Kutná Hora, Czechia
After a couple of days of total rest and an experimental walk around Prague, I decided that my heel had recovered enough for a day out. Kutná Hora is only an hour’s train ride outside of the capital, so pretty easy to visit in a day. It’s a UNESCO world heritage site primarily for its historic cathedral, but it was the Sedlec Ossuary that I found most intriguing.
After some earth was brought back from Golgotha and sprinkled over the cemetery in 1278, Sedlec Abbey became a popular place to be buried. Following years of plague and war, it became the final resting place for something like 40–70,000 people.
Much later, in 1870, a woodcarver was employed to arrange the bones into some kind of order, and he excelled himself. He used his imagination to come up with macabre bone sculptures, chandeliers, candle holders and even his own signature. The result is pretty disturbing, but that hasn’t stopped it from becoming a major tourist attraction.
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