kutna hora day 1

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Woke up this morning and had a nice breakfast of food bought the previous day, bagels, nutella, long lady finder like rolls with cheese and bacon baked on the top, coffee…and the yogrt we thought we bought turned out to be sour cream..i still had a nice helping of it as some dairy was good for breakfast.

Packed up our stuff and out the hostle door by 9:00. Took the subway to the main train station, bought tickets to kutna hora and on the train by 9:30…very efficient and easy..love it.
Train experience was awesome….nice clean train, if not kinda old and soviet era type…lots of molded green plastic and old metal….but nice….most comfortable seat ive had all week…the seats on the train were so comfortable and relaxing..watching the countryside go by…lots of old houses with gardens and chickens roaming…fields with what looked like mustard plants growing all the way…old houses interspersed with soviet era concrete houses in between.
Get to kutna hora..little ut of the way train station..quiet peacefukl…if not run down..but nice…walk about ½ mile into the little town above kutna hora..sedlec…walked right to bone chapel….our hostle I made plans witht the night before was full evidently…so we saw the bone chapel and was going to look for a place after that….one of the people at the bone chapel (seems there were only 2 20 something working there) drove a shuttle van to the center of the city for 35 cz a pice ($1.50) so we took that…on the way to the shuttle just outside he asked if we were staying..i said our sleeping arrangements fell through so we were looking….basically he helped us find a place by driving us around to 2 of the camping places….gave us a great local bar with cheap food and beer and no tourests! Gave us a map with these places marked…told us a little about the place..so nice!
Came to camping santa barabra, a place I saw online and was going to book….anyway it was closed but the guy there opened up for us and in our broken English and much gesturing and laughing at our inability to speak to each other..was able to get the camping place paid for…electricity figured out..found a place to put up the tent…and got more than our share of shower tokens…very nice….knowing please and thank you really goes so far…and a lot of my Buddhist hand prayer thank gesture bowing that I do..people get the drift and smile a lot…its nice…have encountered only a very few people who are kind of snotty or exascerbated at a tourists in their midst..most are so wonderful and helpful. A lady at the market by wencenlas square even heard us talking about prices for produce and told us prices were much cheaper is we go to the end of the market..all the while the stall owner giving her the evil eye..(yay!)
Beautiful camping spot..even has a nice bar inside, with a porch out back…fire pit ring….clean wonderful bathroom place….will be fun! Going to get a beer soon and watch some tv..maybe we will stay here for 2 days…wander kutna hora….famous for the bone chapel..but also the biggest plague monument in Europe I think…the queen from Vienna came here and marveled at it..as the one here was bigger than the one in Vienna. Also perhaps an alchemy museum..must find that. I think they also have one of those metal single person luge rides here too…gotta check that out..hope my fat ass fits on one..they look small in the pic.
Well the guy saw us sitting on the porch and invited us in to sit inside with the tv…before it was open…got a nice pilsner beer for both of us…2 glasses of nice pilsner urquell…50cz ($ 2.15)!! how awesome is that??!!!
Ok he gave us 1 dark beer and 1 pilsner…..i cant believe it but the dark beer is smoother and not as bitter as the light beer….I DO LIKE BEER HERE IN EUROPE!! HUZZAH!!

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Comments

[Charla]

Pics
Thanks for the pics.They look cool.Wish I could get them to display bigger cause I'd love to see some of them better! Glad your travels are going well!

[Sarah]

Yellow plants
The fields of yellow flowers are rapeseed. Kind of the European equivalent of soy beans. Most of the cooking oil you encounter is made from rapeseed. It did not agree with my stomach. :( It does make for pretty fields, though. :)

[Ursula]

Now you've tasted real beer
you'll never be able to go back to Bud and Miller! It's imports or homebrew for you, baby. SO HAPPY you're having such a great time! Rock the road!

[adventure duo]

also in the bone chapel
this pic 3 is in the bone chapel

[pop]

what does it mean
wondering what kutna hora trnslates into in english. could it mean royal one like in roots.

[Ellie]

Kutna Hora
"Hora" means "mountain". Regarding the word "Kutna", it sounds similar to "kutat" = "to mine" and many people think this is the right meaning; but in fact it comes from Cuthna Antiqua (the older name - like 13th century - of the town), meaning "and old cape". Because according to a legend, there was an old monk, who once went for a walk in the woods and found three silver rods sticking out of the ground. He covered them with his cape and ran back to the monastery to tell the other monks, and this is how silver was discovered in Kutna Hora and the mining began. So, its "Cape Mountain" :)