Sep 3 – Today we bade farewell to our modern apartment in Prague, and set out to see more of Czechia.
About an hour’s train ride east of Prague is the lovely village of Kutna Hora. We are only here for a short time, and we are here to see one thing: the Sedlec Ossuary, otherwise known as the Church of the Bones.
Legend says that in the 1100s, a monk brought back some soil from Golgotha in the Holy Land, and spread the soil in the church cemetery. That made this cemetery a very desirable place to be buried, and people brought their family corpses from all over Europe to be buried here.
During the Black Death and the Hussite Wars of the 1400s, the church was overwhelmed with bodies, and devised an ossuary system of temporarily burying, then exhuming and stacking up the bones. It is estimated that between 40,000 to 70,000 bodies were interred here.
In the 1600s a monk was tasked with finding creative uses for the bones. Hence, the Church of All Saints became the Church of the Bones.
The Church of All SaintsDown we go into the ossuary, beneath the churchThe space is not large, and you get to spend no more than 30 minutes Jim managed to sneak a few photos, but most of the pix below are courtesy of the Internet. The church decided a few years ago that people were not being sufficiently respectful of the bones, and banned photo-taking.This chandelier is said to contain every bone in the human bodyThe coat of arms of the Schwartzenbergs, the rich family in the regionSo many bonesWorth the trip? You decide!The ossuary theme carried over to the Lego Museum next door with this Lego skeletonThey also had a sleepy Lego tourist…and a moving Lego tigerWe also visited the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception It was pretty empty inside, but filled with lightWall art!Soviet wall art?A Soviet era statueA pretty downtown For lunch Jim had a meat sandwich (shredded beef covered with cheddar, and I had the veggie sandwich (little tomatoes and white cheese). Very yummy. Cheese is a big thing here!In the afternoon we spotted the Church of Saint James,, and went in to visit our favorite apostle Over the altar was a painting of the slaying of the Moors, which we thought was an odd choice. See the shells over the heads of St Peter on the left and St Paul on the right?We all have our burdens to carry. A fine day.
Taking Our Time 