Day trip to Kutna Hora

It fair to say we both woke up feeling a bit dusty after the night before, but we just managed to make it onto the 8am train bound for Kutna Hora, a small silver mining town in the Middle Ages located around an hour from Prague.

Arriving in Kutna Hora

View over Kutna Hora

On the Train ride we met a lovely local guy who is a lawyer for Czech Airlines which apparently is one of the oldest airlines in the world, who knew!? He gave us some great recommendations for places to eat and drink in Prague and also towns to visit if ever make it back to the Czech Republic. Getting off the train our first destination was the Silver Mine Museum, Jacobs top recommendation for what to do in Kutna Hora. This isn’t really a traditional museum, it is more like a guided tour as they took you through the original mining tunnels which are up to 9 meters below the surface. Jacob had said that this tour was a really unique experience so we headed straight to the counter to sign ourselves up to the next available tour. This was all going well until the lady at the counter asked where we were from, to which we replied New Zealand and she responded, “oh great, the tour is in English but would you like a Dutch translation card…?” Trent and I both looked at her with very confused expressions and said that it was ok because English was our first language. Clearly this still didn’t compute as we were still given the Dutch translation card just before the tour started! We can only assume the poor lady believes that New Zealand is located somewhere in the Netherlands.

Starting the Silver Mining Tour

One of the mines entrances

We got kitted up with white lab coats and hard hats and head lamps, and were told it gets pretty narrow and low in parts of the tunnels – 120cm to be precise, I was ok but the lady looked up at Trent and laughed… The first bonus of being underground was that it was nice and cool, but other than that it was also very interesting to learn about and experience the conditions that the miners from the 1500’s would have worked in every day. At one point our guide got everyone in the group to turn off their lights so that we could experience the feeling of total darkness. It was quite an eerie experience not even being able to see your hand when it is right in front of your face. Back on the surface we couldn’t stop talking about how much fun the tour was, although Trent decided he definitely wouldn’t have lasted very long as a miner back in the day!

All kitted up!

Deep within the mine

Tight squeeze!

At the end

Both of us in our Silver Mining gear

Other than the silver mines, Kutna Hora is also home to two very impressive Cathedrals and an Ossuary (Bone Church), which we explored in the afternoon before jumping back on the train to Prague. Arriving back late in the evening we grabbed dinner at one of the restaurants recommended to us by the guy on the train to Kutna Hora, then headed back to the apartment to pack for our early departure the next morning.

Cathedral in Kutna Hora

View from the Cathedral

Prague is such a beautiful city, however unfortunately it was absolutely crawling with tourists during our stay so there was definitely the odd frustrating moment; like when you’re halfway through reading an information board and someone stands right in front of you, or when the classic ignorant tourist walks right through the middle of the photo you are taking :-(. With that said we still thoroughly enjoyed our stay and we left for Poland feeling much more educated on the cities architecture and immense history.