By: MJ + PJ
Because of the vast number of things we saw over our nine days in the Czech Republic, we had to split our posts and photos into separate sections. See CZECH REPUBLIC: Part One – City of Prague, or view our photos of Prague HERE and photos of regional areas HERE.
THE SEDEC OSSUARY
One location that had been on MJ’s bucket list for some time was the Sedec Ossuary at Kutna Hora. As luck would have it, Sandeman’s offered a tour there. This famous church is not everyone’s ‘thing’, since it is primarily decorated with human bones.
The story of the church and town is as fascinating as the church itself, and a testament to the belief-action cycles that humans engage in. The area became the hub of silver mining in Europe in it’s golden age (mind the pun). As “the story” goes, in the 10th Century an exhausted worker fell down to rest, and came to realize he had laid right next to an exposed silver seam in the field. This brought an influx of people seeking their fortune and an abbey was established.
The Wikipedia entry explains this better than we could:
In 1278, Henry, the abbot of the Cistercian monastery in Sedlec, was sent to the Holy Land by King Otakar II of Bohemia. He returned with a small amount of earth he had removed from Golgotha and sprinkled it over the abbey cemetery. The word of this pious act soon spread and the cemetery in Sedlec became a desirable burial site throughout Central Europe.
To say that it “became a desirable burial site” is probably the most under stated understatement you will ever come across. In that era, being buried in soil from the Holy Land, was the closest and most affordable way to be buried in the Holy Land. Droves of people from across Europe sought to be, and were, buried on the church land. The Black Death and some regional wars added to the volume of remains being delivered. Radar scans of the church grounds have revealed a stunning depth and array of skeletons, far surpassing what we had heard about at Bobby’s Edinburgh graveyard. While there are much larger graveyards with more remains, the density of remains at Kutna Hora is remarkable.
So what to do with all these remains which flowed to the church? After several hundred years, it was necessary to stack ‘em and sort ‘em. This led to a monk, and later a carpenter, using some bones as decoration. The idea clearly took off – giving those bones a very unique afterlife.
What should you expect when you visit? There is no smell of decay, and you won’t get much time inside on a tour. The ossuary is reasonably small and can be quite crowded – tours have to arrive at specific times to spread out the number of people. Talking is frowned upon while in the ossuary. Not that you’d want to, but you can’t touch the decorations. It’s strangely not like other relics where you often feel compelled to reach out and touch. Weirdly, it makes you look at bald men who are in the ossuary with curiosity. While you will impulsively want to take photos, take the time to think about what you are standing amongst, why it is there, what drove those people to be buried there, and how unique a place it is.
Lesson of the day: If you bring something back from the Holy Land, put it in something people can pay to come and see.
Photos tell a simpler story – look through our Regional Czech Photo Album.
The most memorable cultural story of the day, believe it or not, was about ‘Johnny 5-Stars’, which set the spot-him-if-you-can theme for our subsequent Prague wanderings. Our guide introduced us to Johnny’s statue, which stands just outside the ossuary walls. Johnny, or St John of Nepomuk, is the patron saint of Prague/Bohemia. He came to an unfortunate end by being thrown off Charles Bridge, having had his tongue cut out for refusing to reveal any confession the Queen may have made regarding infidelity. By holding his tongue, figuratively only, he is recognized as the first martyr of the seal of the confessional. The King who ordered this? None other than ‘Good’ King Wenceslaus.
Johnny may have fared better being thrown out of a window… but that’s another Prague story that adds definition to the nation and people… as well as the word defenestration.
KUTNA HORA
Kutna Hora the town, being a World Heritage Site, has other treasures besides the Sedec Ossuary. You will find a Gothic church (styled as a cathedral), a history rich in silver, a picturesque town center, and rich tasting traditional cuisine. Our tour spent the rest of the half-day tour visiting several of these places.
Saint Barbara’s Church is certainly worth a visit. It took over 600 years to complete. Yeah, that’s over half a millennia. Inside you can explore the upper and lower levels, see the painted tributes to the silver workers, and see the humble secrets of the back of the gilt archangels and their instruments. Hold your breath under the ceiling – the design and theory of how to structure the vaulted ceiling (unique for it’s time) was lost and a subsequent architect had to carry on the work. You can see the difference, but the more you look the less you want to be under it.
The town was also home to a peerless translator, said to have been fluent in 17 languages. He is memorialized on the rock wall across the valley from the church. We can’t remember his name.
Lunch was at Dačický – a Shakespearean era establishment who have lager straight form the cellar, and delicious traditional cuisine. The history is complex but can be summed up as such: Notorious rebel with penchant for fatal pub fights and getting kicked out of places became local icon by old age thanks to recording chronicles and poetry of the area. His family established the brewery and it’s where we ate.
PJ and AJ took a wander along some stores and came out with… chocolates.
Because there was some delay with the other bus with our tour, our guide suggested we duck into the Vinné Sklepy Kutna Hora (aka. winery). Totally random but totally worth it. Tasting, yes, and we bought something. We think it was for the tasting. The receipt was amazing because we could only understand the numbers. Yes, so amazing that we took a photo of it:
What should you expect when you visit? It is easy to focus on the Sedec Ossuary as the main event, and rightly so. Take the time to appreciate St Barbara’s Church – it is one of the most famous Bohemian Gothic churches in Europe, and a World Heritage Site (one of 14 in the country). This is a good chance to try cuisine of all sorts outside of Prague in a very old town.
