Charles Bridge

For more than four centuries Charles Bridge was the only way across the Vltava in Prague, and it is still the city's great promenade. Emperor Charles IV laid its foundation stone in 1357, the work was led by Peter Parler, the architect of St. Vitus Cathedral, and it took until the early fifteenth century to complete. It is a little over five hundred metres long, built of sandstone blocks on sixteen arches, and it was the route of the Royal Way, the coronation procession that ran from the Old Town up to the castle. The statues came later. In the Baroque era the Catholic Church lined the parapets with saints, starting in 1683 with the bronze of St. John of Nepomuk, the priest who, according to legend, was thrown from the bridge on the orders of King Wenceslas IV for refusing to reveal the queen's confessions. Polished patches on the plaques below his statue show where millions of people have touched it for luck. There are thirty statues and groups today; most are replicas, as the sandstone originals have been moved for protection to the Lapidarium of the National Museum and to the casemates at Vyšehrad. At each end stand towers. The Old Town Bridge Tower is one of the finest Gothic towers in Europe, its eastern face carved with Charles IV, his son Wenceslas and the patron saints of Bohemia; at the far end, the two Lesser Town Bridge Towers frame the entrance to Malá Strana. Crossing is free at any hour. The ticket linked here is for the bridge towers, which you climb by narrow spiral stairs to galleries with the defining view of the bridge, the river and the castle.

Timing is everything. By late morning the bridge is a slow-moving river of people, with portrait artists, souvenir stalls and jazz bands along the parapets, and from mid-morning to evening in summer it can be hard to stop and look. At dawn it is a different place: mist on the river, the statues in silhouette, the castle catching the first light. Even in winter, an hour after sunrise you will share it with photographers and joggers. Late evening is the other good window, when the crowds thin and the lamps come on. Ongoing conservation work on the bridge, a near-permanent feature given its age, sometimes fences off a pier or a section of parapet, but the crossing itself stays open.

Working the towers: the Old Town Bridge Tower has the classic view west along the bridge to the Lesser Town Bridge Towers, St. Nicholas Church and the castle; the taller of the Lesser Town towers looks back across the river to the Old Town and is quieter. Both have steep stone stairs and no lifts. The tower gallery is the best place to see the scale of the bridge and the clever angle at which it meets the Old Town. Below the bridge on the Malá Strana side, steps lead down to Kampa Island and the narrow Čertovka channel, one of the most romantic corners of the city, and on the Old Town side, the riverfront near the Smetana Museum has the best ground-level view back toward the castle.

Know the traps. Pickpockets thrive in the crush around the statue of St. John of Nepomuk and in the bottleneck at the towers. Some stalls and street performers expect payment for photos. The rule of thumb for the bridge is simple: cross it twice, once at dawn for the experience and once in the evening for the lights, and use it the rest of the time only to get from one side to the other. From the Old Town end, Karlova street winds to Old Town Square; from the Malá Strana end, Mostecká rises to the Lesser Town Square and on toward the castle.