Church made of human bones in Kutná Hora, Czech Republic

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pIn the Czech Republic there is a small church which is actually an ossuary; its real name is Kostnice Sedlec, but its English nickname “the Church of Bones” is pretty accurate and descriptive. The small building is full of decoratively-arranged human bones. Today, Masayo and I visited the amazing and sobering Church of Bones and got to explore the town of Kutná Hora a little besides. And, after the awful blood sugars of yesterday, none was over 200 today. A victory!

It all started at 9:00 am, when my blood sugar was 121. I’m good at morning BGs when I’m really high before bed the night before; the corrective Humalog had done its job.

Breakfast was in the dining area of Penzion Centrum — bread (way more than Masayo and I could eat) plus a choice of meat. I had eggs and bacon. Plus coffee, which they served in cups full of coffee grounds. We’ve been getting this from time to time (but inconsistently) ever since crossing into Poland from Lithuania and we still don’t understand it. We’re just supposed to drink around the grounds? Why make it harder than it needs to be? We do our best but this is a piece of European culture that so far eludes our understanding.

The bus that never came

After breakfast we left quickly because we were excited to see the Church of Bones. We didn’t feel like walking the two kilometers from Kutná Hora to the little village of Sedlec (pronounced “sed lets”) so I had researched which bus to take. We strolled to a bus stop near Old Town and waited.

And waited. And waited.

We studied the posted schedule, which seemed to indicate that a bus would be coming in about 20 minutes. But we weren’t convinced: nobody else was waiting with us, and there was a quiet and closed-down feel to the area. (It’s Saturday and I noticed that a nearby shop had opening hours of 6:00–10:00 am this morning. Who closes at 10:00 Saturday morning? Why open at all??)

Giving up on the bus we decided to walk after all. I never did figure out why the bus wasn’t running. It was reminiscent of Warsaw, Poland. Just some unexplainable thing that you don’t understand as an outsider. Shrug and adapt.

The road between Kutná Hora and Sedlec isn’t all that interesting, just a regular road with a sidewalk and (today) lots of closed shops and apartment blocks. But look on the bright side: it’s real Czech Republic, not a touristy or ancient medieval town. Just the surroundings of the locals. Pleasantly prosaic!

Side trip into a Cathedral

Once in Sedlec we first arrived at the grandly named Cathedral of Assumption of Our Lady and St. John the Baptist. It’s a large and impressive building, and we opted to pay the entrance fee to go in and see it, opting for the audio tour as well. Masayo and I each wore our headphones and strolled around the cathedral for about 30 minutes. The sculptures were striking and colorful, and there was a small display case with fifteenth-century human remains in it – a taste of things to come this afternoon.

The Church of Bones

Down a little side road from the Cathedral was today’s main attraction — Kostnice Sedlec, or in English the “Sedlec Ossuary”. We finally made it to the Church of Bones!

I had first seen this church in a documentary called Long Way Round following the actor Ewan MacGregor and a friend as they rode motorcycles through Europe and then around the world and back to the UK. They visited this church on the way, and it stuck in my mind as a strange place even though afterwards I didn’t exactly remember what country they had been in.

A few days ago however Masayo and I realized we’d be close to it, hence this trip to Kutná Hora in the first place. And it’s all because of Ewan!

So today was our turn. We paid the admission and got the audio tour, which cost the same as the one in the Cathedral but was much, much shorter (the Church of Bones is basically one smallish room with piles of carefully-arranged bones in piles behind screens and chandeliers and wall hangings). The audio tour probably wasn’t really worth it, to be honest.

The admission was definitely worth it though — the bones of over 30,000 people, many of them victims of the Black Death, give the place an obviously creepy and sepulchral atmosphere, bringing the fact that we’re all headed to death ourselves eventually right out into the open. All you can do is gawk and laugh nervously; the Church of Bones is quite an experience.

Its centerpiece is a giant chandelier made of bones that is said to include at least one of every type of bone in the human body. Word is that people who were dying wanted to be buried at this small church because it was supposed to be particularly holy, so many that it overwhelmed the small space. Due to the overabundance of bones some enterprising and perhaps ghoulish person decided to use them as decorations.

As one would.

Besides the bones, the building is made of cold, grey stone, candles, and dust. A perfect place for 30,000 disassembled skeletons. Masayo and I took photos and tried to get over the fact that we were among all these actual human bones. To this end, and to get a diabetes selfie like no other, I checked my blood sugar while inside. The spirits in the church were looking out for me – I was 94.

