U Vlasskeho Dvora Hotel Kutna Hora

... stone bridge with views across the country. Once again the trip getting there and back was just as interesting as being there. Amazing, beautiful countryside. The hike up the mountain was fun – about 1.5hours to get up. When we got to the top the views were magnificent. My pictures really don't do justice to the views or the landscape:

http://www.facebook.c om/album ...

... called again and said the fruit would be delivered between now and 11 P.M. if that was alright. The fruit was delivered at 10:20 P.M. Since we had asked to get it back because we wanted some fruit, I looked in the basket to see if I could eat something then. Someone in housekeeping must have gotten in trouble for taking our fruit but they got even. They brought us a ...

Again another place that had been recommended to me by people I had met on the way - and I think when that happens (especially by so many) you start to get images in your head of what to expect...

There is a stunning cathedral & jesuit colledge in Kutna Hora - the former, like most that I have ventured past/into - it's under construction... a rather cynical local told me - that ...

There are two principal reasons people come to the small town of Kutná Hora, a day trip for some from Prague (though we spent the night here). The first is the Silver Mine tour, which really is a blast. There are tours in English; ours did not happen to be one of those. Still, they gave us a somewhat dull but informative English packet to be read along the tour. During the boring parts where the Czech guide was going on ...

... some bits!) Kutna Hora is famous throughout Eastern Europe - an ex mining town that had one of the richest deposits of silver in the world, and bankrolled much of the region for over 200 years. A visit to the old mine which is now abandoned except for some very small scale extraction was fascinating, with km of labrinthine tunnels and both original and reconstructions of the equipment they used. The conditions ...

... I hiked for about an hour or so to the Radio Tower where you can climb it and get the most amazing view of the city. I climbed the tower and that is where I realized that the rumor of Prague being the most poluted city in Europe was pretty accurate. The temperate was about 30 degrees and the smog that covered the city was quite brutal. When situtated in the center you have no idea until you climb and get a birds eye view of the pollution ...

... and we decided that our bodies becoming art wasn't so bad in the long run. We also visitied the Conventual Church of the Assumption of the Virgin. It is in the process of a large rennovation which I wont go into here. However, if you have read "Pillars of the Earth" the story seems freakishly similar. For lunch we poped into a cafe next to the church only to find that they spoke NO English. Not a ...

... just, so overwhelming to be in the same place as all those bones, gracefully tacked away. We never made it to the actual town, but we felt very satisfied by our nice winter walk, the sun warming our faces and all that tranquility we got out of our visit to that ossuary. Since we got back to Prague in no time, we thought we should definately check out something that we didn't get the chance to see when our friends were here, and that was the Golden Lane of the Hradcany ...

... north/northwest. The sinking feeling set in, only to be confirmed once the conductor walked up. In Czech: "to Prague?" I nodded. "This train doesn't go to Prague. Get off at the next station." Great. So we get off at this puny, po-dunk depot in the middle of some non-descript Bohemian village and quickly find out that we have to wait another hour there for the next train to Prague. So much for doing anymore sightseeing around town before ...

... the end of the 14th century, rebuilt in baroque style by J.Santini. Decorated entirely with human bones which were arranged into pyramids by a half-blind monk, as early as 1511. It holds the bones of 40,000 people. Well, how could we miss this.