Hello!
Today I visited a limestone cave.
If you’ve been reading The Manor for a while, you’ll be about as surprised by that as you would be by me jumping out from behind your sofa going “Huzzaaah!”at a time we’d carefully pre-arranged. It’s a thing I tend to do from time to time (meaning the caves, not the sofa thing. Though now that’s got me thinking ...)
The caves were about 8km from a town called Blansko, where I was staying. I decided to walk back rather than take the bus, because about half of the journey was along a quiet road that wound through an über-green and shady forest, and I was hoping for a bit of Forest Therapy.
As I was walking along, reflecting upon the nature of stuff, an odd thought occurred to me: since I left Prague six days ago, at least half of the things I’ve seen in the Czech Republic are not actually in it, so much as they're under it.
Not sure how that happened: just me and my weirdass pre-occupation with all things dark and hidden, I guess.
Btw, if you've never been to an ossuary (and I certainly hadn’t), it’s basically a place where the bones of dead folks are stored and sometimes displayed. In Kutna Hora, the earliest of the bones in question seem to date back to the 14th Century and to a thing called 'The Hussite Wars'.
The Hussites are one of those groups that I'd heard of, but I had no idea who they were or what they were doing. (Well done if you spotted the Spinal Tap reference there.)
Turns out their leader was a guy called Jan Hus, a cleric who started one of those religious reform movements that are all about cleansing the church of its corruption, its inappropriate opulence and so on (though mostly not using expletives). His ideas had huge uptake in this part of the world, and they became quite a threat to the church establishment – so naturally, the Commander-in-Chief of the United States of Über-Catholicness (a.k.a. the Pope) declared a 'Crusade' against the Hussites.
Later on, some 30,000 plague victims joined the soldiers. Their bones were put here at Sedlec because it was considered hallowed ground, after some adventurer had been to a site in the 'Holy Land', grabbed a handful of earth, brought it here and sprinkled it about the place. (Why don't you ever see that on 'Home and Garden' shows?) Eventually a church was built here to accompany the dead as they rested for eternity – or for a while, at least).
Having said that – and just as I mentioned in the last entry about Prague Castle – some of the religious imagery here is a wee bit troubling.
There are candelabras in the middle of the chamber, with a skull watching over each candle. In itself, I find that quite an elegant look – but why is there a plump and smug-looking cherub sitting at the top of each candelabra? That seems to me a little twisted. So do the crucifix behind the main chamber, with places in front of it to light candles and pray for elderly relatives, missing dogs etc., and the fact that a few skulls have been positioned in a way that seems to say “Throw coins at me for a better afterlife”.
Elsewhere, the bones are piled up in huge mounds, almost touching the beautiful ornate ceilings. And near the entrance, they’ve been artfully fashioned into lamps.
The intention, of course, is to scream “Memento mori!” at every visitor. But beneath the screaming – and despite the building's age – I also detected a very modern message at Sedlec. It was kind of a low whisper, that went like this: “Look at all the banal stuff we spend our time coveting: designer lamps, chandeliers, artsy candle-holders. What are they all actually for? Is this what you call ‘life’?”
That, for me, was the spookiest part of the ossuary. In the moments I spent there, I felt like the craven human impulse to own stuff and surround ourselves with 'beauty' was almost being parodied.
Of course, that was just one person's reaction on one particular day. A thousand others could visit the ossuary and come away with a thousand other impressions – as I'm sure they have.
2: PORTAL TO A LOST KINGDOM (-ish)
Today I visited a limestone cave.
If you’ve been reading The Manor for a while, you’ll be about as surprised by that as you would be by me jumping out from behind your sofa going “Huzzaaah!”at a time we’d carefully pre-arranged. It’s a thing I tend to do from time to time (meaning the caves, not the sofa thing. Though now that’s got me thinking ...)
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Mmmmm ... Therapy!
Blansko / Skalni Mlyn, Czech Republic, 29.07.15
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The caves were about 8km from a town called Blansko, where I was staying. I decided to walk back rather than take the bus, because about half of the journey was along a quiet road that wound through an über-green and shady forest, and I was hoping for a bit of Forest Therapy.
As I was walking along, reflecting upon the nature of stuff, an odd thought occurred to me: since I left Prague six days ago, at least half of the things I’ve seen in the Czech Republic are not actually in it, so much as they're under it.
