Take a trip about an hour out... and other Prague, Czech Republic Off The Beaten Path Tips

Take a trip about an hour out of the city to Sedlec, a small town adjacent to the historic and picturesque Kutna Hora. Sedlec has an ossuary (bone church) decorated with thousands of human bones. It's really something to see.

The history: In the 13th century, the abbot of the monastery in Sedlec was sent by the Czech king on a mission to Jerusalem, and he returned with a handful of earth from Golgotha, which he sprinkled on his monastery's graveyard. This made the cemetery a popular burial site for nobility all over Central Europe. As a result, a huge number of bones accumulated, and in 1870 a woodcarver named Frantisek Rint was commissioned to do something with them. The most notable are the bells in each corner and the chandelier that includes every bone in the human body. The artist also signed his name in bones along the right wall at the bottom of the steps. The ossuary contains the bones of about 40,000 people.

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Kutná Hora is a gorgeous little town that was once the second-most important place in the CR. Most visitors come here to appreciate the history and architecture, which is truly unique. Kutna Hora is listed as a world heritage site by UNESCO. Be sure to visit the old silver mint, and just walk around the town, maybe stopping into one of the excellent cukarnas for some sweets and hot cocoa.

The early history of Kutna Hora revolves around the silver mines that made the city one of the richest and most important in medieval Bohemia during the 14th and 15th centuries. The first evidence of mining in the area goes back to the 10th century, but it was the discovery of major silver deposits in the 13th century that changed the future of the little village 70 km from Prague.

The silver mines in the area became so rich that, at the very beginning of the 14th century, Czech King Vaclav II bestowed upon Kutna Hora the privileges of a royal town and instituted a currency reform, closing all other mints in the country. With the aid of Italian craftsmen, he founded a royal mint in Kutna Hora that produced the Prague groschen, a coin that used throughout central Europe into the 19th century. He also began construction on a palace here, though it was later used as a royal mint. Its name, Italian Court, reflects the influence of the minters from Florence. (You can tour this place: it's Vlassky Dvur=Italian Court.)

The town's mines also attracted a great number of German-speaking immigrants, who brought advanced mining methods and became the town's largest ethnic group.

In the 13th and 14th centuries, Kutna Hora became the financial center for the Czech kingdom and its second most important city after Prague. At the end of the 14th century, it had a population equal to London's. Much of the town's wealth went towards the development of Prague, but some also went to the construction of a number of impressive buildings in Kutna Hora itself. The oldest is the church of St. James (Sv. Jakub), though it pales artisitically in comparison to the Cathedral of St. Barbara, one of the grandest cathedrals in Central Europe. The church dedicated to St. Barbara, patron of miners, was probably begun in 1380 and the chapel and choir were completed in 1420. The town also features a number of other churches, a former Jesuit College, an Ursuline Convent and a Cistercian monastery. (Note: all of these are quite beautiful.)

Another landmark, and a very popular and somewhat more unusual one, is the Kostnice (ossuary) in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutna Hora. See my separate entry on this, above.

Unfortunately for the town, the silver mines began to run out in the 16th century, and the last groschen was minted there in 1549. By the 17th century the production of silver in the town had reached such lows that pillaging Swedes were bought off with beer, not silver. The fortunes of the town continued to decline, until in 1727 the mint was finally closed completely.

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Kafka's Grave

Kafka isn't buried in the Old Jewish cemetery which everyone visits...he's in the New Jewish cemetery, in an untouristed and sort of out-of-the-way part of town. Easy to find off the tram, though. You will be asked to wear a yarmulke if you're a man.

Also worth a visit: the small, lovely Russian Orthodox church in another part of this cemetery, with glittering mosaics on the exterior walls.

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The Czech countryside. Be adventurous...hop a bus and ride out into the middle of nowhere. See, look at me--I'm at a bus stop in a plowed field in the middle of nowhere! It was a three-mile walk to the nearest village, Solopysky, which boasts about 80 people. Anyway, my point is that the small villages surrounding Prague are unbelievably quaint, and while there is nothing to see in the 'tourist' sense, that is where you will get the best feeling for the Czech national character.

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I don't know that many people get over to see the Hunger Wall, located in Mala Strana on the Petrin hill. According to the legend Charles started the wall for humanitarian reasons, to employ and feed people during the famine of 1360-61, when the harvests were very poor. It's a very beautiful part of Prague.

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