From the river trail that we used to get from the Sedlec Cathedral we pass close to the train station that serves the downtown area so we have at least an idea where to return and then start climbing towards the Central Square. The area here is eerily quiet with narily a person on the streets, quite spooky. The houses however are quite nice for a provincial town. In fact Kutna Hora is famous due to its silver mines that led to a serious boom in the medieval times when it competed with Prague for the title of most important city in Bohemia.
However not all houses are well maintained now, some have holes in them (complete with pigeons) and some really do need a painting job to spruce them up.
As we climb we see a church to the right and decide for a detour to see if it is open. It is not but at least we can see the interior through some grates and even more importantly we can enjoy the coolness of the antechamber. In fact two more tourists had the same idea and seem to have taken over the antechamber so after cooling off it is time to continue climbing towards the market.
The houses appear to be in much better condition as we approach the center of town and some are quite impressive. We really like the ivy covered houses, they look like something from a movie.
And then we are in the Central Square, not yet on top of the hill, but quite a bit more lively still. There is even an open open-air restaurant and some open stores, it doesn’t look like a ghost town anymore.
Now it is time to turn left towards the Church of Saint James, which is closed, and then follow some narrow and winding lanes towards St Barbara.
There are a lot more tourists here than we have seen during our climb, it seems that this is the tourist center of Kutna Hora. At least most streets are pedestrian only which is quite nice.
On the way we pass Hradek, the Little Castle, a former fortified house and now the City Museum focused mostly on silver.
The last stretch to the St Barbara Church is on a promenade that mirrors Charles Bridge in Prague, without the pesky water though. It just has the statues, lots and lots of them. At this point with the sun beating down on us we are really looking forward to St Barbara Church that we see just in front of us and is our next goal.
