To Italy and beyond: Getting about the bones (Kutna Hora)

Another day trip on the cards. A few of us from the hostel took to the train to, check out (or Czech out) the Sedlec Ossowary at Kutna Hora. Despite what you might think of the idea of the contents, it is straight up far from a creepy place. OK the elaborate assortment of the decorations are made up of the remains of somewhere between 40,000 to 70,000 persons, but hey in the imagination of the human race this is but, strange; and about a creepy as a skull tattoo. You can find yourself transfixed by the assemblies, and from the elaborate chandeliers that hang in every other castle and manor; none have got such a notable kick-ass appearance as here. At least one of each bone in the body, from the philangie (fingers) to the calcaneus (heel) are sewn together to form the chandelier, that hangs above four posts of layered skull and cross bones. Then of coarse you have the Schwarzenberg family coat of arms, that looks like it something you might find on the walls of a 'Gears of War' game. A brief walk through the history will explain how this came about.

This all started to come about in the seventeenth century, but the reason why become so over abundant in bones started over 600 years before, with Otakar II Reigning King of Bohemia. Sending the abbot of the Sedlec monastery to the Holy lands. When the Abbot returned he had bore with him a small amount of earth which he sprinkled across the cemetery. The earth the abbot brought back was from Golgotha, according to the gospel, the sight of Jesus' crucifixion. The Sedlec cemetery soon became on the most desirable paces in all of central Europe to be berried. In the 14th century, the cemetery was expanded. This expansion was due was from the sweeping black death; and again expand in the 15th century after war. In 1511 skeletons were exhumed, stacking bones in the chapel by a half-blind monk. This of cause was a bit untidy, so now we come to the interesting part; 1870, František Rint was employed by the Schwarzenberg family, to make sense of the mass of bones, the results of coarse outstanding.

It is no surprise that the Ossowary has been used in the Dungeon and Dragons movie, it is a space that lends its self to the fantasies of movies and novels. It is so far out of the ordinary that it is one of the places I have wanted to see for a Long time; that is, about as long as the time since I first saw it on the TV series the Long way Round. We all had a good look round, through our copper to the wishing stand and took our photos, we would of stayed longer, but it came to closing time of the day. As you walk out, bone lines the doorway, bone chalices flank your sides, F. Rint's signature is the last thing you notice on the wall, and of coarse, written in bone. Glad to be ticking it off my bucket list, we headed off to find somewhere warm.

It was a sleepy grey afternoon, with no more than a handful of people walking the Sedlec streets excluding us. When we stopped at a cafe for afternoon coffee, there was only one other person with a cigarette at the bar; possibly a sign that the tourist season was coming to a close. Felling warmed up once more we retuned to the train station. James my room mate, who had introduced me to the group (and also looked as if he had been recently mauled by a nymphomaniac) split of the head down to Brno. James, James, Hanna and myself had walked round the castle in Prague on a previous evening; though I haven't made the inclusion in my blog, if I stay to my plan of editing this once more into a book, I shall make this addition and many more that were cut to the volume of content I gave for each stop.

Breakfast the next morning had it's acquaintance as usual, bumping into a couple of people up for more exploration of Prague. When we got to the clock the crowd was thick in the square, we supposed and the affirmed by checking the time that It was close to the hour. Waiting around till the hour struck and windows opening and the figures paraded around. I was trying to film it, though I don't know why I hardly had filmed anything up to this point. Doing my best to avoid experiencing wholly through the camera screen, the result was an unfortunate tipsy swinging shot, that filmed parts of the wall, and parts of of what I was actually tying to point it at. There's got to be a few morals in there, but I'll leave you to choose your own. When my friend and I said our goodbyes, I went to see what time at night the train left for Budapest. I was exited to find it would be midnight, there is something about travelling on train that greatly appeals to me, and I was chuffed the next leg would be on a sleeper.