Still with us? Of course you are. On two occasions on this trip, we came in relatively close contact with some things you just don't see on this side of the Atlantic.
At St. Stephen's Basilica in Budapest, you will see a lovely church, but if you go into the little room to the left of the altar, you can also see a mummified hand. And not just anyone's mummified hand, but St. Stephen's himself. The hand looked, well, a little small, but I'm sure that just has something to do with the mummification process. Meanwhile, I was jostled by enough people who were trying to get up close for a photo with the hand (which is behind glass, of course) that I wasn't sure what was more grotesque: the hand or the tourists!
Later, while in Prague, we took a half-day trip to Kutna Hora. It's an hour's train-ride to the east. It was good to get out of the big city and see a Czech town. But we were really there for the bones. In the 1300s, Kutna Hora was a rival to Prague, made rich off of its silver mine. An enterprising monk returned to Kutna Hora with soil from Jerusalem and spread it at the local cemetery. As a result, tens of thousands of people wanted to be buried there. Years later, someone decided it would be a good idea to arrange the bones of some 40,000 people in the Sedlec ossuary. Personally, I don't know whether it was a good idea, but it does bring the tourists.
If you go to Kutna Hora, I recommend getting a round-trip ticket from Prague to Kutna Hora-mesto. You will switch trains at Kutna Hora's main train station (which is outside of town) and board the little train into town. Get off at the Sedlec station for the ossuary (you really only need about 10 minutes there) and the "mesto" station for the main town, where you can go down into the silver mine (beware, tickets sold out by 1:30 PM on our visit) and St. Barbara's Cathedral.
Scroll down, if you want to see the photos ...
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| St. Stephen's hand in Budapest. |
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| Some of the bones on display in Kutna Hora. |
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