TERAZIN CONCENTRATION CAMP
Our third day in the Czech Republic was one we were all a bit uneasy about – a visit to the Terazin Concentration Camp. [See our post about taking children to such places.] What is travel though, if you do not elect to face aspects of humanity which you have only heard about. The Asian Proverb “It is better to see something once, than to hear about it a thousand times”, applies to both the good and the bad that humanity reports upon.
The camp itself does not have the most disturbing feature of the Nazi genocide program known as The Final Solution – this location did not have gas chambers. Prisoners were enlisted to make gas chambers but knew of the atrocity heard of other camps, so serially sabotaged construction of the chambers. Disturbing enough however, was that they did use the very same chemical to fumigate the barracks when lice and rodents got out of control.
Terazin was built with well constructed permanent buildings since it also served as a fortress and town, It did not have wooden barracks, and as such was used in propaganda films by the Nazis to suggest there were camps, but they were happy and healthy places. History showed otherwise.
There was a stillness and permanency to Terazin. Those characteristics are amplified by the displays of the art works, and the stories and quotes of the prisoners you will see. It is hard to swallow the reality of how children were embedded in this environment, and to grasp their ability (with guided foresight) to participate in recording what they saw and felt being there. AJ had a ton of questions, which we answered carefully and as best we could.
After what was a draining but grateful day, it seemed like a good afternoon to get some ice cream.
What should you expect when you visit? If you are apprehensive about visiting such a place, this is a good entry point for an experience on this type of history. It is suitable for children if you are mindful and prepared. You will likely find something that strikes you hard at opposing and distant ends on the spectrum of humanity – the horrors of an ideology played out, and the resilience of the human spirit.
DECATHLON
Suddenly having time to spare one afternoon we took a little metro train trip to the area of Zlicin to the west of Prague. Decathlon is a huge sports store and the area has THREE (!) that circle Prague. We had spotted one on our bus ride to the east headed towards Kutna Hora. (None of them have the marina views that the one in Barcelona has!) We needed another daypack, and we probably bought a few other things… it’s that kind of store. Its like IKEA for sports, but you don’t have to use any Allen/hex wrenches.
Why mention this place? Big recreation stores are one of the few places where all three of us are happy to walk around wasting time, browsing stuff in our own interests, in an enclosed space, away from each other for a half hour or more! When you are living in each other’s pockets day in and day out, a place like this can be refreshing for a family.
RÜCKL CRYSTAL FACTORY IN NIZBOR
An hour train ride and a half hour bus to the west of Prague, is the town of Nizbor. There you will find the Rückl glass factory (1846). We were the only ones visiting on this particular day, but we had called ahead to make sure a tour or visit was possible, given the distance to get there.
Our tour, given by a first-time guide who got to practice her English, was about 45 minutes and we were shown all stages of the process. You get to see examples of the wooden molds and the substances used to make the crystal pieces, the casual manner of the glass blowers around the glowing furnaces, the stacks of blown glass waiting for decorative cutting, and then you are able to witness the various types of design being cut. Fascinating stuff, and beautifully designed pieces of many types.
They have a gift store, which is great for those on a short visit and space in their luggage for protecting something they have bought. That is not us – with our backpacks and soft bags that would offer little protection to anything brittle, and our plan to visit another five or more countries. The weight of the pieces is another factor if you have a lot of luggage and are flying.
What should you expect when you visit? Call Before you visit as you need to book a tour. There is a cost for the tour. You will be in the same room as the furnaces at one point but enough distance away to only feel mild radiant heat. Small children would need to be attached you, as there are pieces stacked in some areas that could easily be destroyed by an inquisitive child. It’s a good place to talk about chemistry with older children, and production of materials and goods in a fairly well defined and short process.
We thought we’d get the bus back but it was a while to wait, and a train was scheduled to come through. It eventually did, after the scheduled one not showing. We were getting a bit nervous as we had to get back to Prague to get to our Invisible Exhibit booking! The anxiety of our Barcelona exit resurfaced during our wait. The two trains had a quick change so we did make it in time.
SKODA AUTO MUSEUM and FACTORY
The Skoda factory and museum is within an hour train ride of Prague, and has both a museum and an assembly factory for Skoda vehicles. We did not visit this location, but it is worth mentioning. As a family we had visited numerous production facilities as they hold great educational value.
Here is a ‘mostly complete’ list of such places we visited:
- JellyBelly Factory
- Hershey Chocolate factory
- Numerous breweries and wineries throughout the world
- Chocolate making in Peru
- Peru jewelry making
- Peru yarn making and dying
- Taquile knitting
- Sucre Hat Factory
- Tunisian pottery making and painting
- Whisky distilling
- Belfast ship building yard
- Delft Porcelain Factory
- Waffle production
- Fries museum
- Gouda Cheese
- Learning how to make olive oil in Greece
- Various factories in Cambodia [silk, stonework, metal work, enamel work]
One type of production we had not been able to witness, but really wanted to see, was vehicle production. This was on the radar from our time in England – a Mini factory is outside of Oxford. The difference with vehicle production is that there are strict age limits due to the technological complexity and safety risk, this being 10-12 years old. This excluded us from obtaining a complete experience as a family, so we did not pay the Skoda factor a visit, despite having time to do so.
If we were to identify one other notable restricted aspect of travel with a child under 12 years (which would have changed our mode of transport and hence provided different experiences) it would be the inability to use public bicycles or scooters. Our experiences in several European cities in particular would have been quite different.