Not sure how that happened: just me and my weirdass pre-occupation with all things dark and hidden, I guess.
1: BONE ART
My first underground destination was the Sedlec Ossuary near the town of Kutna Hora. I arrived there on the evening of my second cycling day, but not before I'd had a chance to do quite a lot of swearing. This resulted mainly from being stuck for about 8kms on a highway where I couldn’t ride, thanks to the lack of a shoulder and wall-to-wall enormous trucks coming at me from both directions.
Not my best day of cycling – but I s'pose it was a good chance to purge out some of the angst left over from working in Turkish universities for two years, using a stream of expletives as the cleansing medium ;-)
My first underground destination was the Sedlec Ossuary near the town of Kutna Hora. I arrived there on the evening of my second cycling day, but not before I'd had a chance to do quite a lot of swearing. This resulted mainly from being stuck for about 8kms on a highway where I couldn’t ride, thanks to the lack of a shoulder and wall-to-wall enormous trucks coming at me from both directions.
Not my best day of cycling – but I s'pose it was a good chance to purge out some of the angst left over from working in Turkish universities for two years, using a stream of expletives as the cleansing medium ;-)
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Merry Garlands of Dead Folk
Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic, 25.07.15
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Btw, if you've never been to an ossuary (and I certainly hadn’t), it’s basically a place where the bones of dead folks are stored and sometimes displayed. In Kutna Hora, the earliest of the bones in question seem to date back to the 14th Century and to a thing called 'The Hussite Wars'.
The Hussites are one of those groups that I'd heard of, but I had no idea who they were or what they were doing. (Well done if you spotted the Spinal Tap reference there.)
Turns out their leader was a guy called Jan Hus, a cleric who started one of those religious reform movements that are all about cleansing the church of its corruption, its inappropriate opulence and so on (though mostly not using expletives). His ideas had huge uptake in this part of the world, and they became quite a threat to the church establishment – so naturally, the Commander-in-Chief of the United States of Über-Catholicness (a.k.a. the Pope) declared a 'Crusade' against the Hussites.
Going back a few centuries earlier, we know that the Muslims who were the main (but far from the only) victims of the First Crusade had no clue what to expect when the Pope's legion of foul-smelling bandits arrived in their lands, led by a cadre of bloodthirsty robber barons. In the early days, there was an awful lot of “Hey guys, come on in! We’ve got Jews, we’ve got Christians, we’ve got tons of delicious flat bread ... would you like a bath with fragrant salts?” and so on.
It took quite a bit of massacring and making-the-streets-run-red-with-blood to shake some parts of the Islamic world out of Welcoming Hospitality Mode, and get them to the point of "Right, that's it: these infidels are a bunch of asshats. Let's chase 'em out, and keep our frikkin' bath salts for people who don't, y'know, try to cut our heads off all the time."
It took quite a bit of massacring and making-the-streets-run-red-with-blood to shake some parts of the Islamic world out of Welcoming Hospitality Mode, and get them to the point of "Right, that's it: these infidels are a bunch of asshats. Let's chase 'em out, and keep our frikkin' bath salts for people who don't, y'know, try to cut our heads off all the time."
It wasn’t like that with the Hussite crusade, though. Jan Hus’s followers knew exactly what sort of bloodbath the (still-unbathed) Armies of God's Mafia would unleash on anyone who incurred their stinky wrath, so they prepared to give as good as they got. The ensuing battles were huge by the standards of the time, and they involved quite a lot of splitting people’s heads open with swords, flails, maces and anything else that could be easily picked up.
According to some accounts, the bones of as many as 10,000 soldiers who fought in the Hussite Crusade ended up at Sedlec. Looking at some of their skulls, you can see the devastating wounds they sustained in battle. Amazingly, some have two large holes, which usually meant the soldier survived his first catastrophic head wound and had to be skull-bashed again later. On the earlier wound, you can see how the bone was healing itself, stitch-by-patient-stitch.
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Head Wounds
Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic, 25.07.15
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Later on, some 30,000 plague victims joined the soldiers. Their bones were put here at Sedlec because it was considered hallowed ground, after some adventurer had been to a site in the 'Holy Land', grabbed a handful of earth, brought it here and sprinkled it about the place. (Why don't you ever see that on 'Home and Garden' shows?) Eventually a church was built here to accompany the dead as they rested for eternity – or for a while, at least).
