Day 9 - The Head Bone's connected to the neck bone...

Today we took a day trip to Kutna Hora, a little village about an hour and half outside of Prague. Back in the Middle Ages, it was a very wealthy silver mining town. Today, it is more famous for one of its churches. St Mary of the Immaculate Conception was originally built in the late 14th century. It is an unassuming little church on the outside, but step inside and...

During the crusades, some knights came back and sprinkled earth from Golgotha on the graveyard. This made it a sacred place, and therefore very desirable as a home for wealthy families' remains. In the 15th century the Plague and Hussite wars put it in even higher demand. You might say folks were dying to get in. Anyway, there started to be a shortage of space underground, and bones began to gather in heaps outside the church. Then the piled began to line the wall inside the church. This continued until a blind monk, in a fit of genius (madness?) began designing lowers from skulls and pelvises. His pet project continued until well after his death, resulting in a chapel decorated from floor to ceiling with the bones of over 40,000 individuals. The bones are original. The design however has undergone several changes. The current installation dates from 1870 when a prominent architect had the bones disinfected, whitewashed and rehung.

One of the first sights to greet visitors are 4 pyramids of bones, one in each corner of the church. The Pyramids are each 8 or 10 feet high and 8-10 feet square at the base. They are held together purely by friction and gravity, and each one has a different arrangement of bones decorating its front.

In the center of the church there is a chandelier containing at least one of every bone in the human body. Probably even the earbones...

You though Prometheus had it bad? Check out this guy. No eyes left, but the bird keeps pecking away...

It was part creepy, and part kind of beautiful, if macabre. we each spent a lot of time looking up into the eyeless sockets. Near the windows, there were garlands of skulls and femurs strung up like cloves of garlic. The light was such to throw the bones in shadow, but catch the face of he viewer.

After spending quality time with the long-dead, we headed to the village center for a Renn Faire in a town the actually was around for the real Renaissance. It was much like our own Renn Faires, with much over-eating, jousting, an pagentry. The main differences being that there was a minimum of safety equipment, King Wenceslas instead of Queen Liz presided, and we understood not one word of what was going on. I think it was a local event, as there were a few German tourists, but pretty much everyone else there was speaking Czech, and none of food stalls were translated - we ordered with gestures and smiles...

One of the highlights of the joust was the horses jumping a line of fire so the their rider could grab a ring mid-leap. Later int eh show, each 'knight' did a special trick with his or her horse. This one stood up on a stool while her rider stood on her back and ducked under her belly.

We caught an evening train back into Prague just in time to hear a concert of Bach, Vivaldi, and Mozart at one of the churches. You really can't beat old cathedrals for acoustics!

It's our last night here. Tomorrow, we have the day in the city, but then take the night train back to Warsaw. We'll keep you posted as we wander...


Bonus: Small-town unintentional porn. This guy really loves his wurst...