Kutná Hora Travel Guide

The Italian Court (Vlassky dvur) is a historically weighty landmark in Kutna Hora, a former royal mint and palace, the core witness to the city's role as the economic heart of the medieval Bohemian kingdom and source of silver wealth. Named for the Italian craftsmen invited to teach advanced minting. With Kutna Hora's rich silver, Bohemian kings minted the Prague groschen here - the Italian Court was the center of that minting. It also served as a royal palace for kings visiting the city. Today a museum: learn the minting history and craft (see a reconstructed workshop and live demos), visit the royal chapel and halls. A quiet, elegant courtyard. Exploring it looks back on the silver city's glory.

Standing on Kutná Hora's historic square, the Gothic Stone Fountain was built in the 1490s and ranks among the oldest stone fountains in the Czech lands. With silver mining fouling the groundwater, the medieval town piped fresh water down through wooden conduits and gathered it in this ornate polygonal fountain, a marvel of engineering at the time. Its carved late-Gothic details have weathered five centuries in place, and as part of the UNESCO-listed old town it makes an easy, rewarding stop alongside St. Barbara's Cathedral.

St. Barbara's Cathedral is Kutna Hora's grandest, most magnificent landmark, a splendid Gothic cathedral and a masterpiece of Czech Gothic architecture; together with the ossuary it earned the historic town a UNESCO listing - a brilliant witness to this former silver-mining city. Built from the late 14th century by silver-rich citizens who wanted a church to rival St. Vitus, dedicated to St. Barbara, patron of miners. Exterior: soaring spires, ornate flying buttresses and three tent-like roof tops form a gorgeous, unique skyline. Interior: lofty, solemn, with stunning Gothic net vaulting, radiant stained glass and fine altars; some murals depict mining and minting, uniquely historic. A cathedral of silver wealth and miner piety, blending glorious Gothic art with Kutna Hora's mining history.

The Stone House (Kamenný dům) is a well-preserved Gothic burgher house in Kutná Hora, a medieval town in central Bohemia, Czech Republic, named for being built in stone rather than timber; today it is part of the Czech Museum of Silver, presenting the medieval splendour of this 'silver city.' Rising from silver mining since the 13th century, Kutná Hora once rivaled Prague; the house's rib-vaulted cellar, exhibits and reconstructed rooms evoke the daily life of miners' bosses and merchants. Together with the nearby St Barbara's Church and Sedlec Ossuary it is UNESCO-listed — the finest slice of Bohemian mining history and Gothic civic architecture.