Today we checkout of our hostel in Prague to Kutna Hora. We were originally going to catch a 8am train for an hour of journey to Kutna Hora. But the heat yesterday had exhausted us. We walked nearly 15kms in the heat and most of it was uphill. This, we decided to catch the 10am train instead.
As per our routine, we woke up at 6am. Jay woke up with bit of sore throat and we called Vicks to our rescue. We had prebooked our breakfast at the hostel the night before. While I got ready, Jay got the breakfast from the downstairs reception at 8am. We also got some bananas etc from the supermarket on our way back to the hostel for breakfast. While packing on the side, we had brekky and sorted the photos, charging, currencies etc.
We left our room at roughly 9:15am and kept our bags at the reception for collection later in the day when we return from Kutna Hora. Checked out and got the deposit for the key etc back. We reached main station at roughly 9:30am. Just before leaving the hostel, we realised we hadn’t taken the eu rail pass so went back in and got it. As per our itenerary, we were catching the 10:04am train.
We confirmed this info and got the train number from the info counter. Since the platform number was still not allocated, we decided to grab some lunch and few snacks. We went to Billa supermarket and bought a baggauete each, some nuts, chocolates, couple of croissants (for second breakfast) (approx €4). Then went on a hunt for a good coffee to cure Jay’s cold. By this time, the platform number had come up. We moved to platform 3 and the train soon arrived. It was a a fast train direct to Kutna Hora. The first class coach is usually the first or the last coach. The train had an old world charm and had cabins of 6 seats each. We settled in and the whole atmosphere (read old train, monsoon overcast and company of loved one) made me feel like listening to Kasto Mazza from Parineeta and so I did.
45 minutes on the train, the ticket checked came in to inform us that the train was running 30-40 mins late. In hindsight it was a funny scene where we didn’t understand each other. Reached Kutna Hora at 11:30am and Jay had already researched about the distance and direction. It is a 1.25 Km (15min) from the station. You can choose to take a bus for €3.50 single journey per person. We decide to take the short walk as we believe it is a great way to feel the city on foot. Later on at the tourist info we found out that the bus stop near ossuary was closed due to construction works and bus stoped at a further off stop. It was an easy walk.
We reached the destination. On the left side of the road, there is a church of our lady(on of the oldest in Central Europe). The architectural style of the church was gothic. On the train we had called up the tourist office to find out about online tickets to save us standing in a queue and also if they accepted card payments as that was our preference. We found out that we can purchase tickets for the ossuary from the tourist info office and also pay by card. The ossuary only accepts cash payments. We bought our tixs and postcard to send back home. Opposite the road we got the stamp and paid 5kc to use the WC. Jay suggested that we take our pre-bought lunch as we might not feel like eating immediately after visiting the bone church. I thought it was fair and we had our lunch on the nearby bench. There were no parks/green patches around.
After grabbing a quick bite, we went to the bone church. It had started raining lightly and there was a queue to get in. Damn! We thought we will buy tickets in advance to get in straight. Anyways, we used the time to anticipate about the place. The moment we approached the entrance it was right there. No hallways no nothing, straight to bone business. We were astounded with the bone decoration. We took some pictures and tried to take in what was in front of us. We both had seen photos etc but it only gets real when you see it.
There is a story that a person sent by the king to various pilgrimages bought some soil from Jerusalem, the holy place. He sprinkled this soil on this cemetery and all the wealthy people wanted to get buried here.
Due to limited amount of space and lot of people dying during wars and plague, they extracted some old bones to make way for new burials. These bones were then used to decorate the church. Also to remind everyone that death is inescapable.
After visiting the bone church, we browsed the upper chapel and cemetery quickly before going out. We had some time to kill before catching the 3pm train. We did a quick stop at a cute cafe for a hot cup of coffee. The weather had held up for us so far which was great. We wrote the postcard and sent it alongwith the Prague postcards.
We made a quick stop at the our lady church to click photos from outside. At the tourist office they showed us some photos of this church and it didn’t appeal to us so we decided to skip it.
We walked back to the station and on the way we sighted Phillip Morris (cigarette manufacturer) factory and a museum. We spoke to mum dad on the way about our travels so far.
Reached, station at 2:15pm. Confirmed the train arrival at 3pm and waited for the train. Few minutes before arrival it was announced that its running 30mins late due to technical issues. Waited and watched the rain pour down.
Finally the train arrived and we reached Prague at around 4:15pm. We confirmed our tickets to Krakow at the info desk and picked up some meds for Jay’s cold. We started walking towards the hostel. It was sunny and suddenly started raining cats and dogs. We took a shelter and waited for it to slow down. We decided to give the tfunoll one more chance before writing it off. So, we went to another place near the new city place from where we passed a couple of times and had seen hoards of people standing there…a good sign to say what they are selling is good. Jay got a strawberry passion and I got vanilla cream. They looked yum and I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into it. They were absolutely yummilicious! I am glad I gave it another chance! After finishing it off, we went back to the hostel, collected our bags from the reception and sat in the common rooms. I wrote the blog for a while and Jay sorted the photos. We had a long chat with one of the owners about Prague and other places around the world and our travels aspirations. Good chat!
We then just waited around, relaxed and did our thing before heading off to the station at roughly 9pm. We decided to grab some dinner and wine from Billa supermarket before boarding the night train to Krakow at 11pm.
Plan Set Travel 