Kutna Hora’s wealth came from silver, and the town spent it on architecture that still startles. The Cathedral of St. Barbara is a masterpiece of late Gothic ambition — flying buttresses, a trio of tent roofs, and interior frescoes depicting the miners who paid for it all. Walking along the Jesuit College terrace toward the cathedral, with the valley spread below, you understand why this town once rivaled Prague in importance.
Then there is the Sedlec Ossuary — the bone church — where the remains of roughly forty thousand people have been arranged into chandeliers, coat-of-arms, and garlands by an artist with either extraordinary vision or an unusual relationship with mortality. It is strange and beautiful and not quite like anything else. The town beyond these landmarks is quietly charming: a medieval core of stone houses, a former royal mint, and restaurants where you eat well for remarkably little.
When to go: April through October for pleasant weather. Weekday mornings offer the thinnest crowds at the Ossuary and Cathedral.