Charles Bridge.
Everybody who visits Prague wants to stroll across Charles Bridge. Because that’s on everybody’s list, you better visit this beautiful place at dusk or dawn unless you do not mind being squashed by lingering tourists, busy hawkers and merry musicians, while the imposing Baroque statues look down at you mildly.
Charles IV commissioned Peter Parler – who also happens to be the architect of the St. Vitus Cathedral – with the replacement of an old bridge. That was in 1357 and about three years later a new bridge made the river Vltava passable. It was only in the 19th century that the bridge was named in honour of King Charles, before it was pragmatically known as what it was, a Stone Bridge, Kamenný most.
The Charles Bridge is 516 meters long and nearly 10 meters wide; three bridge towers guard it, two of them are on the Lesser Town side, one on the Old Town side. Climb up one of the towers for a brilliant view on the bridge and its impressive alley of statues.
Sometime around the 1700 the Gothic stone bridge was adorned with thirty mostly Baroque statues. Nowadays most of them are copies while the original witnesses of time are preserved in the Lapidarium.
Last but not least, a tidbit of trivia, egg yolks are said to be mixed into the mortar to strengthen the construction of the bridge. This said, will you still be one of the people crowding the bridge?