Prague on Foot: Old Town Square to Prague Castle

The Walk of the Apostles lasts under a minute, and by mid-morning the square in front of it is already shoulder to shoulder to watch it. Skip the crush and instead climb the Old Town Hall Tower next door (a lift as well as stairs) for a rooftop view straight down the square and across the spires beyond — the same panorama, minus the crowd.

Charles Bridge has been pedestrian-only since 1965, and by mid-morning it fills with vendors, portrait artists and tour groups until it’s shoulder to shoulder. Most of its thirty statues are 20th-century replicas — a number of the fragile sandstone originals they replaced are preserved in the Gorlice casemates at Vyšehrad, while St John of Nepomuk (1683) remains the oldest still in place on the bridge in its original bronze. Cross at first light and it’s just the statues, the river, and the castle ahead.

Charles IV started the cathedral in 1344, but building stalled for centuries after the Hussite Wars and the neo-Gothic west end wasn’t finished until 1929. Stand at the back and look toward the entrance: the newer stone is noticeably paler and crisper than the soot-darkened medieval choir at the far end — a visible seam across nearly six centuries of construction.