally known as the Sedlec Ossuary.

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There’s nothing like a story about a monk gone a little mad—because what sane person digs up the graveyard and then, to put it delicately, removes the meat from the bones, and arranges skeleton fragments artfully in an underground chapel?

If there is any way to carve out some time from a trip to Prague, Kutna Hora most definitely is worth a visit because that bone church is a must-see.

Sedlec Ossuary in All Saints Church

The silver mining business made Kutna Hora a fast-rising town and a one-time rival to Prague, but today what draws some 400,000 tourists per year is the little ossuary in the suburb of Sedlec. The mines have long since closed.

To me, it is interesting enough that there actually is a word to describe a room filled with bones—ossuary. How the little church in Sedlec came to be so decorated is told in various ways.

The small, surrounding graveyard became too highly populated over the centuries, what with plague and the Hussite wars and lifespans that aren’t quite what they are now.

The graveyard at All Saints Church became extra popular as a final resting place after someone visited the Holy Land and brought a bit of holy earth back and scattered it about the grounds. People were dying to get in.

But there just was not enough room for everyone. According to some, in the late 1400s, a half-blind monk went about the business of stacking the bones of exhumed tenants into interesting arrangements.  After he finished, his eyesight was restored miraculously.

Others say a woodcarver in the 1800s was tasked with introducing some order to a church full of skeletons. In any event, the Sedlec ossuary is an intriguing, odd spectacle today. Some might see bone art as an irreverent testament to the dead, but it can also remind visitors of the fine line between living and not. Society today seems so uncomfortable with this particular stop on the circle of life; it’s sort of refreshing that the Sedlec ossuary is really in-your-face about it.

Make no bones about it: We all will get to this particular point.

Although the ossuary was being restored during my visit in Feb. 2019, it remained open.

Worth visiting in the vicinity of Sedlec Ossuary: what is now a tiny and very old graveyard surrounding it, the Cathedral of Assumption of Our Lady and St. John the Baptist, and the Philip Morris Tobacco Museum (the cigarette company owns the church’s former monastery).

St. Barbara Cathedral

Silver mining reached its height in this area between the 1300s and 1600s, so it makes sense that the patron saint of miners is honored in a church in Kutna Hora. All the better for those who will miss visiting Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris that St. Barbara Cathedral in Kutna Hora features flying buttresses. Construction of St. Barbara Cathedra began in the 1300s.

Variations on the Rapunzel theme, something about Barbara being locked in a tower by her father for wanting to convert to Christianity, make up the Saint Barbara story. Barbara met with a sad end; her father had her beheaded because of her religious choice. Karma seems to have had a role; Barbara’s father reportedly was struck and killed by lightning not long afterward.

Tour the interior of the cathedral, and then head into town, stopping first for some mulled wine.

Other sights to visit: If time allows, check out the Czech Museum of Silver, the Central Bohemian Gallery, also called GASK, and the Italian Court (a former royal residence as well as a former mint).

Time for Apple Strudel

Stop at the Restaurant Café at the pastel-colored Hotel U Vlašského Dvora for some afternoon stillness and a caffeine and sugar fix in the form of cappuccino and apple strudel.

For Bashful Adventurers

• The sights in Kutna Hora do not require much talking—just marveling.
• The cobblestone streets of Kutna Hora charm—but remember to wear sensible shoes unless you have a keen sense of balance.
• Appreciate the vineyard grown on a hillside as you walk from Saint Barbara Cathedral into town.

—Lori Tripoli

Lori Tripoli is the editor and publisher of Bashful Adventurer. Based in the New York City vicinity, she writes about travel for a variety of publications.

Contact Lori at loritripoli@bashfuladventurer.com.

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Where Is Kutna Hora?

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Have you visited Kutna Hora? What was your favorite sight?