Kampa Island

The ground beneath your feet was raised by catastrophe. In 1541, a devastating fire tore through the Lesser Town and the castle district, reducing hundreds of buildings to charred rubble. The city needed somewhere to dump all that debris, and this marshy floodplain was the answer. Broken bricks, burned timbers, and ash were piled here until the ground rose high enough to build on for the first time.

By the late 1500s, craftsmen and potters had moved in, shaping this elevated patch of land into a small working community with its own market square. The narrow waterway running alongside you is called Čertovka, which translates as the Devil's Stream. It is an artificial canal dug in the 12th century to power water mills, one of which still has its massive wooden wheel turning after 600 years. That canal is what makes this a true island at all. Until 1915, the only ways to reach it were by ferry or by wading through a ford.

The name Devil's Stream has a wonderfully mundane origin. Legend traces it to a sharp-tongued washerwoman who lived at a nearby house called the Seven Devils. She did her laundry in the canal and, apparently, terrorized the entire neighborhood. So Prague named a waterway after her. Honestly, that seems like a fair tribute.