Today marks the official end to our Lollygagger Adventure in Real Life Prague. Thea, param, and Rask had trains to catch back to their countries. They all managed to get up early even though they had another evening of late night rambles that stretched into the early hours of the morning. After many sad tight hugs, cheek kissing, and goodbyes with promises to start planning our next adventures in RL and that we will all see each other soon again on The Lane, they parted down the stairs. We followed shortly after. One more walk down now familiar streets, we picked up our car and went back to the apartment, stuffing our bags and Derek into the car. Â We followed our car’s directions out of the city as we make our way onward to Inga. We hope to reach her by Wed. noonish.
Our road to Inga takes us though the the Czech countryside and on our route via a very small diversion, was the ossuary or bone church. So off we went for a little look see. A very small church, more like a chapel, with 2 floors and a more recent looking somewhat updated addition, which served as an entry and admissions area. Â Here you could by some replicas of skulls and bone that hold candles.
Following the stairs downward leads you to the old chapel where you’ll find the bones. You have to be very careful as the stairs are a bit steep and it is very easy to be hypnotized by all the bones hanging about you. The bones from ages past, even when they were originally assembled, are all bound together and laid out in the most amazing decorative pattens. You’ll find, family memorials, coats of arms, Christian symbols, altar sculptures, and chandeliers. They even have some skulls in glass cases of soldiers from long ago wars, who suffered head wounds via swords, canon fire, gun shot, noting that some of the owners of these skulls had survived to tell the tale of their misadventures, as you could see that the wounds had healed over time. By the look of some of those healed wounds, I would guess that they suffered from some really bad headaches. While the little church still has altar and candles lit at various locations, the regularly used portion of the chapel is upstairs. It is small and bright with very little ornamentation. An amazing contrast to what lies below it.
So far, much of the west of the Czech Republic reminds me of eastern PA in terms of landscape and general scenery. The city of Brno is spread out in a similar way as Scranton, although it is not as deeply set into the surrounding mountains. Another similarity is the endless amount of roadwork we enocutered along the way.
It is a long day of driving and it is 9:30 and we have finely got our room for the night and a beer. We are thinking of friends on their trains or in their homes and our meeting with Inga tomorrow.
