My roommate, K, and I took a day trip from Prague to Kutna Hora. The main goal was to see Sedlec Ossuary, but it was enjoyable on its own.

Sedlec Ossuary is a small chapel, that has bone art. Back in the Hussite wars and the Black Plague in the 14th and 15th centuries, thousands of people (think around 60,000) died and their bones were put in this building. Then, in the 1800s, it was decided to do something with the bones and an artist was hired. It is now promoted as a memorial, but as I stood taking pictures and watching a man act like he was Ruler of the Underworld, I wondered how respectful we really were.

We got the 10 train to Kutna Hora- it’s about an hour ride. It drops you off at the main train station 3km from town. We could have walked it, but it was raining so we decided to spend less than a euro on the shuttle train between the main train station, with a stop in Sedlec, and the old town.

We stopped at the information desk for a map and proceeded to go straight to the Silver mine museum. They get full quickly so make this your first stop to reserve. Though we were there at 11.30, the next tour was at 13. Due to very few English speakers, they only offered tours in Czech this day and gave us English text to read. It gave us good information, but we felt like we were missing a lot.

They said that normally there are English tours, just that day there were none. There are 2 tours you can do. One is mainly of the museum. The 2nd and most popular is were they take you into the mines. It is very tight underground. They make it clear that if you have a fear of small spaces to not go. There was a very tall man and he had to quit halfway through because he was in pain from bending over too much.

The guide was very nice, telling us somethings in English especially about safety. At one point she had us turn off our lights and we were in total darkness.

Gotta look the part!

Honestly, I didn’t like this as I don’t like knowing my eyes are opening, but not being able to see. This was the only part of the tour I thought could have been different. We sat there for a good 15 minutes while 5 minutes would have been sufficient.

At the end, the tour guide made a point in telling us she can answer any further questions we might have in English and so we asked her several. She was very informative and said she was funnier in English and wished she could have given the whole tour in English.

We also stopped at the cathedral, though Kutna Hora says they are the home to 2, only one is famous- St. Barbara- the patron saint of miners. It was beautiful, inside and out.

Our next stop was stopping in a nearby cafe for some coffee and to sit down for a bit. The mine tour was almost 2 hours and we wanted to relax for a bit fore continuing our sightseeing. I ordered a Turkish coffee as I was missing the Turkish coffee from the Balkans (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, etc.). It wasn’t that good.

And of course as we left the cafe, it started down pouring. Luckily we had our umbrellas and we walked around and saw the rest of the small town before catching the shuttle train to Sedlec Ossuary.

We aimed to get the 17 or 5pm train back to Prague, but due to technical issues on the track, the train was late by 15 minutes. There were a lot of people going back and we didn’t have a seat the whole ride.

I really liked Kutna Hora and Sedlec and recommend it! It was very charming even with the rain.