Sunday, July 29, 2012

Memento mori








The reason we came to Kudowa-Dzroj wasn't that it's a well-known spa town nor that it's conveniently located near the border. Our goal was a small chapel Kaisa had happened to read about in the guidebook (that she only puts down when she gets on her bike). Its name, The Chapel of Skulls, tells it all: it's covered from bottom to top in piles of human skulls and shinbones. Some are arranged in decorative bunches around statues of saints and some attached to the roof in the classic skull-and-bones style.

The baffling work of art was created by an 18th-century priest who, with the help of
a local gravedigger, used skulls from mass graves war and disease had left in the area. Unfortunately (but not unexpectedly) it was forbidden to take photos in the actual chapel, so you have to just come here and see it for yourself. We're still not too far from Wroclaw so it would probably be possible to do a day trip here from the city.

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