It was a Saturday, around 11:45, and we were driving past the Na Valech car park below St. Barbara’s Church. Free, and a short walk from the entrance. Over the years, we’d parked there every single time.
This time it was full. We had no backup car park, because we’d never needed one. What we found a bit further on is the main reason this article exists.
We’ve driven to Kutná Hora three times: June 2024, May 2025 and August 2026. We went inside St. Barbara’s Church and the Corpus Christi Chapel on that May visit; the price list photos are from this August. We’ve never once set foot inside the Sedlec Ossuary, so that one section is research, not first-hand experience.
Everything else rests on what we saw ourselves. Where to park when Na Valech is full. Prices photographed in August 2026, not copied from other websites. And one lunch warning we haven’t seen anywhere else.
The best-known car park in town is Na Valech, below St. Barbara. Free – and on a Saturday morning, not a single space left. Here are the three options you realistically have in town.
It’s a short walk from St. Barbara’s Church, and parking here is free. Across three visits, we haven’t paid a single crown here. Which is exactly why it’s always full.
When we drove past around 11:45, there wasn’t a single free space. On a Saturday, don’t treat this car park as a sure thing. Treat it as a stroke of luck.
We drove on and came across a plot that Google Maps doesn’t show under “Parking”. It’s a huge unsurfaced plot of grass and gravel. There really are a lot of spaces, and I can’t imagine the whole thing ever filling up.
We paid. Just because there’s no barrier doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay – and this is definitely not a guide to parking for free.
Tip: The QR payment is a problem if you don’t have a Czech bank account. If you want peace of mind, ask one of the locals parking there to send the payment for you, and give them cash. Simple, and it works.
From here to St. Barbara’s Church it’s 3 minutes on foot. On the way up, I remember telling Veronika I didn’t fancy parking here and that it was far. Then I was surprised how close it actually was.
Next time, we’re parking here straight away.
The third option is the car park by the town hall. It’s not a sure thing though – there are few spaces, and we’ve repeatedly heard the machine doesn’t work.
You pay by SMS or cash. If the machine isn’t working and you haven’t sorted out Czech SMS payment, that leaves cash, or EasyPark, which we cover below.
The car park by the town hall on the map
This is something almost nobody mentions. The paid municipal car parks in Zones A and B, including the U Kapličky car park, are charged on weekdays 7:00–17:00 and on Saturdays 8:00–12:00. Outside those hours, and on public holidays, there’s no charge – so on Sundays it’s free all day.
The exception is Zone C, the through-route across the centre. That one is charged round the clock, including weekends and public holidays. The figures come from the COMVERGA SMS parking system.
We drove onto the unmarked plot on a Saturday just after midday, so a few minutes after the paid car parks stopped charging. That doesn’t mean the other options are pointless – Na Valech really was full, and on a weekday morning you really do pay for parking.
It just means that anyone arriving on a Saturday afternoon or a Sunday has more options in town than they’d expect.
EasyPark has worked across the whole of Kutná Hora since 20 July 2026. In the town’s zones you can pay by card in the app and skip both the machine and Czech SMS. For a car with a foreign number plate, it’s the simplest way to park here legally.
It doesn’t, however, apply to the unmarked plot above. That’s on private land and paid by bank transfer via QR code, so EasyPark won’t help you there.
| Car park | Price | Capacity | Payment | Walk to St. Barbara |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Na Valech (St. Barbara) | free | full on Saturday mornings | no payment | closest of the three, a few minutes |
| Unmarked plot | 40 CZK (about €1.7) / day | large unsurfaced plot, plenty of space | QR code, by bank transfer | 3 minutes |
| By the town hall | paid, see above for weekends | few spaces | SMS or cash, the machine reportedly often doesn’t work | we didn’t time it |
St. Barbara is the reason people come to Kutná Hora. It stands on a terrace above the valley, at the end of Barborská Street. From the unmarked plot it’s a 3-minute walk.
We’ve been to Kutná Hora three times – in June 2024, in May 2025 and most recently in August 2026. We went inside the church on that May visit, and it’s stunning. In August we didn’t go in; we just photographed the price list at the ticket desk.
Tourist brochures and older websites still quote St. Barbara at 50 to 85 CZK. Those figures are years old, and you can’t plan a day’s budget around them.
