Prague Charles Bridge Snow Countdown Timer

This is the Charles Bridge in the snow, early, before the crowds and the trinket sellers and the man who will draw your portrait for a price have arrived, which is the only time it belongs to the city rather than to the tourists. The statues along the parapets were capped in white, all those saints and martyrs looking faintly ridiculous with snow on their heads, and the Old Town Bridge Tower stood at the far end with its dark spire and its arch, snow caught in every ledge and every crack of the old stone. Two people were walking away from me down the middle, small and dark against all that white, and their footprints were the only marks on the paving. The sky was the flat pale grey of a day that has decided not to bother with the sun. My breath was visible. Somewhere a bell was ringing, slow and slightly out of tune, and the sound came across the empty bridge and did not bounce off anything, just absorbed into the snow. I did not take many pictures. It felt wrong to. That was the point.