Today, we went to our second, and last, round of mandatory trips through ECES. I picked the trip to Cesky Sternberk and Kunta Hora, which probably don’t mean anything to people who don’t know much about the Czech Republic. The first place we went was the Cesky Sternberk castle, which is a beautiful Gothic castle about an hour and a half outside of Prague. It's kind of up a mountain to get to it, but it is a beautiful structure. The high outer walls are somewhere between two and three meters thick all throughout the castle, so it would take a lot of energy and money to heat the whole building, so they just don't bother. Inside, there were wonderful stucco artwork all over the walls everywhere. The furniture was from all different areas in time and it was so cool to see all the thing that they had collected there over the time. One of the ladies who had lived there in the past collected silver miniatures which were so intricate it was amazing. Her husband, after realizing that he had nothing to collect, decided that he should collect pipes, which was weird since he never smoked. Some of the pipes were so long that none of us could understand how anyone would be able to light them. The bad part about that place was that they didn't allow pictures to be taken from inside unless you got some over priced stickers, which I didn't see where to get, so I didn't get any pictures. But that turned out to be alright, since I was low on battery life and there were lots of things that wanted to get pictures of today. The really unique thing that they had there, and have a lot of places over here, was hot wine. It tasted like hot cider almost, but just more of a grape kind of taste. They had it in a black pot that was suspended over a fire. It was seemed like we were just back in the past with all that.
From there, we went down to the city of Kutna Hora, a historical Czech city. It was full of beautiful architecture and cute little shops. I ended up taking a lot of pictures while I was walking around the city, which I'm going to end up posting at some time on the smugmug account. We ended up getting a tradition Czech lunch, which was really good. I got garlic soup, which tasted amazing, but was really strong. From there, we went to a cute little wooden toys shop that looked like it was filled with handmade toys. There was an older couple working the shop and they didn't speak English, so I'm not sure if they made them, but they were so pretty. Most of the toys were child friendly, but as we were looking at them, the man working there brought over one of the toys that he thought we would like. It was a wooden toy that had a button on the bottom that you could press to make the couple on the top of thing have sex. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen, especially surrounded by all the innocent toys in the rest of the shop.
We then met up with the whole group and went to St. Barbara's cathedral, a Gothic cathedral in the city of Kunta Hora. When it was being built, according to legend, the architect was worried that the building would collapse from the weight of the building on thin walls. When the building was finished, they were collapsing the scaffolding and, thinking that he heard the whole building falling, he jumped off the cliff next to the cathedral to save himself the embarrassment of such a huge failure. Inside, the church was covered in wonderful stained glass works and elaborate alters to various saints. There was also the most beautiful organ I think I've ever seen. On the top of the pipes, there were statues of different angels forming a band, including an angel playing a set of timpani.
Then we loaded back onto the bus to see the Sedlec Charnel House, the highlight of the day. This was a church that has become famous for two very different reasons. The first is that a priest once visited the hill where Jesus was crucified and took some of the sand from that hill and spread it around the base of this church. Because of that, many people wanted to be burried there, which caused a massive buildup of bodies laying around. One day, someone decided that, if they're gonna have all these bodies around, they might as well put them to use. They took the bones from some 40,000 people to use for artwork inside the building. Everywhere I looked, there were different bones being used in the most interesting ways I've ever seen. The one thing that seemed the most out of place in my mind was the baby angel playing a horn while holding a human skull in the other hand. It was also really interesting to see how they used the bones to write out words on the wall. Personally, I would love something that to happen with my bones when I die, it just seems so interesting. It's like these people have been given immortality by becoming something more than they could have ever become without with. Before this artwork, they were just rotting, nameless corpses, but now they are part of a, exhibit which will be marveled at for hundreds of years. After we left there, we headed back to the dorm for the night.
From there, we went down to the city of Kutna Hora, a historical Czech city. It was full of beautiful architecture and cute little shops. I ended up taking a lot of pictures while I was walking around the city, which I'm going to end up posting at some time on the smugmug account. We ended up getting a tradition Czech lunch, which was really good. I got garlic soup, which tasted amazing, but was really strong. From there, we went to a cute little wooden toys shop that looked like it was filled with handmade toys. There was an older couple working the shop and they didn't speak English, so I'm not sure if they made them, but they were so pretty. Most of the toys were child friendly, but as we were looking at them, the man working there brought over one of the toys that he thought we would like. It was a wooden toy that had a button on the bottom that you could press to make the couple on the top of thing have sex. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen, especially surrounded by all the innocent toys in the rest of the shop.
We then met up with the whole group and went to St. Barbara's cathedral, a Gothic cathedral in the city of Kunta Hora. When it was being built, according to legend, the architect was worried that the building would collapse from the weight of the building on thin walls. When the building was finished, they were collapsing the scaffolding and, thinking that he heard the whole building falling, he jumped off the cliff next to the cathedral to save himself the embarrassment of such a huge failure. Inside, the church was covered in wonderful stained glass works and elaborate alters to various saints. There was also the most beautiful organ I think I've ever seen. On the top of the pipes, there were statues of different angels forming a band, including an angel playing a set of timpani.
Then we loaded back onto the bus to see the Sedlec Charnel House, the highlight of the day. This was a church that has become famous for two very different reasons. The first is that a priest once visited the hill where Jesus was crucified and took some of the sand from that hill and spread it around the base of this church. Because of that, many people wanted to be burried there, which caused a massive buildup of bodies laying around. One day, someone decided that, if they're gonna have all these bodies around, they might as well put them to use. They took the bones from some 40,000 people to use for artwork inside the building. Everywhere I looked, there were different bones being used in the most interesting ways I've ever seen. The one thing that seemed the most out of place in my mind was the baby angel playing a horn while holding a human skull in the other hand. It was also really interesting to see how they used the bones to write out words on the wall. Personally, I would love something that to happen with my bones when I die, it just seems so interesting. It's like these people have been given immortality by becoming something more than they could have ever become without with. Before this artwork, they were just rotting, nameless corpses, but now they are part of a, exhibit which will be marveled at for hundreds of years. After we left there, we headed back to the dorm for the night.
I am really glad that they are having these mandatory trips so that you can experience more of the Czech culture and area. It sounds amazing.
ReplyDelete