Allen and Anna in Kutna Hora at the BONE CHURCH

I see I didn't do a post on Kutna Hora, which is crazy, because it was so awesome.  Since Allen and Anna flew to Prague with me after my week visiting them in Morpeth, they stayed the long weekend and went exploring with me.  I think I wore out one pair of shoes.  Friday, April 20, we took a train east to Kutna Hora to see the Sedlec Ossuary and two other churches.  btw, the letter c in Czech is pronounced as a ts.  So Sedlec is pronounced sedlets.
Back in the days of King Arthur, and the Crusades, a monk travelled to Israel, and came back to KH with dirt he had scooped up on Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified.  He sprinkled it in the cemetery, and suddenly everyone wanted to be buried there, go figure.
The city was in Bohemia until after WWI.  There were wars, plagues, and invasions.  So there were plenty of bones piling up in the graveyard.  So to make room for more burials, old bodies were exhumed, and the bones put in the church underground.  Now there are 4 enormous piles of bones in the corners, a huge chandelier of bones, in the center, containing at least one of every bone in the human body, and garlands of skulls draping the vault.  There is also a coat of arms executed in bones.  Allen and Anna took lots of pictures, and here are a few.

This place is one of the most-visited in the country.  I know lots of my family members want to see it.  We had a traditional Czech big meal at lunch up by St. Barbara's Cathedral, and took pictures looking out over the countryside.  I would love to live there for a month or so.
The town center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  I'm hoping to visit more of those, and start a collection.  We also went through the Church of the Assumption of Our Lady, and Allen and Anna went up the free floating staircase to see the flying buttresses from above.  It is an important Gothic Czech building started in around 1300, but I don't know much about that stuff.  The Sedlec Abbey was begun in 1142 by Cistercian monks, but burned down in 1421 by Hussites (protestants).  Ever the Catholic/Protestant fighting.
We walked from the train station to this latter church and the Ossuary, then took a bus into town and walked again to St. Barbara's up on the hilltop.