Fotos

The Kutna Hora silver mines were for centuries the biggest and most productive in Europe. Much of the silver coinage in circulation there between 1300 and 1500 (when the Spanish galleons started importing New World silver) derived from the Kutna Hora mines though melting down and reminting bohemian pragergroschen.

And so the town, long in decline since the mines were played out, remains an important tourist stop in the Czech Republic with a museum of the mint and, in the summer, limited tours of the mines themselves, some of the deepest dug before the modern era.

The traditional garb of the miners was an all-white smock (!) which you can see imitated in the ones worn by this student group just returning from their tour. Happily climbing the old cobbled road after their experience, they don't seem to notice the incredible light show that the slanting afternoon sun is putting on in the valley behind them, replete as it is with trees in their full autumn glory.