Ossuarium of Sedlec in Kutna Hora

Prague to Kutna Hora Sedlec

From Prague there are many tour operators offering trips to Kutna Hora. In itself this is not a bad idea, because the trains in the Czech Republic have endless delays and connections to see the bone church are ridiculously bad. If you have little time or just don’t want to lose a lot of your time, I recommend to take an organized tour. This will cost you around €30 to €40 per person.

Train to Ossuary of Sedlec

I did take the train to the ossuary.
From the central station of Prague (Praha hl. N.) To Kutna Hora there are two trains every hour (every 6 after the hour and every 24 minutes after the hour). Depending on the train you catch, it takes between fifty minutes and 1:15h to get there.
Once you have arrived at the station in Kutna Hora hl.n. you have to make a change to the train of Kutna Hora Sedlec, because you’re still quite a far walk away from to the chapel from the central station of Kutna Hora.

From the Kutna Hora Sedlec station, it’s less than five minutes walking to get into the chapel. The entrance will cost you 100 Czech crowns ($5 – €4), and for that you can see the crowded chapel with your own eyes.

To return with the train, it’s -unfortunately- a little less pleasant. The connection of Kutna Hora hl.n. to Prague is incredibly annoying and you soon lose two more hours on top of the train ride to Prague.

To go I did all in about an hour and a half, to return nearly three hours and a half.

Creepy but… Cool!

What a strange feeling when you see all these human bones stored so nicely on top of each other!
Almost the entire interior of this bones chapel is made of human bones.
Rest assured… Nobody was specifically slaughtered for building this gorgeous church (I hope so anyway!). All the bones that you see here are from victims of war, plague and other diseases.

Once you descend the stairs you get into a small basement and to your left and right you will see a large accumulation of human bones. It looks a bit like two throne rooms for some sinister royal couple.
Straight ahead you can see a beautiful chandelier made from skulls that are woven together with smaller bones. To make things even more grim, there are also some additional columns of skulls around you to keep an eye on you. Well… Not literally. Because they have no eyes anymore. Just empty, gaping holes in skulls. Ew.

A church is not a church if you don’t occasionally encounter a cross, right?! And yes, they are made of bones too here!

The bone church of Prague is not particularly big, but nonetheless very special to visit. Who can say that they have already visited a church where more than 40.000 human bones are on display?!

 

The city of Kutna Hora

Many people think this is the only thing there is to do in Kutna Hora. If you have some spare time, I definitely recommend you to also visit the pleasant town of Kutna Hora.
From the bone church of Prague it takes about half an hour walking to the city center, but if you prefer to take the train this is also possible.

You get into the town quite easily. The streets are steep, the houses are beautiful.
I soon got a little lost by the zigzagging streets, but the city is not very big, and quite quickly I saw what I wanted. A wonderful view over the St. Barbara Church and the adjoining Jesuit college made me ‘wow’ a couple of times.
You would never expect such a grandiose, gigantic church in a rather small village like Kutna Hora. But on top of the city rises the majestically Gothic church nevertheless.
You can walk around the cathedral quite easily and inside you will find some magnificent medieval frescoes.

The Jesuit college also houses the GASK. The ‘Gallery of the Central Bohemian region’, a museum of modern and not so modern art.

For the rest there are not very many sights in the city, but I found it especially nice to just to walk around. The small streets are surprisingly cute and colorful. The vividly painted houses made the cold winter weather a lot more bearable for me!

Fortunately, I left in a good mood, because the trains to get back to Prague were a lot less pleasant… I had to change trains three times to get back to Prague, each time waiting at least half an hour for the next train and then another twenty-five minutes delay. As if that was not bad enough, I got into a crowded train where I had to stand up the whole trip.

But hey… If you want to see the Sedlec ossuary with your own eyes, you need some perseverance!

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