12th January kutna hora
Trip Start
Dec 26, 2008
1
17
28
Trip End
Jan 26, 2009
Prague,
Bohemia,
Czech Republic
Monday, January 12, 2009
Anyway back to the story. We were off to Kutna Hora today and started out a bit later than usual. It was our first trip on the metro, which was pretty easy to use. We have found the public transport really good in Prague, although it is barely needed most of the time. We went to Florenc bus station to catch a very sparsely populated bus to Kutna Hora station and it was quite a quick walk into town to the information centre
Bone Church
. This had been described as "very helpful" in the Lonely Planet guide, which was a wild exaggeration; however, it did provide a map. We headed off via the scenic route through Kutna Hora to St Barbara's cathedral. St Barbara is the patron saint of miners, and Kutna Hora developed as a mining town. The cathedral was founded in the 12th century or something ridiculous like that, and was very beautiful. There was also a wonderful view of the pretty little town from its terrace.We then walked past the Jesuit monastery, another church and the stone fountain (not flowing for reasons that were as obvious to us as the noses that were freezing off our faces) and to the Italian Court, which functioned for centuries as a mint. We could only enter as part of a tour, and the only tour that was leaving at that time was in Russian. But since it was only half an hour, and we were given texts in English to read, we tagged along. It was moderately interesting but not at all warm.
By this stage we thought we may have trouble fitting everything in, so we set off at a fairly brisk pace for the Ossuary and Bone Church, some way out of town. It didn't actually take as long as we thought to walk there, probably because of the brisk pace (Penny's little fat legs struggled to keep up)
Bone Church 2
. Nearby was the Church of the Assumption, which was closed. The Bone Church was pretty fascinating in a gruesome way. Not unlike the Capuchin Crypt in Rome. Darren loved them both. Penny could see the point they were trying to make but still found the giant pyramids of human bones a bit creepy, to say nothing of the central chandelier that apparently contains at least one of every bone in the human body. It was definitely worth seeing, though.Afterwards we knew there weren't any buses for quite a while, so we thought we'd try our luck at the closer train station. We turned up at what, according to the schedule the helpful people at the train station had written for dumb tourists, was a two-hour gap in an otherwise quite regular train service. We bought our tickets and sat for a while in the warm but urine-smelling ticket office/waiting area and ate our late lunch, then decided to do at least the first stage of the trip, to Kolin, 10 minutes away, which we guessed would at least be a bigger station. There were quite a few trains there so we took the next one. We were right; it was a bigger and more civilised station, and what's more there were a lot more trains to Prague than we'd been told about. We chose the next one - Darren was keen, Penny was a bit worried that it was going to end up at some dodgy outlying suburb of Prague - and after a not completely convincing check with the conductor, decided to give it a go. It was very slow, stopping at a lot of little stations, but it arrived in Prague a good half hour earlier than the one we were going to take, at a more convenient station, and best of all, it was warm!
We decided to take the dining advice of the Lonely Planet, although it has let us down before (Brussels was a notable example), and went to one of the Kolkovna group of restaurants, which are associated with the Pilsner Urquell brewery, for dinner. Although it was a bit touristy, and was obviously going to be very full later on, it was actually pretty good. Penny had beef fillet with a cream sauce and dumplings - very traditional, apparently, if a bit light on vegetables - and Darren had a "Moravian sparrow" - chunks of roast pork and duck, red and white cabbage, and dumplings. Beer was also consumed and, in one case, Becherovka.
We walked back through beautiful Prague by night to the tram stop and caught the tram home for an early night. We are glad to be back in our lovely warm apartment after a very good, but cold, day.
Comments
Beautiful photos!
Love your wintry photos.
I find guidebooks are hit and miss...glad you found a good place, even though it was a bit touristy.
Louise Brown
TravelPod Community Manager