However, when all that stuff happened, the bones weren’t arranged into frilly chandeliers et. al., as they are today. For centuries, they were just buried here in mass graves. Then they were retrieved and transferred to a crypt – a job which must have delighted whoever was asked to carry it out.
("Sorry, you want me to dig up how many skeletons?!? Yeah, right. I think I'll just stay at home and trim my toenails with a comb.")
Then in 1870, a rich Habsburg family bought the whole site. They employed a local woodcarver, and presumably told him to "Go utterly batshit crazy" with the decoration of the church. The result was ghoulish – and yet, somehow weirdly beautiful.
("Sorry, you want me to dig up how many skeletons?!? Yeah, right. I think I'll just stay at home and trim my toenails with a comb.")
Then in 1870, a rich Habsburg family bought the whole site. They employed a local woodcarver, and presumably told him to "Go utterly batshit crazy" with the decoration of the church. The result was ghoulish – and yet, somehow weirdly beautiful.
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Self-Satisfied Cherub
Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic, 25.07.15
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Having said that – and just as I mentioned in the last entry about Prague Castle – some of the religious imagery here is a wee bit troubling.
There are candelabras in the middle of the chamber, with a skull watching over each candle. In itself, I find that quite an elegant look – but why is there a plump and smug-looking cherub sitting at the top of each candelabra? That seems to me a little twisted. So do the crucifix behind the main chamber, with places in front of it to light candles and pray for elderly relatives, missing dogs etc., and the fact that a few skulls have been positioned in a way that seems to say “Throw coins at me for a better afterlife”.
 |
Ok ... But Does God Take Mastercard?
Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic, 25.07.15
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Elsewhere, the bones are piled up in huge mounds, almost touching the beautiful ornate ceilings. And near the entrance, they’ve been artfully fashioned into lamps.
The ceilings are entirely strung with bones as well, which for me is one of the most ghoulish details of all. The way they hang is slightly festive, and almost reminiscent of the rows of little flags you might see inside a town hall at a political pep rally.
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Decorative Lampshade
Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic, 25.07.15
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The intention, of course, is to scream “Memento mori!” at every visitor. But beneath the screaming – and despite the building's age – I also detected a very modern message at Sedlec. It was kind of a low whisper, that went like this: “Look at all the banal stuff we spend our time coveting: designer lamps, chandeliers, artsy candle-holders. What are they all actually for? Is this what you call ‘life’?”
Of course, that was just one person's reaction on one particular day. A thousand others could visit the ossuary and come away with a thousand other impressions – as I'm sure they have.
2: PORTAL TO A LOST KINGDOM (-ish)
A couple of days after meeting the bones, I pitched up in the town of Jihlava, a rather pretty place that I’d read about and was quite excited to visit. Under the town there are about 25kms of catacombs, a small portion of which you can visit on a tour.
Like Sedlec, these catacombs have quite a long and varied history. Built in the 14th Century, they’ve served all kinds of purposes at various times, from storing beer and non-potable water to supply the town's fountains to hiding the local Gestapo headquarters during WWII.
That was all cool, but I was particularly interested in one specific part of the complex.
If you've been to any 'underground attractions', you're familiar with the moment when the guide turns the lights off and you get to experience real, total darkness. It's quite a moment, the first few times you do it. Strangely calming, and powerfully absolute, are two phrases I'd be tempted to use.
However, there's a small corridor in these catacombs where that doesn't happen, because when you turn the lights off, a strange glow appears. The glow comes from the walls, and the longer you stay down there, the brighter it appears to get.
There have been a ton of theories about this over the centuries. It used to be widely believed, for example, that the spirits of prisoners-of-war who'd been detained in the catacombs and died there had decided to haunt the place. Then there was the idea that phosphorous from the bones of Capuchin Monks buried above the corridor was seeping down through the rock and causing the weird glow (a completely disproven theory, but one that I rather enjoy for its high creepiness value).
There's even an Italian website which claims to this day that the corridor is a 'portal to the lost kingdom of Agarti'. It supports this idea with a whole bunch of that hokey numerological detail which you find in pop-esoterica books on kabbalah and other forms of western mysticism; again, not remotely convincing, but kinda fun to read if you're in the mood.
Meanwhile, science has a theory too. Scientists have analysed the chemical compound in the rock, and it's one of those exotic ones that has the ability to 'store' light energy and emit it later in the form of luminescence.
