A Crash Course in Prague
Kutna Hora
My day began rather early as I had to catch a 8:15 bus to go on my day trip. This time I was able to find the right side of the square, unlike last time, where I was sitting opposite the side with the bus. Oops.
It was about an hour and a half to Kutna Hora, which is about 90 kilometers east-south-east of Prague. The bus, once again, lulled me off to sleep with the gentle bumps. I awoke with a stiff neck and drool on my face. I stretched my neck and wiped my face off looking out the window for the remaining 15 minutes of the trip.
We arrived in a town that looks like they let some of the air out of Prague. A lot of the air out of Prague. It was like a quiet, tourist free, version of the Old Town.
So nice to be tourist free... in that I am a tourist? There’s logic in that statement somewhere...
The first place we visited was the St. Barbara’s Cathedral. It is regarded as on the of the most beautiful churches in the country. It lived up to these expectations. See the preliminary digital pictures on the photos page. They were doing some work on the cathedral, so I don’t have a clean shot without scaffolding from the front, but the interior is very nice. And the organ was beautiful. Too bad there wasn’t someone playing it.
We then went to a mint. Not the plant, but the place where they make coins. You see Kutna Hora had silver mines, and as a result was the location of the mint during the 15th century. I don’t have any digital shots of the mint, but when I have the film processed, I’ll post what I have.
After the mint was lunch. A few of us wandered around, patting the local tabby cat, before settling at a pizza place. It wasn’t particularly good, yet it wasn’t particularly bad either... It was sustenance.
After lunch came the highlight of the day, the mines. We suited up in to these ridiculous white lab coats with hard hats, equipped with flashlights, and headed for the stairs down into the mine that hasn’t been used since the late 1400’s. Mind you I had my own Surefire Tactical flashlight...
I’m a dork.
Plus I was carrying my SLR with an 28-135mm zoom lens and a flash that cost more than the camera into the mines... that are wet.
All is good. My camera made it out without problem, but it took some protecting. The mines were skinny and tall or wide and short. The passages were all chiseled away by hand, which is amazing unto itself. Hopefully some of the pictures of the moss and other underground plants came out. We’ll find out in a few days.
After we surfaced from the mine we learned more about the silver mining process used in Kutna Hora... I was busy taking pictures of the surroundings so I can’t say that I learned anything...
We boarded the bus shortly thereafter and headed to the Bone Church. It was smaller than I had hoped, but still morbidly cool. It had something huge like the bones of 50,000 bodies... I have a ton of pictures, again on film, that will be up shortly.
We departed for Prague late this afternoon, napping on the way home. Dinner was downstairs at the pub, and again the pork was excellent.
Tomorrow is a nice quiet day. Laundry, groceries, and homework.
New pictures up in the gallery! Go check them out.
By the way the cat picture at the top isn’t the local tabby. There was a real cat walking thru the streets. I’ll post his picture when I get the film back.