When we planned to visit Prague, a part of it was to see a nearby city.

Most likely, every well-versed person in geography knows that it is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic, and it used to be the capital of Bohemia or one of the largest kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire. Do not confuse the Roman Empire during the Pre-Christian with the Holy Roman Empire. When you think of the Holy Roman Empire, we are talking about the Medieval Christian Church, the Church-sponsored monarchy, feudalism, and the joint ruling of the Holy Pope and the anointed King. Also, a well-versed in geography knows that some 83 km away from Prague eastward is Kutná Hora, the once-upon-a-time economic capital of Bohemia.

And yes, the nearby city we visited was Kutná Hora.

Like Prague, the City of Kutná Hora is a World Heritage Site. The center, including the Sedlec Abbey and its ossuary and the Cathedral of Our Lady, also located in Sedlec, was inscribed in the UNESCO list in 1995 because its urban fabric was endowed with many buildings of high architectural and artistic quality, notably the Church St Barbara, which had a profound influence on subsequent developments in the architecture of Central Europe. The historic town center constitutes an outstanding example of a medieval town whose wealth and prosperity was based on its silver mines.

We learned from our amazing and kind tour guide, Kutná Hora developed due to the exploitation of the silver mines. In the 14th century, it became a royal city with monuments symbolizing its prosperity: The Church of St Barbara, a jewel of the late Gothic period, and the Cathedral of Our Lady at Sedlec, restored in line with the Baroque taste of the early 18th century. As stipulated in the UNESCO page, these masterpieces today form part of a well-preserved medieval urban fabric with some magnificent private dwellings.

The most striking of Kutná Hora is the church of Saint Barbara, the Gothic jewel whose interior is decorated with frescoes depicting the secular life of the medieval mining town of Kutná Hora. The former Cistercian cathedral, Our Lady of Sedlec, which is 1.5 km northeast of the historic center, was restored in the Baroque style in the early 18th century by Jan Blazej Santini. For the first time, he used his conception of the Baroque Gothic style which strongly influenced the history of architecture.

A little yard away from the Cathedral is the Sedlec Abbey and the ossuary, which as detailed in the previous post, presented the bizarre and the extraordinary, the beautiful and the grotesque, the amusement and the morbid. This, for me, is another unique feature of the city: how the dead loved ones are commemorated. I should add there is a memorial to the people who died during the Bubonic Plague, adjacent to the cemetery. It is a simple structure but worth looking at if you are a fan of history.

Unlike Prague, Kutná Hora has fewer tourists. If your goal is to wonder and experience awe of the beauty and charm of the fairy-tale-like city, then Kutná Hora is for you. Prague is overly populated by tourists, which makes the experience less amusing and often even tiring. It is the total opposite in Kutná Hora. It is expected to capture the picture-perfect landscape without the sea of tourists as photobombers.

Prague is so huge that ingesting its historical narrative is impossible within a day. Kutná Hora is not as sizable as Prague, but it does not mean it isn’t huge. The socio-cultural narrative of the city is somehow straightforward: it’s a community of silver miners, and the monuments built were tributes to their mining community members. The other structures worth a space in the photo gallery include the former Jesuit College opposite Santa Barbara Church, the beautiful shophouses, the vineyards, the Silver mine museum, the city from Santa Barbara viewing deck, the imposing landscape at the view deck below the city, the Italian Court and its courtyard, other Churches in the city.

The town’s name was derived from the eponymous mountain hora of the Central Bohemian Region. According to legends, the name of the mountain was derived from the monks’ cowls or hoods, which is called kutten in vernacular: From Kutten Hora to Kutná Hora. Another legend is that the city name is derived from the old German term kutte which literally means pit (as in the pit of the mines). However, the local attribute the name of their city to the Czech words kutit (to work) and kutat (to mine).