Charles Bridge

Before you is Prague's most visited monument. For centuries it was the city's only bridge and the obligatory crossing between the Old Town and the castle. It replaced the 12th-century Judith Bridge, destroyed by a flood on 3 February 1342.

1A bridge from 1357

Charles IV laid the foundation stone in 1357 and Peter Parler directed the work. It is almost 516 metres long, about 9.5 metres wide and has sixteen arches. Until around 1870 it was simply called the Stone Bridge or the Prague Bridge. It has withstood a great deal, but not everything: on 4 September 1890 a flood drove logs against its piers and brought down two arches.

It is often said the first stone was laid on 9 July 1357 at 5:31, forming the palindrome 1-3-5-7-9-7-5-3-1. It is a hypothesis from 1979, not a documented fact.

It is also said that eggs were added to the mortar. Chemical analyses in 2010 found no trace of them.

2An open-air gallery

In the Middle Ages the bridge had only a cross. The thirty statues and sculptural groups arrived mostly between 1707 and 1714, when the Baroque turned the bridge into a procession of saints. Most of the originals have been replaced by copies and are kept in museums.

3What to look for

• The two Malá Strana towers: the lower one is Romanesque, from the old Judith Bridge; the taller one is Gothic, from the 15th century.
• Kampa Island below the bridge, on the Malá Strana side.
• The view of the castle upstream, Prague's classic postcard.