Day #116

Alice and I went on our first day trip today! It was with the same company that did our free walking tour. Unfortunately this one wasn't free, but it was more than worth it, and by far the least expensive day trip we've ever booked! 

Destinations: Kutná Hora and the Sedlec Ossuary, aka The Bone Church. You'll see why.

Our tour guide led us to the train station where we took two trains to the town of Kutná Hora, which used to be super important and wealthy because they had a lot of silver. Until they ran out. And there's your short history of Kutná Hora!

But look how pretty it is (and how beautiful a day!):

Have you ever seen a sky so blue?

I ate a delicious (and totally filling) local lunch of turkey, cabbage, and these dumpling-ish thing stuffed with jam before we headed to St. Barbara's Cathedral. Here's a quick story of St. Barbara:

Barb's dad locked her in a tower with two windows because she didn't want to marry. Since she was super bored up there, she read about Christianity and decided to convert. But since her dad was a pagan, he wasn't too keen on that. When dear Barb asked to add a third window to the tower (holy trinity stuff), her dad finally blew his lid and had her murdered. BUT SILVER LINING now she's a saint and has a cool cathedral! Kids, be thankful you live in this time period. For a lot of reasons. Including indoor plumbing.

Here's a nice picture I found on the wall that looks even cooler when you zoom all the way in.....

From there, we went to Sedlec Ossuar, aka the Bone Church. Here's that story:

A long time ago, these holy dudes from what is now the Czech Republic went to the holy land and brought back some holy dirt. They sprinkled it on the ground back home, and told people that Sedlec Ossuar was now also the holy land! Obviously a ton of people wanted to be buried there, so it filled up fast. To make more money, the holy dudes were like, "Game changer- your decomposing body actually doesn't need too long to soak up the holy from the ground, so we're just gonna take your bones out after the soak up the holy so then we can bury more people and make more money!"

What did they do with all of those bones?

In case you were wondering, yes, that is a chandelier made of bones. It includes every bone in the human body.

Family crest made out of real family.

After we got back, we ate dinner (mom, I bought a mango but definitely ate it wrong. How the heck do you eat those things?) and went to a classy jazz bar with real live jazz music! Hey Nolan, that sax player could be you one day.