Wok N Roll with us...Bob and Teri Along with Atlas and Kalani: Kunta Hora, Czech Republic August 20, 2023

Kutná Hora is located about 32 miles east of Prague. It has a population of about 21,000 people. The town began in the early 13th century as a silver-mining town, and from the 14th century Bohemian coins were minted there. While there we visited the Gothic Cathedral St Barbara, a World UNESCO site, whose construction began in 1388. The original design was for a much larger church, perhaps twice the size of the present building, which never evolved due to the town’s silver mines becoming less productive. Still, the Cathedral is quite impressive with its medieval frescoes and flying buttresses. Another church we visited in Kunta Hora was the Cathedral of Assumption of Our Lady and St. John the Baptist. The church was established by king Wenceslas II in the early 1300s and is a UNESCO site. We climbed the unique cantilever staircase where we had wonderful views of both the sanctuary and also above the church, showing the surrounding valley. Also while in Kunta Hora we visited the Sedlec Ossuary (room in which the bones of dead people are placed). The bubonic plague created a situation where there was not enough room in the local cemetery. Around 1400, a Gothic church was built in the center of the cemetery with a vaulted upper level and a lower chapel to be used as an ossuary for the mass graves unearthed during construction. Originally the bones where just stacked in the ossuary. In 1870, František Rint, a woodcarver, was employed to put the bone heaps into order, yielding a somewhat disturbing project. Over 40,000 bones are in the ‘church’ and the idea that they were disassembled to create a sort of ‘artistic’ construction well we found this a bit disturbing. Still I will post a picture as you just can’t get the real idea of what this guy did without at least one picture.