A small room upstairs doesn’t have any bones, but is the actual chapel evidently still used for regular services. There was a set of twelve beautiful pieces of art hung on the walls depicting angular, industrial-looking figures, colorful and highly stylized and lovingly showing various religious scenes.

Having had our fill of large mounds of reminders of mortality, Masayo and I walked all the way back to Kutná Hora and by the time we got there I felt low. I didn’t even check — I knew it was low. So I ate a Mars Bar that I was carrying and we found a restaurant called U Vlašskeho Dvora for lunch. (Always carry low BG snack when you travel!)

The place was big but mostly empty and the food was great. I ordered chicken with green beans in a garlic sauce, plus little fried potato balls. Excellent after being low and walking around all morning in the chilly Czech air of November. As I finished my food I checked and was 173 so I finally took my Humalog. Handling a low is harder than I’ve given it credit for recently in my diabetic life; timing is particularly important.

I’d used the last blood sugar strip I had on me but fortunately our pension was close by so we stopped in and I got a new bottle from my bag (plus a new Humalog pen). I really should be sure I have everything I need before setting out in the morning. What a rookie mistake.

Then it was off to see a large building Masayo had spotted from a lookout behind the church next to our room — the other cathedral in the area, St. Barbara’s.

St. Barbara’s

The walk there was nice, not too long and over hilly cobblestoned streets, with a few other tourists walking around too. St. Barbara’s Cathedral is another really big one, and the ornate construction on the outside was stunning. We paid the admission inside here too, but decided against the audio tours.

St. Barbara’s is full of ornate carvings and things like that. The ceiling is super high and there are statues and frescoes hundreds of years old. I found it quite humbling to be in their presence; it must have taken endless hours and an absolutely devoted spirit to complete all this.

Back down in town everything seemed closed. This place really becomes a ghost town on weekends. We finally found a couple of open general stores and flea market-type places, staffed by Asian people. I very nearly bought a new day pack from one stall, mine starting to give out, but at the last minute decided it wasn’t quite right.

Back in the room after dark my BG was 187 at 5:00. I’ll take that after dealing with the low and the unusual lunch. We’d already decided that dinner would be takeout pizza from Vita, a place right across the cobblestoned alleyway from our room. We had our evening all planned out: Vita had pizza by the slice so we’d get some and then eat it in our room. After that, we’d go to another place right outside our room — Blues Cafe, where we could get some coffee and cake for dessert and where they had crates full of vinyl records for me to look through. An old-school music fan, this was going to be so much fun. And their sign said they’d be open until midnight.

Unfortunately things wouldn’t be that smooth.

Our pizza plan didn’t work out as expected — Vita was closing in half an hour and was out of slices, but they could make any complete pizza we wanted. It was too much for us, but I figured we could save the rest for lunch tomorrow. We got a half and half pizza, and it was only 108 koruna (about $5).

Having an entire pizza at your disposal changes your insulin plan in a hurry, and I had every reason to believe that this wasn’t going to end well for me. It usually doesn’t with pizza, not if I eat several slices of big, thick pie. But what can you do? This was the dinner that the travel gods had given us. We ate in the room and watched John Cleese on the Bill Maher show.

And I kept eating — Masayo had three slices and I ate everything else. There was nothing left over for lunch tomorrow! I was shocked I had eaten so much more than I’d planned, but I took some extra insulin in a valiant attempt to end up with a normal blood sugar. And I was still hungry enough for dessert at Blues Cafe.

To my great surprise and disappointment, Blues Cafe was closed and dark, with a little handwritten note pinned to the door saying that today — and only today — they had closed early, at 8 pm.

So we went to the mini market that was still open and got cookies for dessert. What a letdown. I was looking forward to hanging out in the quiet little cafe and looking at records. And tomorrow we’re leaving town; this is our last chance.

But I got some excellent diabetes news later on: having figured about 30g of carbs per slice of pizza, I’d managed to have my BG wind up at 191 by 11:00 pm! Not perfect, but not twice that reading either. I think that’s a job well done if I do say so my own self. Hopefully this will help me stop being so afraid to take what I know in my heart to be the proper dose for large meals.

A day of all sub-200 blood sugars, plus two giant cathedrals, plus a Church of Bones. Plus some great food both high- and low-brow. Now that’s a pretty excellent day, the kind of thing you can’t experience unless you go out and hit the road yourself. Thanks Kutná Hora.

Tomorrow we’re moving again, to Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. I’m excited!

What’s the most interesting church you’ve ever visited?

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