Charles Bridge was begun in 1357, and tradition holds that Charles IV — a king who took astrology seriously — had the first stone laid at 5:31 on the ninth of July, so that the date and time would read the same backwards. It replaced a Romanesque crossing that a flood had carried off fifteen years earlier, and for nearly five centuries it was the only way over the Vltava on foot: 516 metres of sandstone on sixteen arches, wide enough for coronation processions, markets and armies. The thirty statues came much later, from 1683 onward, when the Baroque church lined the parapet with saints. Two in every three are copies now; the eroded originals stand indoors.
The bridge is still a working street, and it is a completely different place depending on when you cross it. From mid-morning it belongs to portrait painters, jazz trios and a crowd that barely moves. Before seven it is nearly empty, mist lifting off the water, the castle catching the first light, the statues black against a pale sky. Near the middle, one bronze panel has been rubbed gold by generations of hands.