2006 The Long NOT Winding Road - 1 Day, 1 Church, 1 Cathedreal (Part 2)

After walking back to the hotel room for a rest and so that Guzzisue could wash some clothes we headed across to the other side of town and to St Barbara's Cathedral. This is a large Gothic style building that is slowly being renovated.
The path to the cathedral has many sculptures that unfortunately we could not see as they were covered up, a part of the renovation plan. The outside of the building had plenty of scaffolding surrounding it.


Whilst looking around the outside things seemed a little surreal as we could here a Suzi Quatro song on a worker's radio. Things are certainly moving on as the communist bloc weakens!
The cathedral was built between the 14th and 16th centuries. It came to be built as an expression of the importance and power of the upper town by the mining communities when Kutna Hora was the economic centre of the Czech state and where the Prague groschen coin was minted.
Inside the cathedral there were polite signs asking for photos not to be taken, however many people ignored these, Guzzisue included! Her excuse was that some of the items that she was interested in were not in the guide book, nor were there any postcards to buy. There are several frescoes inside dating back to the 15th century. The one below depicts part of the minting process of the groschen.

And here are another two frescoes.



The first designer of the cathedral was John Parler, son of Peter Parlor, who built St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague. Originally the cathedral was to have been built with three naves and greater in length, however this was soon modified to be a five nave building and its length shortened to two thirds of the original intended length.
More information on the history of the cathedral can be found here.
There is plenty of light inside the building and when the sun shines it really shows off the colours in the stained glass windows, some of which are as recent as 1913.

The next few show how light it was inside on the day we visited.

I don't think you could buy intricate door hinges like these from your local hardware store.

Later that evening we had a gentle stroll round a deserted town before heading back to the hotel's restaurant as any enthusiasm we had for finding somewhere else had evaporated in the afternoon heat.

2006 The Long NOT Winding Road - 1 Day, 1 Church, 1 Cathedral (Part 1)

After a late breakfast we took a walk over to Sedlec, just on the outskirts of Kutna Hora. On the way over we passed a few charity shops advertising "English Fashions" on sale. I assume that these are the clothes that are collected when the bags that are placed through our letterbox are filled.
The reason for our walk can be put down to watching Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman in The Long Way Round. These travellers showed a little piece of film about the All Saints Church.


From the outside it looks like any other church, however it does have an interesting history.


In 1278 King Otakar 2nd of Bohemia sent Henry, the abbot of Sedlec, on a diplomatic mission to the Holy Land. When leaving Jerusalem Henry took with him a handful of earth from Golgotha which he sprinkled over the cemetery of Sedlec monastery, consequently the cemetery became famous, not only in Bohemia but also throughout Central Europe and many wealthy people desired to be buried here. The burial ground was enlarged during the the plagues, for example in 1318 about 30,000 people were buried here.
After 1400 one of the abbots had a church of All-Saints erected in Gothic style in the middle of the cemetery and under it a chapel destined for the deposition of bones from abolished graves, a task which was begun by a half blind Cistercian monk after 1511.

The present arrangement of the bones dates from 1870 and is the work of a Czech wood carver, Frantisek Rint. His name is spelt with more bones on the right hand wall of one of the pyramids built by the monk.


The most interesting creations by Rint are the chandelier in the centre of the nave, containing all the different bones from the human body.


There is also the coat of arms for the Schwarzenberg family.

Walking into the ossuary there are two large sculptures like giant wine glasses, one on either side at the top of the stairs.


The skull and crossbones theme is evident throughout the ossuary, often associated with the Jolly Roger flag on pirate ships but the history of this symbol goes back further as some crucifixes feature it beneath the corpus (the depiction of Jesus' body), in reference to a legend that the place of the crucifixion was also the burial place of Adam or, more likely, in reference to the New Testament statement that the place of his crucifixion was called "Golgotha" ("the Place of a Skull"), which brings us back to the the abbot from Sedlec, on his mission to the Holy Land and the handful of earth.
The final sculpture is hidden away and is quite difficult to get a photo of but is interesting in its design.

We stayed in the ossuary for sometime, having periods of peace between coach tours. It was sad to watch the tour parties come in for fifteen minutes at a time and see some of the people just standing and posing in front of various locations for their holiday snapshots. It is a place that needs to be savoured and with us staying just down the road we had that opportunity.
Morbid? Possibly. Eerie? Certainly. I can almost see it as a Hammer Film set with Christopher Lee or Vincent Price in shot. A place certainly worth seeking out. Thank you Charlie and Ewan.

Here is a link to the website for the church and ossuary, while below is my very first attempt at using a camcorder. The film is a little shaky, might be down to the subject, but let me know what you think of it.


Anyway must sign off now as we have received notification of this year's landmarks for the Round Britain Rally and I have some research to do for it.

2006 The Long NOT Winding Road - Where Are We?

We have settled in our room at the Hotel Zlata Stoupa where we will be staying for the next few nights as we explore the town, Kutna Hora, catch a train to Prague and visit somewhere else that I will post about soon.


Kutna Hora was once a very important place due to some silver mines in the locality, but they were abandoned at the end of the 18th century. The town also suffered from a fire in 1770 and suffered from the effects of the plague on several occasions. A monument is located in the old town centre, made by Frantisek Baugut, erected between 1713-1716. In all, more than 6000 citizens lost their lives in the plague.


In 1995, Kutna Hora was included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites and while we were visiting, work was still in progress.


The majority of cars that we saw were Skodas but still in favour were

Some time back we learnt that there were many things to see, provided that we kept our eyes looking up. Many buildings around the town had a small statue, like the one below, for example, just below the roof.


This deer looks uninteresting

Until you walk away from the building, which is situated on a corner plot.


Here are a few photos of one building, showing the artistic skill and effort going into the renovation of the frontage.


Within the old town many of the roads are still cobbled, giving an air of times past. These make for interesting riding.


Kutna Hora is on the tourist trail with day trips coming in on coaches. This means that by late afternoon the place is almost deserted. The photo below was taken at 17.00 with only one tourist in the frame.

Tomorrow we go to church.