The last real day of the trip I didn't have anything planned but had an idea of what I wanted to do. I got up at 6:30 and got cleaned up and had breakfast then walked into town and headed over the Charles Bridge to the Lesser Town and the castle. I had sort of intended to find the castle gardens and visit those along with another garden that had some fake cave walls in it but I did not really manage either though I did wander around the area and see a large park and a couple monasteries and/or churches. Being so early not much was opened yet and I walked around for a couple hours before I started to see the gardens open. I couldn't tell which one had the fake caves in it so I basically saved my Czech Crowns for another use. Most of the gardens looked quite small and I am not sure they were worth paying for. Besides, I thought a guide had said they were free which definitely threw me off.
After basically deciding I had given up on the gardens I walked back across Charles Bridge and into the Old Town and considered trying to get up the Old Town Hall tower to take some pictures but it wasn't opened after 10:30am so I feared it would not open for the day and decided to skip on it. I couldn't imagine it would open any later than 10am. I had sort of thought of doing the Kutna Hora tour the night before and decided that I would just go ahead and do it. A lot of stuff in Prague is closed on Monday and I wasn't sure I could fill up the whole day with stuff being closed. So I walked to the tour starting point and booked the tour for a 1pm start. That meant I had a couple hours to kill so I walked back to the room for a few minutes then headed back out and bought lunch at the McDonalds. McNuggets meal. Nothing spectacular but basically what you'd expect. After that I walked around the corner and bought a two scoop ice cream cone, one called cookies and one called caramel, and ate that for what was the majority of the time left before tour while walking around. I quickly bought some water and waited for the van for just a few minutes.
Kutna Hora was once a very wealthy town due to some very prolific silver mines in the middle ages. The town housed all sorts of miners and even a mint to make silver coins. It appears it should be about 45 minutes out of town but apparently the roads are wicked bad and the ride was a bit over an hour by the route the tour takes. The guide was named Ysa. The first stop of the tour was the Ossuary that was decorated in human bones. If I understood the story correctly, the church housed a very popular cemetery because someone brought back some soil from the holy land and thus everyone wanted to be buried there. The cemetery housed people from all over Europe and not just Bohemia. As time went on the town's silver mines became exhausted and apparently the monastery/church was closed down. A wealthy family bought the church after some years and in order to renovate it they opted to use the bones of the people buried there to decorate it. The idea being that it was a reminder that we all will die one day. I am sure I am missing some of the finer points of the story but that was the gist. So inside the church is decorated with thousands of bones of humans. I can say it was a bit creepy I suppose but it didn't really bother me much. I will say for certain that it was strange and felt like it should have been out of an Indiana Jones set. All the same, they allowed you to take pictures so I took a bunch.
The next stop was the Church of Saint Barbara, patron saint of miners. As I said it was a mining town and apparently the church was built by the wealth of the miners and minters instead of the church or a wealthy king. It was a large church originally built in the Gothic style then later made to the Baroque style. It fell into disrepair after the mines went dry and was rebuilt to suit the Baroque tastes of the times when it was renovated. It was certainly a large church and had unique decorations in it. Again we were allowed to take pictures. Some of the miner oriented artwork was definitely unique. It had nothing to do with the Bible or Jesus or anything other than mining. Not something I've seen in a church before.
After the church we walked a bit over to the Italian Square with a couple informative stops along the way. The Italian square housed a meeting hall and mint if I understood the tour correctly. At the least it was currently a museum dedicated towards the mint along with the stately rooms. We had a local guide who seemed quite young and self conscious but she did a good job other than she needed to speak a bit louder. The chapel in the building was quite impressive but we weren't allowed to take pictures of that.
After the Italian Square it was over to a small restaurant to take a break. Food was not included in the tour and I just opted to have a beer and speak with a Texan couple along for the tour too. That took about half an hour until the bus arrived and we headed back into town again. I sort of conked out for a bit of the ride back so at least it didn't seem as long as the way out. When I got back into town I headed to the room to use the facilities then quickly headed back towards the square with the intention of getting dinner. The funny part was the Old Town Hall tower was open so I decided to go up. They have installed lifts to the top but I trudged my way up the stairs then ramps because I don't see the fun in an elevator in a middle ages building. The view up there was nice. The town is not very tall in the region around the Old and New Towns and you can see right up to the lesser town quite well too. The modern parts of the town are not easy to see. I really only passed those on the various tours I took and went nowhere near them in walking. I managed to be up there as the clock chimed 7pm so I got to see the guy play the trumpet to sound off the hour up at the top of the tower.
After that I trudged back down and walked across the square to the Jazz and Blues Restaurant Bily Konicek. It was outdoors seating and they served Gambrinus beer which was one I hadn't yet tried but had seen around town a bit. I ordered a yellow beer and they only came in .3L so I drank it sort of quickly. For food I had the beef goulash and this was much better than the first goulash I tried. They had 3 different sorts of dumplings to accompany. The beef was not overcooked and the sauce was not too salty so overall it was a very enjoyable meal. After I finished the yellow beer I tried the Gambrinus dark and liked that one a lot. When I finished eating I settled up and headed to the room to start the preparation for the long day of travel just ahead.
Pictures are located here.
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