6/ Hrádek – Czech Silver Museum and Medieval Silver Mine

The place that will best acquaint you with the history of the royal mining town, the mining and processing of Kutná Hora silver and the most important local architectural pearls is without a doubt the successor of the Vocel Archaeological Collections, the Hrádek – Czech Museum of Silver and the Medieval Silver Mine, which today is one of the oldest and, with its approximately 185,000 collection items, one of the richest museums in the Czech Republic. The museum impresses with its large archaeological and numismatic collection, as well as art and geological collections.

Hrádek, originally a Gothic fortress from the end of the 13th century, acquired its present form of a late Gothic castle palace at the end of the 15th century. The reconstruction process was carried out at the instigation of Václav of Donín, the royal swift of Kutná Hora, in the years 1400-1420. The attractive building changed hands frequently thereafter and also served many purposes, for example, a Jesuit seminary was established here and subsequently a school, which operated at Hrádek until the dissolution of the order in 1773. After that, other schools were located here, including a teacher's institute where the famous teacher Adolf Lindner worked.

Although the intention of the town, which bought Hrádek in 1910 to reconstruct it and establish a museum there, was disturbed by the world wars, after several reconstructions the museum with new expositions was inaugurated in 1996.

There are two tours for visitors. The first tour – The City of Silver – maps the development of Kutná Hora from its beginnings to its blossoming into the second most important city of the kingdom, and the second tour, called The Journey of Silver, presents the journey of silver ore from its conquest to the minting of the coin.