Mines, Money and Mortality: Excursion to Kutna Hora

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This new tour just outside of Prague is offered by our partners, Context Travel

Just under 80 kilometers outside of Prague, nestled amid the bucolic beauty of Bohemia, lies the ancient city of Kutná Hora. The settlement was founded in the mid-12th century by monks, who set up Bohemia’s first Cistercian monastery in eponymous Sedlec, now a district of Kutná Hora. Less than a century later, German settlers arrived, drawn by the surfeit of silver deposits buried beneath.

An important political and trading post in the centuries that followed, Kutná Hora became a strong contender for capital of Bohemia, and though eventually pipped to the post by Prague, retained significant status due to the wealth generated there by silver mining. The city today comprises a rich and well-preserved historical landscape, earning it UNESCO World Heritage status in 1995.

Our tour starts in Prague center, from where we will take a private vehicle for the hour-long drive to Kutná Hora. During this time your docent, a local expert, will contextualize the history and cultural significance of our destination, and prepare the group for the eclectic mix of sites it has to offer. On arrival, our first stop is Sedlec, the site of the original monastery (which now, strangely, functions as a cigarette factory), also home to the world-famous Sedlec Ossuary. Known popularly as the “bone church”, the ossuary contains the skeletons of around 50,000 people and was created in the 1500s when the surrounding cemetery became too full. We’ll explore how, despite its morbid connotations to our contemporary sensibilities, Sedlec Ossuary was to those alive at the time a positive symbol: one of hope and expectation; resurrection and redemption.

A skyline of superlatives, Kutna Hora is also home to the Cathedral of the Assumption of Our Lady, Central Europe’s oldest cathedral-style building, also at Sedlec. We will visit St. Barbara's Church, one of the most beautiful and famous Gothic churches in Central Europe, and one with a compelling narrative inextricably linked to the city’s mining history. Throughout the tour, we’ll discuss how religion and secular life collided constantly, despite resistance, bound by money and power. those age-old elements of social glue.

To further explore the importance of silver in the region’s history, we’ll visit the Italian Courts, once the seat of the Central Mint of Prague and named for the Italian experts at the forefront of the minting reform. Time permitting, we'll look inside the Museum of Silver before stopping for a traditional Czech lunch at an excellent local restaurant. Thereafter, we'll head back to Prague together.