Standing in the damp little corridor, about 5 metres under Jihlava's main square, surrounded by these sparkly luminescent particles that needle-prick the darkness, was a very cool sensation. But even cooler was what happened next: the tour guide grabbed a little boy and put him against a side wall of the corridor. She then borrowed a flash camera and took a photo of the kid.
When he stepped away from the wall, you could see luminescence all over it, except in the place where he'd been standing, which was totally black. So the effect was as if the boy's shadow had been burned into the wall. Amazing – I'd never seen anything remotely like it.
Obviously this
wasn't the ideal
location for
taking photos, and
most of mine were
a waste of effort.
But I did snap this
one of the guide
holding a black
light against the
ceiling. You can
see the luminescent
compound reacting
to the light source, which gives you a vague idea (I hope) of what it was like down there.
(Btw, this is Photoshopped a little to bring out more of the rock, but I haven't enhanced the green beyond its natural intensity. This is what it really looked like.)
3: LOOKING INTO THE ABYSS
Then finally, there was the cave in Blansko.
A bit of background here: caves are one of my absolute favourite things in the world, going right back to my childhood. Let me try to explain why in as brief a way as possible.
When I was 11 or 12 years old, my parents took me and my sister on holiday to a place called Jenolan, which is nestled at the very bottom of a deep, deep valley in south-eastern Australia's Blue Mountains.
Jenolan is at the centre of an absolutely enormous system of about 300 caves. Over several tens of millions of years, calcite-rich water has flowed and seeped through the system, and the small deposits that this water leaves behind have built up into mighty decorative formations. So what you've got there today is a series of underground galleries that are simply mind-bending to see.
I don't think my mum and dad realised what they were starting when they took me to Jenolan. For me, it was a revelation. I'd never even suspected that anything quite as beautiful as these caves existed.
Since then, I've made an effort to visit caves as many countries as possible, from the small Danyang system of South Korea to the sacred Maori caves of Waitomo in New Zealand, and the 'fairy grottoes' of Germany.
(Btw, in case you're wondering, the Postojnska Jama in Slovenia is the best I've seen – it absolutely blew my mind. You can read my entry about Postojnska Jama here.)
So that's why I was here today at the 'Punkva Cave'. I just have to see them from time to time, or else I go into cave withdrawal.
To be honest, the first half of the tour was slightly disappointing. I mean, the cave was beautiful without a doubt ... but it wasn't in the same league as the ones I mentioned above.
Then, as we were walking along a smallish tunnel, daylight suddenly happened. We emerged at the bottom of a 150-metre high 'abyss', with a tiny, lustrous blue lake at the bottom of it.
I wasn't expecting that! Pretty impressive :-)
 |
Subterranean Corridor
Jihlava, Czech Republic, 27.07.15
|
That was all cool, but I was particularly interested in one specific part of the complex.
If you've been to any 'underground attractions', you're familiar with the moment when the guide turns the lights off and you get to experience real, total darkness. It's quite a moment, the first few times you do it. Strangely calming, and powerfully absolute, are two phrases I'd be tempted to use.
However, there's a small corridor in these catacombs where that doesn't happen, because when you turn the lights off, a strange glow appears. The glow comes from the walls, and the longer you stay down there, the brighter it appears to get.
There have been a ton of theories about this over the centuries. It used to be widely believed, for example, that the spirits of prisoners-of-war who'd been detained in the catacombs and died there had decided to haunt the place. Then there was the idea that phosphorous from the bones of Capuchin Monks buried above the corridor was seeping down through the rock and causing the weird glow (a completely disproven theory, but one that I rather enjoy for its high creepiness value).
There's even an Italian website which claims to this day that the corridor is a 'portal to the lost kingdom of Agarti'. It supports this idea with a whole bunch of that hokey numerological detail which you find in pop-esoterica books on kabbalah and other forms of western mysticism; again, not remotely convincing, but kinda fun to read if you're in the mood.
Meanwhile, science has a theory too. Scientists have analysed the chemical compound in the rock, and it's one of those exotic ones that has the ability to 'store' light energy and emit it later in the form of luminescence.
Standing in the damp little corridor, about 5 metres under Jihlava's main square, surrounded by these sparkly luminescent particles that needle-prick the darkness, was a very cool sensation. But even cooler was what happened next: the tour guide grabbed a little boy and put him against a side wall of the corridor. She then borrowed a flash camera and took a photo of the kid.
