Kutná Hora and the Bone Church: The Most Extraordinary Trip from Prague

Some day trips are pleasant. This one is unforgettable.

A Kutná Hora day trip from Prague takes you to a town that was, in the 14th century, one of the largest cities in the world — a place of extraordinary wealth, power and ambition, built entirely on silver. And to a small chapel on its outskirts where 40,000 people's bones have been arranged into some of the most remarkable — and unsettling — art you will ever see.

The silver capital of Central Europe

Silver was discovered near Kutná Hora in 1260, and what followed was one of the great boom towns of medieval Europe. At its peak, Kutná Hora was the second richest city in the Czech lands after Prague — its mines the deepest in the world, its silver exported across one-third of Europe. This is where the Prague groschen was minted: the most important currency in Central Europe for two centuries.

The wealth is visible everywhere in the town today. Most dramatically in St. Barbara's Cathedral — the Gothic masterpiece begun in 1388 that rivals St. Vitus in Prague, with its soaring flying buttresses, ribbed vaulted ceiling and 15th-century frescoes depicting the lives of the miners who funded it. It is one of the finest Gothic buildings in Central Europe and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995.

The silver eventually ran out. The Hussite Wars, the Thirty Years' War and flooding of the mines gradually reduced Kutná Hora from one of Europe's great cities to a quiet market town. The medieval streets, the stone fountains, the Italian Court where the royal mint once operated — all preserved in remarkable condition, because after the boom there was no money to rebuild.

The Bone Church — the Sedlec Ossuary

In 1278 the abbot of the Sedlec Cistercian monastery returned from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem carrying a small amount of holy soil from Golgotha. He scattered it over the monastery cemetery. Word spread, and Sedlec became one of the most sought-after burial sites in Central Europe.

Then came the Black Death in the 14th century. Then the Hussite Wars in the 15th century. Tens of thousands of bodies filled the cemetery until there was simply no more room. Around 1400 a Gothic ossuary chapel was built at the centre of the graveyard, and the exhumed bones were stacked inside.

The chapel might have remained a simple charnel house. But in 1870, the Schwarzenberg family — who had taken over patronage of the church — commissioned František Rint to arrange the bones decoratively. What Rint created has been drawing visitors ever since. A chandelier hanging from the centre of the nave, containing at least one of every bone in the human body. Garlands of skulls draped across the vaulted ceiling. A coat of arms of the Schwarzenberg family, executed entirely in bone. Rint even signed his name in bone on the wall.

The Sedlec Ossuary is estimated to contain between 40,000 and 70,000 sets of remains. Over 200,000 people visit every year.

Combining Kutná Hora with Český Šternberk

This day trip pairs naturally with — one of Central Europe's oldest inhabited castles, perched above the Sázava River and home to the same family since 1241. Both are within easy reach of each other and together make one of the most varied and memorable days from Prague. Price for the combined tour available on request.