Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Kamenný dům
Václavské náměstí 183 • Tues-Sun: April & Oct 9am-5pm; May, June & Sept 9am-6pm; July & Aug
10am-6pm; Nov 10am-4pm • 50Kč • cms-kh.cz
The Kamenný dům , built around 1480, with an oriel window and a steep gable covered in
an ornate sculptural icing, now contains a branch of the Czech Silver Museum , focusing on
the life of the townsfolk between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries.
Voršilský klášter (Ursuline convent)
Poděbradova 288 • April & Oct Sat & Sun 9am-4pm; May-Sept Tues-Sun 9am-5.30pm • Free
Kutná Hora's Ursuline convent, or Voršilský klášter , was begun by Kilian Ignaz Dientzen-
hoferbutremainsunfinishedtothisday.Justthreesidesoftheconvent'sambitiouspentagon-
al plan were actually built, its neo-Baroque church being added in the late nineteenth century
while sv Barbora was being restored. The convent was shut down by the Communists in
1950, but the nuns returned here in 1989.
Nanebevzetí Panny Marie
Zámecká 127, Sedlec • April-Oct Mon-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 11am-5pm; Nov-March Mon-Sat 10am-4pm, Sun
11am-5pm • 50Kč • 327 561 143
InthesuburbofSedlec,thefourteenth-century churchofNanebevzetíPannyMarie adjoins
the defunct eighteenth-century Cistercian monastery (now the largest tobacco factory in
Europe, owned by Philip Morris). The building was imaginatively redesigned in the eight-
eenth century by Santini-Aichl, who specialized in melding Gothic with Baroque - most
of his creations are so architecturally unique they have been given World Cultural Heritage
status by UNESCO. Here, given a plain French Gothic church gutted during the Hussite
Wars, Santini set to work on the vaulting, adding his characteristic sweeping stucco rib pat-
terns, relieved only by the occasional Baroque splash of colour above the chancel steps.
Kostnice (Ossuary)
Zámecká, Sedlec • Daily: March & Oct 9am-5pm; April-Sept 8am-6pm; Nov-Feb 9am-4pm • 90Kč • 326
551 049, ossuary.eu
ThemainattractioninthesuburbofSedlecliesbeneaththe Kostelvšechsvatých (AllSaints
Church) - just one of the town's Santini-Aichl makeovers - in the form of a ghoulish kost-
nice , the mother of all ossuaries, full to overflowing with human bones. When holy earth
from Golgotha was scattered over the graveyard in the twelfth century, all of Bohemia's no-
bility wanted to be buried here, so when the cemetery was reduced in size in the early nine-
teenth century, the bones belonging to some forty thousand people were stored inside the
church. In 1870, worried about the ever-growing skeleton mountain, the authorities commis-
sioned local woodcarver František Rint to do something creative with them. He rose to the
challengeandmouldedoutofbonesfourgiantbells,oneineachcornerofthecrypt,designed
wall-to-ceiling skeletal decorations, including the Schwarzenberg coat of arms, and, as the
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