We photographed this price list at the ticket desk on 29 August 2026, and it matches what the church itself publishes on its website:
| Ticket | Price |
|---|---|
| Standard | 180 CZK (about €7.4) |
| Seniors aged 65+ and students up to 26 | 140 CZK (about €5.8) |
| Children aged 6 to 15, and holders of a Czech ZTP card | 60 CZK (about €2.5) |
| Children under 6 | free |
You buy your ticket on the spot, at the entrance. You don’t need to book anything ahead. In our experience there aren’t usually long queues, unless a big festival happens to be on.
From April to October the church is open 9:00 to 18:00, with shorter hours over the winter months. It’s closed on 24 December.
Tip: because of weddings, some Saturdays it doesn’t open until 11:30, and some Tuesdays not until 11:00. If you’re heading out early for St. Barbara, check the day before on the church’s website – this information doesn’t appear in the usual listings.
On GetYourGuide, Kutná Hora is sold differently from what anyone looking for a cheaper ticket might expect. What you find are full-day tours departing from Prague, with transport and a guide, and the price reflects that. Some of them include admission. But it’s still a full-day trip, not a discounted ticket. Private tours, and the ones themed around Kingdom Come, are considerably more expensive again.
If you’ve driven to Kutná Hora yourself, the maths is simple. Admission to St. Barbara’s Church and the ossuary comes to 400 CZK (about €17) per person in total. You buy the St. Barbara ticket at the entrance, but the ossuary only in advance, online or at the information centre in Sedlec.
So: it makes sense in two cases. You’re travelling from Prague without a car, or you want a guide and a ready-made programme and don’t want to put the day together yourself. Otherwise, buy on the door.
Full-day trips to Kutná Hora from Prague – the offer on GetYourGuide – transport and a guide included, makes sense mainly if you don’t have a car.
The walk from the car park goes up a cobbled street, and you have the church in view almost the whole way. So take your exterior photos on the way up, not on the way back.
For us, the whole stop in Kutná Hora, from parking to driving off, took 1 hour and 42 minutes. We didn’t go inside the church in August, though. So allow more time for the interior than we actually used.
And plan around the opening hours rather than the time you’ll spend looking around. In season it opens at 9:00, so a wedding Saturday will eat 2.5 hours off your morning, however early you set off.
We’d go inside again.
The Corpus Christi Chapel stands on the same terrace as St. Barbara, a few steps from its entrance. You can pop in without going out of your way at all – and because its opening hours match the church’s, you can plan both as a single stop.
Admission is free. The church’s website puts it more precisely than just “free”: the money from tickets sold at St. Barbara’s Church goes towards keeping the Corpus Christi Chapel and the Church of Our Lady Na Náměti open to visitors. So the 180 CZK (about €7.4) next door is also what pays for there being nothing to pay here.
Expect one room, not a church. The chapel is pretty tiny – more a chamber or a corridor than a church, and we’ve been inside on one of our earlier visits. It’s enough for one striking photo with a gloomy atmosphere, not for half an hour of sightseeing, so budget 5 minutes.
| Period | Open |
|---|---|
| April–October | daily 9:00–18:00 |
| March | daily 10:00–17:00 |
| November–December | daily 10:00–17:00 |
| January–February | daily 10:00–16:00 |
| closed | 24 December |
The Sedlec Ossuary (the “bone church”) is the reason most people drive out to Kutná Hora at all. We haven’t been inside yet – not this year, and not on either of our two previous visits. So this section is research, not a first-hand account.
What we can check is the planning, though. And that’s exactly where you can make a mistake that means you don’t get in at all.
Sedlec is a separate part of town, not a continuation of the historic centre. By car it’s a short drive from St. Barbara’s Church, not a walk – think of the Ossuary as the day’s second stop. If you’re going by train, you’ll find the connection in our article about day trips from Prague.
Parking at the Ossuary is free. The operator lists three places – Zámecká, Čechova and Starosedlecká. After the centre, where you pay everywhere, that’s a welcome change.
This is the one thing to take away from this whole section. You cannot buy a ticket at the door.
The operator sells tickets on its own website. Buy them before you leave home, not on the way in the car.
The combined ticket for the Ossuary, the Sedlec cathedral and St. Barbara’s Church ended on 30 June 2025. Older articles and overviews still recommend it.
Today you buy the ticket for St. Barbara’s Church separately. But the ticket to the Sedlec site still covers the Ossuary and the cathedral together – so it’s two tickets now, not three.
The Ossuary has been under restoration since 2014, and the work is planned to run until at least 2030. That doesn’t mean it’s closed.
