Kutná Hora, Czech Republic

About 40 miles outside of Prague is a town that sits on top of what used to be Europes largest silvermine, this town is Kutná Hora.  It's quite a cute Bohemian town, not mobbed with people, and it's a great place to wander through cobble stone streets and see some cool attractions too!

We wandered along the grounds of St. Barbara's Church (Chrám svaté Barbory).  I love the buttresses and gargoyles along the outside.  

It was really great weather and a fun group!

We visited the famous Bone Church in the city, which is the final resting place of 40,000 people who died in severe plagues.  It is a UNESCO-listed site and has one of the oldest monasteries in Bohemia founded in 1142.  The church looks pretty normal from the outside, but once inside you're in for a bone-chilling surprise...

Bones everywhere!

How did these bones get here!? Well, a long long time ago a monk went to visit the burial site of Jesus in Palestine.  He returned to the church and brought back dirt from Jesus's burial site and scattered it along the church grounds; the burial site became very popular after (hence 40,000 people were buried there).  As the site because the resting grounds for more and more people, the bones were exhumed to make room for more people and stored in the chapel. 

A half blind monk entrusted with the care of the chapel began piling the bones into geometric shapes. The chapel became decorated with bones to create a reminder of the impermanence of human life and inescapable death. 

There is candelabra, chalices and a coat of arms, all made out of bones.

 

So many skulls. Some you had dramatic blows and others were irregular in shape.

There were bones everywhere, and even teeth too!

We had a good time here in Kutná Hora, and this is one place many people are "dying" to go to (no pun intended ;)