When he stepped away from the wall, you could see luminescence all over it, except in the place where he'd been standing, which was totally black. So the effect was as if the boy's shadow had been burned into the wall. Amazing – I'd never seen anything remotely like it.
 |
Luminescent Rock \m/
Jihlava, Czech Republic, 27.07.15
|
wasn't the ideal
location for
taking photos, and
most of mine were
a waste of effort.
But I did snap this
one of the guide
holding a black
light against the
ceiling. You can
see the luminescent
compound reacting
to the light source, which gives you a vague idea (I hope) of what it was like down there.
(Btw, this is Photoshopped a little to bring out more of the rock, but I haven't enhanced the green beyond its natural intensity. This is what it really looked like.)
3: LOOKING INTO THE ABYSS
Then finally, there was the cave in Blansko.
A bit of background here: caves are one of my absolute favourite things in the world, going right back to my childhood. Let me try to explain why in as brief a way as possible.
When I was 11 or 12 years old, my parents took me and my sister on holiday to a place called Jenolan, which is nestled at the very bottom of a deep, deep valley in south-eastern Australia's Blue Mountains.
Jenolan is at the centre of an absolutely enormous system of about 300 caves. Over several tens of millions of years, calcite-rich water has flowed and seeped through the system, and the small deposits that this water leaves behind have built up into mighty decorative formations. So what you've got there today is a series of underground galleries that are simply mind-bending to see.
I don't think my mum and dad realised what they were starting when they took me to Jenolan. For me, it was a revelation. I'd never even suspected that anything quite as beautiful as these caves existed.
Since then, I've made an effort to visit caves as many countries as possible, from the small Danyang system of South Korea to the sacred Maori caves of Waitomo in New Zealand, and the 'fairy grottoes' of Germany.
(Btw, in case you're wondering, the Postojnska Jama in Slovenia is the best I've seen – it absolutely blew my mind. You can read my entry about Postojnska Jama here.)
So that's why I was here today at the 'Punkva Cave'. I just have to see them from time to time, or else I go into cave withdrawal.
To be honest, the first half of the tour was slightly disappointing. I mean, the cave was beautiful without a doubt ... but it wasn't in the same league as the ones I mentioned above.
 |
Bottom of The Abyss
Blansko, Czech Republic, 29.07.15
|
Then, as we were walking along a smallish tunnel, daylight suddenly happened. We emerged at the bottom of a 150-metre high 'abyss', with a tiny, lustrous blue lake at the bottom of it.
I wasn't expecting that! Pretty impressive :-)
The third section of the tour was a boat ride through an underground lake ... and here again, if you know my fascination with caves, you know that this could hardly fail to make me very happy. It was gorgeous; the crisp cold emanating from the cave walls perfectly complemented the ornate formations overhead and the deep green water below, which was 40 metres deep in places. I've seen plenty of underground lakes before – always the green ones that spring up as part of these limestone karst systems – but I never get tired of them :-)
Anyway, so that was my day. I'm in elegant Brno now, enjoying the charms of a little wine house in a street behind the main square.
I've chosen Georgian Saperavi as my medicine of choice, and it's definitely helping to numb the pain of the blisters on my feet ... which may or may not mean that this entry will need to be extensively re-edited once I see it through sober eyes ;-)
Tomorrow I'll head to Brno's Museum of Romany Culture (which has great reviews, and which I'm really looking forward to seeing). After that I'll go east to Olomouc, a student town that's billed as the 'undiscovered gem' of Moravia. I'll let you know whether or not it lives up to the tag.
See you!
Anthony.
Anyway, so that was my day. I'm in elegant Brno now, enjoying the charms of a little wine house in a street behind the main square.
I've chosen Georgian Saperavi as my medicine of choice, and it's definitely helping to numb the pain of the blisters on my feet ... which may or may not mean that this entry will need to be extensively re-edited once I see it through sober eyes ;-)
Tomorrow I'll head to Brno's Museum of Romany Culture (which has great reviews, and which I'm really looking forward to seeing). After that I'll go east to Olomouc, a student town that's billed as the 'undiscovered gem' of Moravia. I'll let you know whether or not it lives up to the tag.
See you!
Anthony.