The reason is structural. The building has tilted almost 0.5 metres off vertical, and there’s dampness in the lower chapel.
The Ossuary stays open throughout the works. The stages are planned so you also see the work in progress, not just the decoration. So the 2030 date is no reason to put off a visit.
Since 1 October 2025 the Ossuary hasn’t been accessible to people with reduced mobility, and that’s until further notice. The cause is the restoration work and a temporary wooden staircase.
You’re allowed in with a pushchair. But you have to carry it down to the lower chapel yourself.
St. Barbara’s Church, the chapel and possibly the Ossuary will take up most of the day. But Kutná Hora doesn’t end with them.
We didn’t go to any of the places in this section. We only walked past the Museum of Silver on our way from St. Barbara’s Church. So take this as a signpost with prices and opening days, not a review.
The museum is housed in Hrádek at Barborská 28, on the same street as the church. It offers two tour routes, and you can also buy them together.
Route II takes more time than it looks. Half a day in Kutná Hora won’t be enough for it if you also want to fit in St. Barbara’s Church and the Ossuary.
It’s closed on Mondays, unless that Monday happens to be a public holiday. Hrádek, where both mine routes are sold, is also closed from 12 January to 2 March. If you’re going in winter, check the dates beforehand on the museum’s website.
One more trap. The museum shop has its own opening hours, so the sign by the entrance might not be the tour schedule.
The Stone House (Kamenný dům) falls under the same museum and stands at Václavské náměstí 183. The tour route costs 80 CZK (about €3.3). It’s closed for the whole winter, from December to March – so on a different, longer schedule than Hrádek.
And then there’s Zašantročené věno, a pocket game set in the world of Kingdom Come. It’s not an escape room, and you don’t buy it separately. It’s a ticket to the lapidarium, with the game included.
The lapidarium alone costs 70 CZK (about €2.9). Entry with the game comes to 200 CZK (about €8.3) for an adult and 100 CZK (about €4.1) at the reduced rate. The difference between the two is the price of the game.
For comparison: private tours of Kingdom Come locations with a pickup from Prague sell on booking portals in a completely different price bracket. The museum doesn’t give you a guide or a pickup. You get the same theme for 200 CZK (about €8.3), in a place you’ve already driven to anyway.
A medieval royal mint, where the Prague groschen was struck. Without it, Kutná Hora wouldn’t be Kutná Hora, and it’s certainly not just an add-on to St. Barbara’s Church.
It’s in the historic centre, not next to St. Barbara’s Church. It offers several tour routes and the price and length vary depending on which one you choose – you’ll find the current options at Průvodcovské služby Kutná Hora, which runs the building.
We’re not going to quote opening hours or admission prices here. We haven’t been inside, and copying numbers second-hand is exactly the mistake that keeps the old admission price for St. Barbara’s Church circulating online.
Ruthardka is signposted from Barborská, so you just need to look for it on the signpost. It’s a short detour, not a separate trip.
We didn’t get there ourselves, so I can’t tell you what the view is like. I’ll just say the signposting points to it and you can’t miss it.
At 12:45 we were standing in the centre working out where to have lunch. We weren’t starving – at 12:29 we’d had a cinnamon roll and a lemonade at Turistka. But we wanted a proper meal.
We were choosing between three places. Either we’d tried them before, or we’d checked the reviews beforehand. We didn’t get to eat at any of them.
First place: the kitchen closed earlier than the door said. At 12:55 they told us at the entrance that the kitchen was closing at 13:00. Yet the door said they served until 14:00. We got no explanation.
We’re not naming the place here. We were there once, one Saturday, and that’s too little to call anyone out by name.
Factory Bistro: full, and the kitchen isn’t to blame. We know it from a visit in June 2024, and the food there is genuinely good. The prices aren’t the lowest in town, but they’re fair. This Saturday it was bursting at the seams.
They sat us down. When we tried to order, they told us the food would take at least an hour to prepare. That’s not a complaint about the place, we like it. That’s Saturday capacity.
Kafírnictví on Palackého náměstí: café open, brunch not. Veronika and I came here for one thing, and that was brunch. At the counter they told us they only serve it until 12:30 on weekends.
To avoid any confusion: the café itself was open and on Saturday it’s open until 19:00. Only the brunch we’d come for had ended. What’s more, 12:30 is what we were told on the spot – we couldn’t find it published anywhere, not even on the café’s own website.
We found that odd. We’re used to big cities, where services tend to run longer at weekends, not shorter.
