Click on the Picture for a more detailed view.

This Year's European Tour

Praha

the city


The Natural History Museum of Prague	the roses in the Valclavske Park	The Statni Opera House

High Fasion or Eurogoth?


Buuuuuuud!	St. Jindrich a Kunhuta	Jubilejni Synagogue	sv. Mikulas

The Charles Bridge


the west tower	The Charles Bridge	the east tower

The Old Town


the Jan Hus Monument	the Tyn Church	a closer look

The Astrological Clock in the Old Town


St. Nicolas Church	Inside the St. Nick Church

The Castle


The Royal Castle	The Gates to the Palace	Inside the Castle there is a toy museum. The third floor is dedicated all to Barbi and her friend. Here we see Industrial Barbi and Pimp Ken. Just to the right can be seen Baby Spice. She was accompanied by her four friends.

The Ossuary Sedlec in Kutna Hora


The Ossuary	The Ossuary


A view of the inside of the ossuary	In this chandalier can be found all of the bones contained in the human body.	A nice center piece for any livingroom.


There are four pyramids in the ossuary like this one. None of the bones are glued or bound together, thy are mearly stacked.	hips and a skull	inside the pyramid


The Crest of one of the local nobility	a close up of the crest


a reminder that this is a holy place	the way out

the man behind the bones

The early history, even the foundation, of Kutna Hora revolves around the silver mines that made the city one of the richest and most important in medieval Bohemia, the just after Prague for a period in the 14th and 15th centuries. The first evidence of mining in the area goes back to the 10th century, but it was the discovery of major silver deposits in the 13th century that changed the future of the little village 70 km from Prague.

The silver mines in the area surrounding Kutna Hora became so rich that, at the very beginning of the 14th century, Czech King Vaclav II bestowed upon Kutna Hora the privileges of a royal town and instituted a currency reform, closing all other mints in the country. With the aid of Italian craftsmen, he founded a royal mint in Kutna Hora that produced the Prague groschen, a coin that used throughout central Europe into the 19th century. Vaclav II also began construction on a palace here, though it was later used as a royal mint, and its name, Italian Court, reflects the influence of the minters from Florence. The town's mines also attracted a great number of German-speaking immigrants, who brought advanced mining methods and became the town's largest ethnic group.

In the 13th and 14th centuries, Kutna Hora became the financial center for the Czech Kingdom and its second most important city after Prague. In fact, at the end of the 14th century, it had a population equal to London's. Much of the town's wealth went towards the development of Prague, but some also went to the construction of a number of impressive buildings in Kutna Hora itself. The oldest is the church of St. James (Sv. Jakub), though it pales artisitically in comparison to the Cathedral of St. Barbara, one of the grandest cathedrals in Central Europe. The church dedicated to St. Barbara, patron of miners, was probably begun in 1380 and the chapel and choir were completed in 1420. The Hussite Wars interrupted its construction, though more work was done at the end of the 15th century. The town also features a number of other churches, a former Jesuit College, an Ursuline Convent and a Cistercian monastery, and the town was declared a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site in 1995.

Another landmark, and a very popular and somewhat more unusual one, is the Kostnice (ossuary) in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutna Hora. In the 13th century, the abbot of the monastery in Sedlec was sent by the Czech king on a mission to Jerusalem, and he returned with a handful of earth from Golgotha, which he sprinkled on his monastery's graveyard. This made the cemetery a popular burial site for nobility all over Central Europe. As a result, a huge number of bones accumulated, and in 1870 a woodcarver named Frantisek Rint was commissioned to do something with them. The most notable are the bells in each corner and the chandelier that includes every bone in the human body. The artist also signed his name in bones along the right wall at the bottom of the steps. The ossuary contains the bones of about 40,000 people.

Unfortunately for the town, the silver mines in the town began to run out in the 16th century, and the last groschen was minted there in 1549. The production of silver in the town had reached such a state in the 17th century that pillaging Swedes were bought off with beer, not silver, during the Thirty Years' War. The fortunes of the town continued to decline, until in 1727 the mint was finally closed completely.

Back to Grindenwald

This year the gang and I decided to return to Grindenwald to
climb a mountain. We chose the Schwartzhorn. The Peak is at
2900 meters and we started at about 2000 meters.
July 4th 2001


Here is a picture of the peak from the gondola.	The is the mountain and the ridge.	This is a close up of the Schwartzhorn.

Here we all are at the begining of our climb
Fred, Chris, Steve, Bernhard, Dan, Andrea, Rahul, and myself(Matt)

After climbing for a while, there is a beautiful view just behind you.

After you reach the ridge of the Schwartzhorn you can see across the valley and see the whole range o the other side of Gindenwald.

Be a High Energy Physicist and Climb to the Top of the World!


Here we are at the top. Just under 4 hours later and 1000 meters up.	Unfortunatly it became very cloudy when we got to the top, so this is about all you could see.

On the way down those clouds that came in at the top began to pummle us with hail for about about 45 minutes. You can see how the whole mountain has a new coating of ice.

München

North

West

These 4 Pictures are taken from the
top of the Old Peter Church.
It is the oldest church in Munich.

East

South

Some Sights around Munich


	This is the Garden behind


	The Olympic Park	The Opera House


This is the New Town Hall, its not as old as it looks.	The Glockenspiel	The munk on top the town hall


Outside the Church	The Plaque	Inside the Church

Der Deutsches Museum

The museum is full of many different sections that each display man's achievment.
The sectin that I could not resistaking pictures of was the train section.


	these are the controls

Here are two little movies I shot in the museum.
This one is of a very old stem engine
And this one is the big green one.

The models were each about a foot in height and a few feet long.


This engine is made to climb mountains. There is a toothed rail underneath that guided a large gear in the center of the engine.

Schloß Neuschwanstein und der Schwan See


From here you can see the two castles. King Ludwig grew up in the Yellow one and lived for a short time in the white one.	a Picture of the castles and swan lake.	Ludwig's childhood home.

The Swans of Swan Lake


Castle Neuschwanstein.	Here you can see the front gate.


To get to the castle you have to climb up a beautiful gorge.		This is Queen Mary's Bridge. It is older than the castle.	She had it built because she liked very much to hike through the mountains.

If you use your imagineation, you might see a lrage sleeping dragon.


	More shots of the Castle.

Proof that I was there. I am standing on the Mary's Bridge
with the castle just over my shoulder.


Unfortunatly, they will not allow pictures of the inside of the castle.	So you will just have to go there yourself.