Cool enough to deserve its own post!

**A note to the squeamish: This posting has pictures of bones!**

The Ossuary Chapel in Kutná Hora

So even though I successfully posted the Prague stories, I did leave out one little side trip we took: from Prague to Kutná Hora. Coolest tiny little town ever. Back in the day, Kutná Hora was famous for its silver mine, and was one of the wealthiest cities in all of Europe. Now its main attraction is a chapel, decorated by monks in the 14th century with the bones of 40,000 people, transforming it into an elaborate ossuary. Many of the bones are from crusaders killed during battles between the Catholics and the Hussites. Among the coolest things made out of those bones are a giant chandelier, a cross, a chalice, and a coat-of-arms. The monks hoped that the ossuary would remind visitors that life is transient and that death is the gateway into the afterlife. In addition to the artistic bone decor, there are also four large piles of bones with golden crowns at their peak to symbolize the journey towards heaven. I thought the whole place rocked! See for yourself below, or click here for the whole enchilda. ;)

Cross overhead, just after you enter the ossuary

Bone chalices decorate the entranceway

Inside, a huge chandlier hangs from the ceiling,

which includes every bone in the human body!Large coat-of-arms

Outside, the ossuary was surrounded by a cemetery (to go with the "death" theme, of course), which had some interesting tombstones, including one with a steering wheel attached. It was kind of neat too, because so many of the tombstones had black-and-white photographs on them, which made it more personal. And pretty much every single grave had flowers, or in one case even a miniature Christmas tree.

Cool tombstone with a steering wheel!

In addition to checking out the ossuary, we also enjoyed very much our visit to a local brewery, where we had a very nice lunch and some more excellent Czech beer. The beer was called Dačický, and seriously rivals my previously mentioned favorite, Velkopopovický Kozel. Unfortunately, the Kutná Hora beer is only available in Kutná Hora, so you'll just have to hop on over to the Czech Republic and taste for yourself how good it is.

The Dačický Brewery

On the way back to Prague with our driver, Vladmir