Sedlec Ossuary

Sedlec Ossuary tickets: which one to buy

The ossuary has its own timed ticket, bought online or at the visitor centre next door, and slots sell out in summer; walking up without a booking often means a wait or a refusal. A combined ticket covers the ossuary, the Cathedral of the Assumption beside it and St Barbara's Church in the town, and costs little more than two separate entries, which makes it the sensible buy. Photography inside requires an additional permit, sold with the ticket, and the rule is enforced.

Guided tours are included at certain times. Day trips from Prague take an hour each way by train to Kutna Hora and a local connection or a ten-minute walk; going independently is cheap and easy. Organised tours from Prague cost many times the fares and usually include both churches and the silver museum. The site is small, so allow twenty minutes inside and plan the rest of the day in the town.

Visiting Sedlec Ossuary: what to see

In 1278 the abbot of Sedlec brought back a handful of earth from Golgotha and scattered it over the abbey cemetery, which made this the most desirable burial ground in central Europe. The Black Death and the Hussite wars filled it, and when a Gothic church was built in the middle of the graveyard around 1400 the bones unearthed were stacked in the lower chapel. In 1870 the Schwarzenberg family hired a woodcarver, Frantisek Rint, to do something with them.

He bleached the bones and arranged the remains of between 40,000 and 70,000 people into furnishings: four pyramids in the corners, a chandelier in the centre said to contain every bone in the human body, garlands of skulls across the vault, chalices, monstrances, the Schwarzenberg coat of arms complete with a raven pecking a Turk's eye, and his own signature on the wall by the door, also in bone.

Sedlec Ossuary opening hours and the best time to go

Open daily from morning to evening in summer, closing earlier from October to March, with the last entry half an hour before. The timed system keeps the chapel from overfilling, but it is a small underground room and even twenty people feels like many. First and last slots are best. The chapel is cool year-round and the stairs down are steep. Photography needs the permit and flash is banned.

It is a consecrated chapel and staff ask for quiet; it is not recommended for young children. Kutna Hora itself was one of the richest silver towns in medieval Europe, and St Barbara's Church at the far end of the town is the finer building by any measure, a twenty-five-minute walk or a short bus ride from the ossuary. The visitor centre sells the combined ticket and stores luggage, which helps if you are coming from Prague with a bag.