← All articles · Czechia · 19 March 2015

Kutná Hora

A day trip from Prague in March 2015: the skull-and-bone artistry of the Sedlec Ossuary, then the soaring Gothic nave of St Barbara's Cathedral.

An hour east of Prague, Kutná Hora does the macabre and the sublime back to back. We came on a March 2015 day trip for the famous bone church and stayed for one of the great Gothic churches of Europe.

The bone church

The Sedlec Ossuary is exactly what the nickname promises: a small chapel decorated, floor to vault, with human bones. Skull-and-crossbone columns, garlands, a coat of arms. It is quieter and stranger than any photo suggests.

Columns of stacked human skulls and crossed bones decorating archways inside the Sedlec Ossuary at Kutna Hora — Skulls stacked into columns at the Sedlec Ossuary. Decoration is not the right word, but it is the only one available.

St Barbara's Cathedral

Twenty minutes across town the mood flips completely. St Barbara's, named for the patron saint of miners, throws ribbed vaulting and painted crests high over a nave lit by stained glass.

Do it as we did: bones first, cathedral second, then back to Prague in time for dinner.

More from March 2015: the ossuary up close

The rest of the March 2015 cameras, because the Sedlec Ossuary rewards slow looking, and because the road back to Prague turned out to have a castle on it.

Inga and Dileep standing inside the Sedlec Ossuary between pillars topped with skulls and bones, a bright window behind them — Proof we were both actually in the bone church, cameras and nervous smiles included.

Columns of skulls and crossed bones climbing an archway in the Sedlec Ossuary, with a chalice built of bones between them — Skull columns climbing the arch, and between them a chalice assembled entirely from bones.

Close-up of a column of skulls, each resting on a pair of crossed long bones, inside the Sedlec Ossuary — Up close the pattern resolves: one skull, two crossed bones, repeat. Somebody arranged every single one.

A rosette of long bones, skulls and hip bones radiating from a wall in the Sedlec Ossuary — A rosette of femurs fanning out of the wall. The craftsmanship is the unsettling part.

The bone chandelier of the Sedlec Ossuary with skulls holding candles, garlands of bones and a trumpeting cherub beside it — The chandelier: skulls for candle holders, garlands of bones for chains, one gilded cherub playing the trumpet regardless.

St Barbara's Cathedral in Kutna Hora seen across a formal garden, with flying buttresses, pinnacles and a steep tented roof — Then daylight: St Barbara's from the gardens, buttresses out like rigging and that extraordinary tent of a roof.