So this is the first in my recent travel blog series where I just write about where I’ve been and what it was like. You can tell I’m very informal, and this is just my honest opinion on what I’ve seen and where I’ve been.
So I heard about this place where there were loads of human bones and we had a week to fill in Prague so thought it would be a cool place to check out and see what it’s like. I beleive we booked a Viatour package which included the coach transfers and a walkthrough telling us a bit more about the history of the place.
We stopped in a couple of other places near the bone tomb (which is actually called the Sedlec Ossuary by the way) but this post is just about the bone tomb church because that’s probably what you’ve found on Instagram and want to know more about.
What is the Sedlec ossuary bone church?
Well, it’s a church, and the bottom part is filled with bones.
I think our tour guide was saying that everyone wanted to be buried there because supposedly someone went to where Christ was buried and picked up some soil, and then bought it back to Kutna Hora and sprinkled it on the ground outside the church.
Because so many people wanted to be buried there eventually they dug up the old bodies and rearranged the bones, until eventually there were so many there that someone just built neat structures with them inside the tomb area so that everyones body (bones) could remain near the apparently holy ground.
What the Sedlec Ossuary tour was like (Day trip)
Our guide was pretty funny and the whole day seemed to go pretty quick, the bone tomb was good but fairly busy inside. There was actually a fairly long line to get in but because we’d booked a tour who I think had a relationship with the ticket office or something we could skip the line but if you didn’t have that booked, you could be waiting a fair half an hour or so depending on when you come.
Is Kutna Hora scary?
I didn’t find the bones themselves scary, I think the strangest thing was how neatly they were arranged and how they’d stayed neatly arranged for so long. I would have thought they’d tumble off eachother and collapse after a few months let alone a few years.
Tips and advice for visiting Kutna Hora bone church
The lighting in the tomb area is pretty low so if you want to get good pictures maybe bring a camera with a flash or one that can do nightmode and low light like the Sony I use in my vlog (video near the top of this page) but anyone fairly new Iphone should do fine.
As I said there was a pretty big line to get in if you DIDN’T book a tour that could skip the line but other than that it’s fairly easy and a nice day trip. I think you could probably fit more into one day if you wanted, as this tour was over by about 5 so maybe check out some bars in the evening after (although I didn’t because I was super tired after walking around all day).
Aside from the bone church there didn’t seem to be much to do around the town it was in but I didn’t really explore far from the actual church so I might be wrong. Overall it’s a good day out and would make for some good pictures.