Czech Republic: Day II (Prague, Kutná Hora)

Sunday, June 12^th:

The Church of Our Lady Before Týn:

            We woke up today for some touring but were saddened to discover that it was raining outside on the day we had planned to go to Prague Castle. We ate the hotel breakfast, which was typical and like the others—assorted meats, veggies, bread, juices, coffee, yogurt, granola, and cereal. We walked back over to Old Town Square and went inside the massive gothic church known as the Church of Our Lady Before Týn. No photography allowed inside, but this church is massive and gorgeous. I swear that Universal Studios used this church as the guide for building its replica of Hogwarts in the Harry Potter part of its amusement park in Florida. The church stands above just about everything else in Old Town, and inside it is adorned with gold alters left and right. Coolest of all, to me at least, was the fact that the tomb of the great astronomer Tycho Brahe is inside this church, located just to the right of the main altar. The church is one of the most spectacular Catholic churches I have seen in my life. After the Týn Church we quickly went back inside the Church of St. Nicholas to take a few pictures as we had forgotten our cameras the day before. We then realized that we needed more waterproof clothing and that I had forgotten the map, so we ran back to the hotel.

The Powder Gate, or Tower of Prague:

            At this point it began to rain very hard, and we wondered what we should do for the day. We had also heard that there was going to be a public transportation strike the next day, so instead of trying to deal with that on Tuesday when we had wanted to go to Kutná Hora, we decided to go today. We walked over to the main train station, Hlavní Nádraží and took a train to Kutná Hora through the town of Kolín. On our walk we also passed some magnificent buildings such as the Powder Gate tower, also referred to as the Tower of Prague, and the Municipal House theatre. The train trip took about one hour, and we met two girls from San Diego who were looking for the same famous “Bone Church” that we were. My brother, Brad, had told me about this church, actually called All Saints’ Chapel (or more commonly, Kostnice, which means ossuary), is located in the Kutná Hora suburb of Sedlac, just up the hill from the town. The Bone Church dates back to the 16^th century when monks cleared out a cemetery and decided to use the bones to decorate the church. Inside the chapel is a massive chandelier, candelabras, pillars, and pyramids all adorned with human bones. Some of these bones are even from warriors of the Hussite Wars of the 14^th century. We also visited the massive Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary across the street from Kostnice before heading into town (after a detour of a twenty minute walk in the wrong direction).

A Bone Chandelier inside the Bone Church (Kostnice):

            The walk from Sedlac to Kutná Hora is about twenty minutes, and we stopped at a convenient store for some yogurt, dried fruit, and a snickers for lunch as it seemed every café we found was closed for some reason. We toured around some of the Kutná Hora sites and churches before we headed down to the big St. James Church with its large, listing tower. The church was another beautiful catholic church and a lookout just outside of it offered us the first view of the church that Kutná Hora is famous for, St. Barbara’s Cathedral. We walked up the hill to this massive (again gothic) cathedral that looks more like a big-top circus tent from the distance. This building is massive and beautiful on the outside—I had never seen anything like it. The original church began in the late 14^th century, and construction on it continued through the 16^th century based on work from the same architects who designed the Powder Gate and St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague. Inside it is decorated with numerous gold alters and massive stained glass windows. We stayed in this building for a long time, as it was probably the most spectacular of the trip so far, before we made our way back towards the train station. On our way back we also stopped at a café to taste some Kozel Dark beer, and then made our train at about 7pm.

St. Barbara's Cathedral:

            Back in Prague we walked back towards the hotel and passed another beautiful gothic building called St. Henry’s Bell Tower, which keeps in line with the architectural style of the buildings that line the beautiful city skyline of Prague. We looked around for a dinner spot and ended up eating at a French-Asian fusion restaurant called Nostress. Here Jen and I both ate a Chicken and Shrimp dish with pan-fried rice Indonesian style. We also had an Ahi Tuna Carpaggio with lime, a bottle of Czech-made Pinot Gris, and a dessert dish which was basically a raspberry and strawberry crème cake. After dinner we walked around to some of the parts of Old Town that we had not been to yet, but decided that we were both tired and just wanted to take the rest of the night easy so we went to bed fairly early.

St. Henry's Bell Tower: