The St John of Nepomuk statue
The most famous figure on the bridge, with a bronze relief beneath it polished by countless hands — the local custom says it guarantees your return.
Jakub Hałun — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Tadeáš Gregor — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Jakub Hałun — CC BY-SA 4.0 · DXR — CC BY-SA 4.0
Before 7am or after 10pm. In between — and especially at midday — crossing is slow and a photo without shoulders in it is close to impossible.
Most are faithful copies; the 17th- and 18th-century originals were moved into museum keeping, away from rain and pollution. The copies are cut from the same stone, and only a specialist notices.
The bridge runs about 515 metres — ten minutes on foot when it is quiet, twenty or more at midday. Add half an hour if you want to stop at the statues and the painters.
Yes: nearby Legion Bridge (Most Legií) gives the best photograph of Charles Bridge itself with the castle, and is almost empty. Čech Bridge to the north leads straight to the steps up to Letná park.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet — be the first.
Charles Bridge is the picture people carry in their heads of Prague: sixteen sandstone arches across the Vltava, guarded by thirty Baroque statues and closed at each end by a Gothic tower. Emperor Charles IV ordered it in 1357 to replace an earlier bridge swept away by a flood, and for four centuries it was the only link between the two halves of the city — meaning every merchant, every king and every army that entered Prague crossed these stones. Most of the statues you see are careful copies; the originals are kept in a museum, out of the weather. The best known is St John of Nepomuk, the priest thrown from the bridge into the river in 1393. The bronze relief below him is polished bright by hands, and local habit says touching it brings you back to Prague one day. Crossing costs nothing and is possible at any hour, but the experience changes completely with the clock. At six in the morning the bridge is yours, with mist lifting off the river and two painters setting up their stalls; after eleven it is a human river that barely moves. If your day allows one choice, make it dawn — or after ten at night, when the castle behind it is lit.
The most famous figure on the bridge, with a bronze relief beneath it polished by countless hands — the local custom says it guarantees your return.
Between 5 and 7am the bridge is empty and mist sits on the river — without question the best photographic hour in all of Prague.
Climb it to look down the full length of the bridge with the castle behind — the one viewpoint where the statues line up.
Take the side stairs down to Kampa and see the bridge from below, arches and mill wheels together — an angle most visitors miss.
Karlův most, between the Old Town and the Lesser Town