In the end, the only places open and actually cooking were the big expensive restaurants and a kebab shop. We didn’t fancy either. We were pretty fed up by that point.
From deciding to go for lunch to the first bite, 38 minutes went by. At 12:45 we were choosing between three vetted places, at 13:12 we were only just walking into a fourth, and we had food in front of us at 13:23.
It wasn’t bad luck, it was a pattern. Table-service places have a gap on Saturday early afternoon – the kitchen is either running down or swamped from lunchtime. Bistros don’t have that gap.
MUJ Falafel bistro was cooking as normal at 13:12. Exactly when we were turned away elsewhere, or sent off to wait an hour.
Tip: Either eat in Kutná Hora before 12:30, or head straight for a bistro. Doing the rounds of restaurants between 12:45 and 13:30 on a Saturday is a waste of time, and it’s one we’ve already tried out for you.
It’s on Komenského náměstí 22/15, right on the way back to the car. The food was ready in 5–10 minutes and tasted excellent. I’m not a falafel fan, and I really enjoyed this one.
We got one falafel sandwich for 135 CZK (about €5.6) and split it between us. After thirty-eight minutes of hunting for lunch that sounds almost absurd, but after that cinnamon roll from Turistka, it was enough for us. They’ve also got a big carafe of water there, and any guest can pour themselves as much as they like, for free.
In fairness: part of the problem was our own doing. We don’t like paying 350-450 CZK (about €14-19) for a weekend lunch in a restaurant, and we almost always prefer a smaller bistro instead. Anyone without that limit has a far wider choice in Kutná Hora on a Saturday at midday than we did.
When you walk down from St. Barbara’s and carry on into the centre, you’ll pass two places you don’t need to go out of your way for – one for coffee, one for ice cream. We photographed both price lists on 29 August 2026.
Turistka stands at Barborská 29/22, and it’s the first place you pass when you walk down from St. Barbara’s and head towards the centre. It’s no detour at all – you walk past it whether you want to or not.
It’s open Wednesday to Sunday, 9:00-18:00, closed on Monday and Tuesday. If your day trip falls on a Monday, you’ll find it locked, and you’ll need to plan your coffee somewhere else.
You order at the counter, and we didn’t sit inside, so I can’t tell you anything about the interior, the table service, or the atmosphere inside.
At 12:29 we left with a cinnamon roll with white icing and a lemonade, both in cups to take away. We ate it standing on the cobblestones, and as a snack before lunch it hit the spot exactly. We paid 120 CZK (about €5) for both items together.
We didn’t get coffee here, so I can’t rate it – but we photographed the price list at the counter so you can plan your budget ahead.
A scoop costs 45 CZK (about €1.9), and next to the crown price the board also shows a euro price: €2 a scoop.
Pay in crowns. At the usual crown-to-euro exchange rate, the euro price works out more expensive than the crown one – for one scoop it’s no big deal, but for four you’ll notice it.
Cash only. Cards don’t work here, so keep some change on you. Along with the car park, where you pay by bank transfer via QR code, this is the second place in one day where a card alone isn’t enough.
For us, the best ice cream in town. On earlier visits we tried other places too, and this one is clearly the best, mainly for its selection and its flavours.
On offer are dairy ice creams as well as vegan sorbets plus daily specials on top. The flavours change from day to day, so go by the board, not by this article.
On Saturday we had one scoop for 45 CZK, and Veronika carried it. On an earlier visit we both had ice cream here.
Every amount in this table is either something we paid that day, or something we photographed straight off a price list. None of this is a guess, and none of it has been worked out afterwards from behind a desk.
One line item does need explaining, though. We didn’t go inside St. Barbara’s Church on Saturday – we’d already been there on an earlier visit, so we paid nothing for admission that day.
I don’t want to bury that ticket inside a total we didn’t actually spend. And I don’t want to leave it out either, because most people will want to go inside. So it’s on the last line, on its own.
| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| Parking for the whole day | 40 CZK (about €1.7) |
| St. Barbara’s Church | 0 CZK – we didn’t go inside that day |
| Corpus Christi Chapel | free – we went inside on an earlier visit, not on Saturday |
| Cinnamon roll and lemonade at Turistka | 120 CZK (about €5) – two items at 60 CZK (about €2.5) each |
| Ice cream, one scoop | 45 CZK (about €1.9) |
| Falafel sandwich, split in half | 135 CZK (about €5.6) |
| Total for two | 340 CZK (about €14) |
| Same day with a tour of St. Barbara’s for two (2 x 180 CZK, about €7.4 each) | 700 CZK (about €29) |
There was one falafel, and we split it in half between us. It wasn’t the plan, but given how the hunt for lunch had gone, we were glad of anything hot. We explain above why we ended up at the bistro.
