the Cathedral (Church?) of Assumption of Our Lady and St. John the Baptist is a Gothic/Baroque church listed in the Unesco World Heritage list as part of the Kutna Hora sites and it is really close to the Sedlec Ossuary. It is one of the oldest Borque Gothic style churches built around 1300 in the Kingdom of Bohemia. It was a Cistercian Abbey initially, was burnt down by the Hussites and then stayed in ruin for another two centuries. It was rebuilt in 1700 in the original style and consecrated again in 1708.
What is most striking to us is the austere yellow-painted interior, so different from most Catholic churches we have been into. The high ceiling is also quite impressive, we can understand why it was included in the Unesco WHS list.
There are a few tourists here, fewer than at the Ossuary or more spread out really given the size of the cathedral. We walk around admiring the altar and the confession booths while keeping an eye out for stairs to climb to the balcony which seems to be visitable.
During our exploration we find also a gilded reliquary holding the relics of Vincent of Saragossa, the patron saint of Lisbon and Valencia. Quite far really, we wonder if it isn’t a different Vincent of Saragossa?!
And then off one of the corridors we find what we are looking for, the spiral staircase going up towards what we assume is the balcony. It is actually quite a large staircase compared to the usual narrow ones climbing in towers, we really like this.
We are surprised however as at the top the passage from one balcony to the pipe organ is leading under the roof on a seemingly improvised passage, which holds an modern portrait exhibit. Quite unexpected.
Both from the side balcony and the organ pipe at one end of the church we have some great views of the church. It is really impressive and we like the fact that there are fewer tourists compared to more popular sites. In fact we have the organ pipe viewpoint to ourselves for some minutes allowing us to enjoy the views and take photos.
From here we have to go to Kutna Hora and our decision is to do it on foot. It is about half hour away via a nice creek-side path which we hope is shaded given the temperatures outside. It is a nice walk with ducks, chickadees and other birds flitting around us and just a few people really enjoying this well maintained path.
However on return we plan on taking the train that makes a roundtrip from Kutna Hora downtown to Kutna Hora central train station about every hour. This way we can be sure to make it in time for our return trip to Prague. But this is not yet on our mind, it is time to explore the downtown area and make our way to the Church of St Barbara on the other side of town.
