Most Legií: the Bridge of the Legions
Why is it significant?
Walk out on to Most Legií and stop by the balustrade. Upstream, Charles Bridge lies across the river like a dark stone ribbon, with the castle and St Vitus above it. Behind you, at the far end of this bridge, the golden roof of the National Theatre catches the light.
Key Facts
| Place | Most Legií: the Bridge of the Legions |
|---|---|
| Address | most Legií, 118 00 Praha 1, Czechia |
| Geo Coordinates | 50.08130, 14.40880 |
| Part of Walk | Prague's Secret Lesser Town: Kampa, the Devil's Stream & the Embassy Garden of 1989 |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk out on to Most Legií and stop by the balustrade. Upstream, Charles Bridge lies across the river like a dark stone ribbon, with the castle and St Vitus above it. Behind you, at the far end of this bridge, the golden roof of the National Theatre catches the light. Trams rattle past, the river is wide and fast here, and this may well be the finest view in Prague that costs nothing at all.
The bridge was finished in 1901, replacing an older chain bridge on the same spot, and it was built to be admired: broad granite arches, ornate lamps and sculpted decoration. At first it was named after Emperor Franz the First. In 1919, a year after independence, it was renamed the Bridge of the Legions.
The legionnaires were Czech and Slovak soldiers who fought on the side of the Allies in the First World War, many of them former prisoners and deserters from the Austro-Hungarian army. In Russia, tens of thousands of them ended up controlling a large part of the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1918, and the long journey home took some of them right around the world. Their fight helped convince the Allies that Czechoslovakia deserved to exist.
And then the name kept changing with the regime. The communists, who distrusted the memory of soldiers who had fought the Bolsheviks, renamed it in 1960 the Bridge of the First of May. In 1990, a few months after the Velvet Revolution, the legionnaires got their bridge back. In Prague, you can read the history of the century simply by reading the street signs.
Look down from the balustrade at the long green island beneath the bridge. A staircase leads down to it from the middle of the bridge. Take it, and walk north along the island to its tip. That is where this walk ends, on a shore where a whole nation once learned to march in step.