A quaint little town full of dead people.

For the first time since getting out here, I left the city limits of Prague. Kutná Hora lies a little over an hour away, by train, and there we had a relaxing day wandering through its beautiful squares and alleyways. The town resembles central Prague, with cobblestone roads, Gothic cathedrals, and statues around every corner (like the one on the left). We were lucky enough to come on a weekend when the Vinobraní festival was still going on. We had attended such an event a week earlier in Prague, and it was nice to get a second helping of the sweet and delicious pseudo-wine while watching bizarre entertainment. As the drink slowly fermented in our stomachs, a Czech magician performed a few odd illusions. One that comes to mind involved an empty cup, which was filled with a mysterious liquid by holding it under a small boys armpit, and then pumping his arm up and down like, well, a pump.

"Pumpy, pumpy, pumpy!"

Another trick which made us a little uncomfortable went like this: The magician (A man in a witch's hat, mind you) calls three young girls onto the stage, ages 7 or 8, and has them stand a few feet apart from each other. He then takes a long red scarf and gives a side to each of to the two girls on the ends, and then shoves the middle of it into the front of the third girl's pants. He then says a magic word and has the two end girls pull the scarf, and out pops from the middle girls pants a pair of pink underpants. Ta-da.

All in all it was a pretty town, and a definite break from the fast-paced atmosphere of Prague. There is, however, more to this place that makes it a commonly frequented tourist attraction. Dead people. Forty to seventy thousand dead people, as a matter of fact. The exact number is not known because it would be impossible to figure out which bones go with which body. The Sedlec Ossuary just outside of town, is a small cathedral filled with human bones. It was really freaky, especially when all these tourists are having their picture taken with a chandelier made of dead people. Here's the scoop: Apparently someone sprinkled some soil from Jerusalem over the cemetery grounds here, and so many people were dying to get in that they had to improvise. Seriously. Some priest dug up a bunch of bones and started arranging them into "art." I guess it was experimental too. Check out the wikipedia article linked above for more pictures of this place, the whole thing was rather unpleasant so I'm gonna stop talking about it now.


Looking for a quiet get-away? Try Kutná Hora, with more corpses per capita then any other European city.