Interesting Sights: The Bone Church, Prague

The well-known story of the Bone Church in Kutná Hora (just outside of Prague, CZ) is that, in the 13th century, Jindřich, the abbot of Sedlec monastery, returned from a visit to Palestine with a pocketful of soil and sprinkled it on the cemetery surrounding the Chapel of All Saints.

This direct association with the holy land led to the graveyard becoming a sought after burial site among the aristocracy of Central Europe. At the time of the thirty years’ war in the 17th century, the number of burials outgrew the space available, the older remains began to be exhumed and stored in the chapel, and it’s estimated that the chapel now contains the bones of up to 40,000 people.

Thoughts to Ponder

There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.
-Robert Louis Stevenson

A Fairy Tale Christmas

Christmas 2010 is sure to be a festive one in the lively city of Prague. The town square is filled with Christmas markets and the churches are overflowing with holiday music and plays re-enacting Jesus' birth.


The girls and I will be celebrating the Christmas festivities with the locals as we take part in the Prague holiday extravaganza. On Christmas Eve will be be attending a folk night excursion which is sure to include food, drinks and dancing!

56 Days and Counting...

Traveling Through Time – Forgotten Messages

There is something incredibly captivating about the smell and feel of old books. The pages are slightly tanned and silky smooth from the years of use. The scent of the pages, ink and dust swirl together to carry the reader back in time. Sometimes I find myself daydreaming rather than reading when I am holding an old book. I can’t help but wonder who else has held this book, read the same story, and how did it apply to their life?

I few years ago I started a new tradition. I was in a used book shop in Washington, DC, engulfed in a story about a book of adventure from the late 1800’s when I came to a page that had a personal note written from one friend to another. From how faded the ink was I am sure it was written decades ago. It was that faint bit of ink that inspired me to start a traveling book collection of my own. Every trip I have taken since, I have made it a point to visit a flea market, yard sale or book store in search of the next addition to my collection. I add a personal touch to each book by writing a special note somewhere in the book for future generations to discover. I hope that someday, another young traveler will stumble across a piece of my collection and travel back in their mind to discover a world as it existed long before them.

Picture of the Day

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Thoughts To Ponder

"When you travel, it’s not like you take a part of each place away with you;
Rather, it’s as if you leave a part of yourself there, like a part of you forever belongs to that place – the time, the people, and the things you saw; and over time, it gets burned deeper into your soul. You eternally belong to it"

Anon