Charles Bridge (Karluv Most)

spent a good part of yesterday above and below Europe's longest medieval bridge. This is probably the greatest tourist attraction in the city of Prague due to the stunning views offered from above, all the decorative statuary, the souvenirs, the entertainment and the fact that it connects the Castle district with the main city. After strolling across to the Castle side, we made our way down to the shoreline and boarded one of the many boats available for river cruising. This gave me the chance to get some pictures from a new perspective. I was reading about the bridge yesterday and it has an interesting history. Charles IV had it built back in the 1300's but selected a particular date. Apparently the corner stone was laid at exactly 5:31 am on 9 July, 1357 which creates a palindrome--135797531. I thought that was cool. You know they were all superstitious about things back then, so I guess he was told that was a fortuitious date. Anyway, it apparently was finished just in time to permit his funeral procession a crossing. All the statues lining the bridge are Saints with significance to the Czechs and the ones we see today are copies since the originals have been moved to places where they can be protected from the elements.

Another interesting story says that when they were buliding the bridge, a call went out to all the neighbouring villages for wine and eggs to add to the lime to create a stronger mortar and I guess it worked since the bridge lasted right up until 1890 when a flood wiped out 3 arches. They are currently working on a huge section of the bridge and I don't know the specifics but it cuts the width in half and makes it more crowded than usual.

It was nice to see the bridge from the river Vltava. The river is substancial and it's easy to see how it was a major transport link in its day. Apparently they used to raft huge convoys of timber along it's length cut from the surrounding forests to yards lining the river. All that ended when they constructed dams for hydroelectricity. Most of the traffic you see now is made up of small boats chugging along loaded with tourists including moi.