{ You are reading this post as RSS feed. If you are interested in this place, please view the original page in your browser for interactive Google Street View, photos & video instead. }
The bridge is 516 meters long and nearly 10 meters wide, resting on 16 arches shielded by ice guards. It is protected by three bridge towers, two of them on the Lesser Quarter side and the third one on the Old Town side. The Old Town bridge tower is often considered to be one of the most astonishing civil gothic-style buildings in the world. The bridge is decorated by a continuous alley of 30 statues and statuaries, most of them baroque-style, erected around 1700.
During the night the Charles Bridge is a quiet place. But during the day it changes its face into a very busy place, with painters, owners of kiosks and other traders alongside numerous tourists crossing the bridge.
The need for building a new bridge emerged after the old romanesque Judith Bridge (Juditin most, built around 1170 and named after King Vladislav I's wife Judith), was destroyed by a flood in 1342. The building began in 1357, was supervised by Peter Parler and was led by a "magister pontis", Jan Ottl.
There is a modern legend saying that the foundation stone was laid in 1357 on the 9th day of the 7th month at 5:31 AM and that Charles IV chose this time so that when one writes out the opening time, one writes the sequence of odd numbers, 1-3-5-7-9-7-5-3-1.
The bridge was built from Bohemian sandstone. There is a legend saying that eggs were used to enrich the mortar used to bind the stone blocks to make it harder. Although the saying cannot be verified, modern laboratory tests have indeed proved inorganic and organic ingredients to the mortar. Later, the use of eggs in Charles Bridge mortar was confirmed. The construction of the Charles Bridge continued until the beginning of the 15th century. To sustain the bridge, tolls were collected, first by the religious order of the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star, who had their mother-house nearby, then by the Old Town municipality (until 1815).
Throughout its history, the Charles Bridge suffered several disasters and witnessed many historic events. A flood in 1432 damaged three pillars. In 1496 the third arch (counting from the Old Town side) broke down after one of the pillars lowered, being undermined by the water (repairs were finished in 1503). A year after the Battle of White Mountain, when the 27 leaders of the anti-Habsburg revolt were executed on 21 June 1621, the Old Town bridge tower served as a deterrent display of the severed heads of the victims to stop Czechs from further resistance. During the end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648, the Swedes occupied the west bank of the Vltava, and as they tried to advance into the Old Town the heaviest fighting took place right on the bridge. During the fighting, they severely damaged one side of the Old Town bridge tower (the side facing the river) and the remnants of almost all gothic decorations had to be removed from it afterward. During the late 17th and early 18th centuries the bridge gained its typical appearance when an alley of baroque statues was installed on the pillars. During a great flood in 1784, five pillars were severely damaged and although the arches did not break down, the traffic on the bridge had to be greatly restricted for some time.
Loading ...
0 comments:
Post a Comment