Track Trip To Kutna Hora

It was February of last year, and my friend Nhan needed a break - a road trip out of town.  Only this was the Czech Republic and why take a road when you can take a train on the densest railway network in all of Europe?  We threw around ideas of where would be a good place to go.  Wanting to save places that would look best in Spring and Summer, I suggested Kutna Hora cause going to see a pile of bones is the same in February or July.  No amount of spring flowers will change the view.

We got into our train compartment and marveled at what a relaxing way this was to travel.  Nhan originally hails from Orlando. He remarked how wonderful it would be to have a train like this for day trips from the city to the beach.  Instead, after a day of unwinding, a Florida beachgoer has to experience the stress of the traffic back into town. We would get to chat the whole way to Kutna Hora with nary a thought about traffic, gas tanks, or directions. The cost round-trip was less than $5 for each person.

Being the dear friends they are, Gulnara and Nhan greeted me with a box of chocolates, even though I had lost, yes, lost the Christmas present they gave me before I even opened it.  Did I say they were dear friends? Simply the best.

Gulnara and me in the deserted Square at Kutna Hora

It was one c-o-l-d day the day we decided to go.  I think we were three of 12 tourists in the whole town. We definitely did not have to fight off the crowds to go visit what was our first UNESCO Heritage site that we visited simply because it was a UNESCO Heritage site.  We decided to save the Bone Church, the reason everyone comes to Kutna Hora, for the end of the day.

T

The Alchemist's Shop

Immediately we spotted a beautiful building with tourist information and a purported alchemist's shop.  I would like to say we were all filled with a burning desire to learn how to turn ordinary objects into gold, but mostly we were just freezing our tushes off and needed someplace, anyplace, with heat!

 Investigating Alchemy

There were all sorts of mysterious mad scientist apparatus and giant bellows and a tunnel that lead who knows where.  All of it food for the imagination of a young person raised on tales of King Midas. But what Kutna Hora is known for besides the Bone Church, is the real wealth, not pretend wealth that came out of this town.

Kutna Hora was the center of a mining operation that created coinage that was traded so widely you could call it unintentional medieval Euros. We began walking toward the famous Church of St. Barbara's (named after the patron saint of miners and anyone working with explosives) that had been built with all of this fantastic wealth that Kutna Hora produced.

The Walkway to St. Barbara's

The walkway to St. Barbara's was so romantic -- or it would have been if it wasn't 0 degrees centigrade.  Along the way were numerous statues of  saints and people in various states of torment, along with the beautiful paving and stonework that Czechs do so well.

Over the stone fence to the left, there was a magnificent view of Kutna Hora, the town, and the surrounding countryside. There are around 21,000 people in Kutna Hora today but at one time Kutna Hora rivaled Prague for economic dominance of Bohemia. The mines have played out, however, a new source of wealth has been found: growing tobacco for Phillip Morris.

 Gulnara and Nhan

with St. Josef's Church

in the background

As we walked toward St. Barbara's Church, I was fascinated by the competing church St. Josef's, easily seen from this walk way and the spectacular St. Barbara's.  I marveled at what politics would motivate the building of a smaller, less ornate church when there's a perfectly magnificent church already started in town in the 1300s.  Maybe it's like American churches that divide and divide into smaller and smaller congregations over minute theological questions, I don't know. Or maybe the townspeople viewed St. Barbara's as a money pit. It didn't get finished until 1905.  It was fun to think about.

 Approaching the flying buttresses

of St. Barbara's Church

I ask you gentle readers, especially my male readers, you know what flying buttresses are as an architectural detail, don't you? Simply because it's so much fun to say "flying buttresses," right? Can you say the same for knowing what crenelated stoneworks are? Sounds like a detail on a petticoat, doesn't it? I was just wondering if my theory that you know what flying buttresses are proves correct.  The inner 8-year-old in all of us loves to say "flying buttresses!"

 One of many beautiful baroque altars

and stained glass windows within the church

The beautiful Gothic

arches and ceiling

within the Church

After thoroughly exploring the unheated church we headed back toward the center for a long leisurely lunch of Czech specialties, mead and beer.  There were more interesting sites along the way to our next stop.

For example, they don't make

water towers like this back home.

 Two wild and crazy Czechs

from back in the day.

Many European communities

have one of these:

a Plague Column

to commemorate and give thanks for the end

of the Bubonic Plague's rampage.

We were all excited when we saw this truck
because we thought we were going to get to say hi
to American military overseas.
It was three Czechs moving carpet.

The Italian Court
 

Our next stop was the Italian court, a former royal residence and mint. We took a tour that showcased some of the coins and manufacturing operations of those times.  I remember being impressed with medieval loss prevention techniques.  Nobody was sneaking home with any coin molds in their lunch pail.

The keys our guide used to enter

the doors at the Italian Court.

Good thing she had them.

 She was so nervous

giving her first tour in English

she accidentally locked up a few tourists

on our tour.

Luckily Gulnara asked,

"Hey, where did the Germans go?"

Otherwise they might still
be locked up in the tower.

