Old Town Bridge Tower

Before you stands one of the finest Gothic gateways in Europe. Charles IV, King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor, ordered it built beside the new stone bridge begun in 1357, and the workshop of Peter Parler, the same architect behind St Vitus Cathedral, completed it over the following decades. It was more than a defence: it was a triumphal arch through which coronation processions passed on their way to the castle.

1A manifesto in stone

The facade facing the Old Town is political theatre. Below, seated on thrones, are Charles IV and his son Wenceslas IV. Between them stands St Vitus on a model of the bridge, of which he is patron. At the very top, St Adalbert and St Sigismund watch over the kingdom, with the Bohemian lion at their feet.

2Heads in iron cages

After the Protestant estates were defeated at White Mountain, 27 of their leaders were executed in Old Town Square on 21 June 1621. Ferdinand II had the heads of twelve of them displayed on this tower in iron baskets. They stayed there for about ten years, until the Saxon army entered Prague in 1631 and they were taken down. Nobody knows where they lie today.

In 1648, in the last days of the Thirty Years' War, the Swedes tried to storm the bridge. Townspeople and students from the nearby Clementinum stopped them here, but the artillery destroyed the Gothic decoration on the western side.

3What to look for

• The two seated kings: Charles IV is the older, bearded one; beside him, Wenceslas IV.
• The kingfisher inside a twisted veil, Wenceslas IV's personal emblem, repeated on the facade.
• The river side: walk through the arch and turn around to see the bare facade left by the cannon fire of 1648.