By the standards of a Czech tourist town, that’s a cheap day. Parking here is more of a small line item than an expense you need to plan for in advance.
Two things move that total more than anything else. The Sedlec Ossuary at 220 CZK (about €9.1) per person, which we skipped this year, and whether you choose lunch at a restaurant or a bistro.
We’ve never stayed overnight in Kutná Hora. All three of our visits were day trips by car. So this section is advice for drivers, not a room review.
And honestly: you can manage Kutná Hora in a day, which we’ve also covered in our article about day trips from Prague. Having a car only helps with that.
Staying overnight makes sense for a different reason. It splits the town into two halves for you – the Sedlec Ossuary and St. Barbara’s Church can then be done over a relaxed morning instead of a single rushed dash with an eye on the clock.
For drivers, that points to the one thing people most often forget when booking. Ask about parking before you confirm the room.
The free car park by St. Barbara’s fills up, and we didn’t find a space there on Saturday. The paid car park at 40 CZK (about €1.7) a day is a solution for one trip, not for two nights with a loaded car.
Tip: the centre of Kutná Hora is not somewhere you want to be circling on a Saturday with a car full of luggage. Accommodation with its own parking takes care of that part of the day for you.
Map of accommodation currently available in Kutná Hora:
The other option is to stay just outside the historic core. Parking there tends to be right by the building, without cobblestones and one-way streets to deal with.
You then have a short walk into the centre, or a few minutes by car. With your own car, we think this option makes more sense than an address right under St. Barbara’s.
At the Na Valech car park, a short walk from St. Barbara’s Church. It’s free, and that’s exactly why it tends to be full at weekends. We found it full and had to look elsewhere. A short way from it there’s a large unsurfaced plot where you pay 40 CZK (about €1.7) for the whole day, and there are far more spaces there.
Standard admission is 180 CZK (about €7.4), seniors aged 65 and over and students up to 26 pay 140 CZK (about €5.8), children aged 6 to 15 and holders of a Czech ZTP disability card pay 60 CZK (about €2.5), and children under 6 go in free. We photographed the prices at the ticket desk in August 2026, and they match the price list on the church’s own website. A number of Czech websites still show 50 to 85 CZK, which hasn’t been true for years. You buy it on the spot, no booking needed.
Admission is 220 CZK (about €9.1) for an adult, but you can’t buy it on the spot. Tickets are sold only online or at the Sedlec Information Centre at Zámecká 279, for a specific date and time. Capacity is limited, and without a booking nobody can guarantee you entry. The popular combined ticket covering the ossuary, the Sedlec cathedral and St. Barbara’s ended on 30 June 2025.
Yes, admission is completely free. The chapel stands right next to St. Barbara’s Church, and according to the sign at the entrance its opening hours match the church’s: daily from 9:00 to 18:00 from April to October, and shorter over the winter months. In effect it’s paid for by whoever buys a ticket to St. Barbara’s – the parish uses that money to fund access to both the chapel and the Church of Our Lady Na Náměti.
Our most recent visit took us 1 hour and 42 minutes from parking to leaving, but we didn’t go inside St. Barbara’s, because we’d already seen it on an earlier visit. If you want St. Barbara’s from the inside, the chapel, lunch and the Sedlec Ossuary on top, plan for a whole day.
It depends on how you’re getting there. Most of what’s on offer is full-day tours from Prague with transport and a guide, and they cost several times what you’d pay for admission on the spot. Private and themed tours are even pricier. If you’re driving, admission to St. Barbara’s and the ossuary together comes to 400 CZK (about €17) per person. You buy the St. Barbara’s ticket at the entrance; the ossuary ticket only in advance, online or at the Sedlec information centre. A tour is worth considering if you’re coming from Prague without a car, or if you specifically want a guide.
At that large unsurfaced plot, you pay by bank transfer via a QR code, 40 CZK (about €1.7) for the whole day. There’s no barrier and nobody on duty. For a foreigner with a foreign bank account that can be a problem, and in that case the simplest thing is to ask one of the locals parked there to send the payment for you and give them cash for it. By the town hall you pay by SMS or in cash, but there are few spaces, and the machine reportedly often doesn’t work.
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