Around the World with Marsha & Joel

[Special aside…. We’ve been notified that the first few blog posts, before this one, were not delivered to many email subscribers. We believe we’ve got that fixed, so if this is the first of the posts you are getting, please feel free to go back to the (click here):website version of the blog and the first post for this trip. Catch up and come back here to join us!]

That’s right. On this lovely day (you can’t win them all) it was only the border gate that gave us a hint that we were finally in Bavaria and on our way to Passau. The storms and downpours were pretty violent, but they only lasted for our four hour bus trip. It let up substantially as we arrived at the dock on the Danube where the Viking Embla, all shining and ready, welcomed us with champagne and treats.

I spoke too soon at the end of the last post. We weren’t heading for the boat. We had one more Czech Republic day where we had booked an all day tour east of Prague in the ancient city of Kutná Hora (not the dance).

Kutná Hora is a town in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 22,000 inhabitants. The history of Kutná Hora is linked to silver mining, which made it a rich and rapidly developing town. The centre of Kutná Hora was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995 because of its outstanding architecture and its influence on subsequent architectural developments in other Central European city centers.

When we got off the coach we walked through the commercial part of town where we came across the “Brick” store that turned out to be a Lego store with some amazing constructions. It was a strange stop, foretelling our visit (just a few steps away) to the Sedlec Ossuary. The ossuary is a Roman Catholic chapel, located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints, part of the former Sedlec Abbey in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutná Hora. The ossuary is estimated to contain the skeletons of between 40,000 and 70,000 people, whose bones have, in many cases, been artistically arranged to form decorations and furnishings for the chapel!