Karlštejn and Kutná Hora

Before you go — pick one, not both

Both are easy train rides out of Prague and both are a full day by the time you have traveled, walked and come back. Doing them on consecutive days is a waste of a city you have come a long way to see. Our 15 photographs here are 7 from Kutná Hora on 7 July 2019 and 8 from Karlštejn, mostly on the 10th of that month.

• Karlštejn is the shorter, prettier, busier one. A fourteenth-century castle on a wooded ridge, about forty minutes out, with a steep walk up at the end.
• Kutná Hora is the stranger, quieter, more substantial one. An ossuary decorated with human bones, and one of the finest Gothic churches in Europe, about an hour out.
• Neither needs a car. Both are on the train from Prague, and a car is a liability at Karlštejn in particular.
• If you only have one spare day, read the last section first.

Karlštejn — the castle Charles IV built for the crown jewels

Founded in the 1340s by Charles IV, and built to hold the imperial regalia and the crown jewels of Bohemia rather than to be lived in. It stands on a ridge above a single village street, and the first sight of it through the trees is the reason people come.

• The walk up is steeper than it looks and takes twenty minutes or so from the village. Four of our eight frames are that climb and the walls at the top of it.
• The outside is the reward. The interior is only by guided tour, in fixed groups, and the best parts are on the longer and more limited of them. If you are not going to book that, the castle from outside and the walk is still a good day.
• The village is one street of tourist shops and you walk its whole length to get to the path. Set your expectations there and you will not be disappointed by it.
• It works in winter. Our one December frame is the castle over snow-dusted village roofs, and the ridge with bare trees on it is arguably better than the summer version.

Kutná Hora — the ossuary, and the cathedral people forget

A silver town that was once the second most important place in Bohemia, and the money is still visible in what it built. Two things bring people here, and most only know about the first.

• The Sedlec ossuary is a small chapel in which the bones of tens of thousands of people have been arranged into decoration — a chandelier, arches, piers, a coat of arms. It is extraordinary and it is not macabre in the way the photographs suggest. Allow less time than you expect; it is one room.
• Photography rules there have changed since our visit in 2019. Check before you go rather than assume, and do not plan a day around getting a particular picture.
• St Barbara's is the better building and gets a fraction of the attention. Named for the patron saint of miners, paid for by silver, with three tent-shaped roofs and flying buttresses that look like a cathedral turned inside out. Four of our seven Kutná Hora frames are this church and it deserves them.
• The walk between them is the town. The statue-lined terrace above the valley on the way to St Barbara's is free, quiet and the best view of the day.

So which one?

• Traveling with children: Karlštejn. It is a castle, it is shorter, and the climb is an event rather than a chore.
• You like buildings: Kutná Hora. St Barbara's is the better thing to stand inside by a distance, and the ossuary is unlike anywhere else you will go.
• Short on time or energy: Karlštejn. Closer, and you can be back in Prague for dinner without planning it carefully.
• You have already seen a lot of castles: Kutná Hora, without hesitation. Central Europe has no shortage of castles on ridges. It has one Sedlec.

How long?

One day each, and only one of them. Ours were 7 July 2019 at Kutná Hora and 10 July 2019 at Karlštejn, on a trip that had enough days in Prague to spare them.

Both are doable in a morning-out, afternoon-back shape, which means a third day in Prague does not have to be given up entirely. That is the argument for doing either at all.