On your slight left, you will spot a massive stone bow-shaped bridge stretching across the river, anchored by a dark, towering Gothic gateway at its entrance. This is the famous Charles Bridge, and if you stand right here, about twenty meters back, you get a perfect view of its grand scale.
It is quite a contrast from the looming modern space of the Stalin Monument we explored a little while ago.
This bridge is a medieval survivor. Construction started back in 1357 under King Charles the Fourth. He commissioned it to replace the older Judith Bridge, which had been washed away by a catastrophic flood. Charles was not just a king, he was also a passionate believer in numerology, the mystical significance of numbers. According to legend, he waited for a very specific astrological moment to lay the first stone. That moment was the year 1357, on the ninth day of the seventh month, at exactly 5:31 in the morning. If you write that out, it forms a perfect numerical palindrome: 1 3 5 7 9 7 5 3 1. The emperor believed this magical sequence would imbue the stone with unbreakable strength.
That strength was certainly tested. For hundreds of years, this was the only way to cross the Vltava river, making it a vital artery for trade between Eastern and Western Europe, and the historic coronation route for Bohemian kings. But it also made it a prime target. Look up at the Old Town Bridge Tower guarding the entrance. In 1621, after a failed revolt against the ruling Habsburg family, the severed heads of twenty-seven rebel leaders were hung from that tower. It was a gruesome, highly effective deterrent against further rebellion. Later, in 1648, invading Swedish troops tried to storm across this very span. The fighting was so brutal that it stripped almost all the original gothic decorations right off the tower side facing the river.
As you look down the bridge, which stretches for over five hundred meters, you will see a continuous avenue of thirty statues. Most of these depict various patron saints in the Baroque style, an artistic movement famous for its intense emotion, dramatic poses, and intricate details. They were added around 1700 by master sculptors like Matthias Braun and the Brokoff family. However, the statues you see today are actually replicas. The originals have been systematically moved into a museum since 1965 to protect them from the elements.
The bridge itself has had to be protected, too. It rests on sixteen arches shielded by ice guards, which are pointed stone barriers designed to break up frozen river chunks. But even they could not stop the disastrous flood of September 1890. Thousands of runaway logs and rafts jammed against the bridge. The pressure became so immense that three entire arches collapsed, and two statues tumbled into the roaring water below.
It is hard to imagine such chaos today, especially knowing that up until the mid-twentieth century, this peaceful pedestrian walkway was crowded with horse-drawn trams and even buses. It took a massive restoration in the 1970s to banish the traffic for good.
Now it is just a place for walking, surrounded by the quiet watch of stone saints. Enjoy the view of the river, and when you are ready, let's move forward.