The drop-dead gorgeous chapel

in the Italian Court.

 Every wall was achingly beautiful.

Oh, the Bone Church.

We ran out of time. Never saw it.

Ice cream and good conversation

got in the way. 

I hope I come back this way again.

I'll do the Bone Church and the Silver Mines

...next time.

You might enjoy these other train-related posts:

Track Trip to Karlstejn

How Czech Government Delighted Me as a Consumer

Futurista Builds Upon the Past

After falling in love with Josef Gocar's Rondo-Cubism architectural style at the LegioBank building, I was eager to learn more about the wonderful design history of Czechoslovakia. Very near to where I lived in Prague was an ultra-hip design shop that showcased the best of Czech decorative arts and design from mid-century in addition to the current generation. The shop is called Futurista and is near Old Town Square.

A Czech cubist tea set

Can't you picture it in a
Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers
elegant NY penthouse?

These cubist tea set designs were created by
Pavel Janek
who worked with Josef Gocar
to create Rondo-Cubism

I was delighted to learn that
one of his other well-known designs
is Palace Adria
a gorgeous building near Mustek
where you can go and sit on the balcony
and enjoy the promenade of Prague people below.

Vlatislav Hofman designed
the cubist vases
housed in this ultra-hip
cubist breakfront.

Hofmann also designed
over 300 sets theatre sets.

One way Futurista exceeded my expectations
was the well-founded patriotic pride
of the young staff in their decorative heritage.

Lucie knew her country's artists
and loved sharing the beauty they created.

A cubist chair

What flowers would you arrange
in these vases to do them justice?

For me, if it was autumn,
dried bittersweet and sumac.

How it must delight Czechs
to have a design movement
that is all theirs.

In addition to his own Czech design heritage,
Miracek was crazy about Delft design
in the Netherlands.

The building that houses Futurista
is ancient
and has undergone countless remodelings
through the centuries.

If you go,
enjoy the glass bottom in the first floor
looking down to the gothic basement
where all the furniture is kept.

See the bottom of the window well
in the picture above?
That used to be the door jamb
for the first floor
back in medieval times.

David loved talking about
the modernist furniture
for sale in the basement.

I didn't understand the point
of this cheesy Communist poster
but David said native Czechs love to buy it
because ugly baby
and Dad with excessive sideburns
are very familiar to them as a
humorous memory of those times.

Mod meets art deco

An art deco breakfront

A way-cool white leather
executive table
and chairs

More modernist office furniture

I love this modernist plant stand.
I just need a super cool modernist
Prague apartment to go with it.

David said this sort of plastic office desk
with side fold-out drawers is so familiar to Czechs
they hate it and never want to see it again.

To a foreigner like me,
it's just one more fabulously cool
modernist experiment.

Futurista has started a web page. So far it only has one page to it, and it's in Czech, so I've linked in my title to the only store in North America that is devoted to mid-century Czech furniture and design. It's in New York City, of course; it's called the Prague Kolektiv.

Wonderful English Language Theatre in Prague

One of the nice things about having a large English-speaking population in Prague is that expats have started to create and grow their own institutions. We are like the population of a smaller town within a larger city. We can keep the doors open to special gathering spots like bars, restaurants, and theaters on our own.

This weekend a friend and I went to see Glengarry Glen Ross, the Pulitzer-prize winning play by American David Mamet. It was presented by the Prague Playhouse under the direction of Brian Caspe. The play was held in a cozy theater called Divadlo Inspirace. The theater holds about 70 people in the gothic basement of Malostranske namesti 13, a stunningly beautiful part of town. The whole place, including the foyer where beer was sold, had the feeling of a secret clubhouse. Who else should be there but Blogging Gelle and a whole row of his pals, which was a fun surprise.

When I saw this play as a movie with Al Pacino and Jack Lemmon, I found the language so brutal it was hard to get passed it. But as Mamet said when he wrote his play set in a real estate sales office in Florida, "this is how real estate guys really do talk to each other." This time I was prepared for the language and was able to see the humor and the humanity of the characters.

There is a masterful opening monologue by actor Curtis Mathew, who played Shelly Levene, "the Machine" who tried to persuade his boss that he had just hit a selling dry spell and only needed the best leads to turn it all around. Throughout the play, Curtis did a great job showcasing the ego dejection of his dry spell and the ego inflation of turning it around.

If you've every been around a sales team, or managed a sales team, you will thoroughly enjoy the point-by-point account of how he closed a sale. Who hasn't heard a business war story retold in detail like that in real life? Heck, who hasn't told one!

There is another monologue I love in this play where one man accuses another of "being like a child" but I won't tell you anymore about it. I have to leave some surprises, right?

As usual, the Prague price for this professionally-acted theater is fantastic: 200 kc or $10 a seat. Brian predicts the show will sell out. Click on my title if you are interested in seeing the play on the remaining three dates that have seats available.

I would like to ask Czechs learning English if hearing and seeing an English language play is easier to understand than hearing an English-language movie? What do you think, my dear Czech friends?