Photo by Lylla Lausanne

Mark your calendars: July 9th is the 650th anniversary of the Charles Bridge in Prague. Naturally, there are some serious celebration plans in store—the architectural equivalent of a nip and tuck hasn’t been for nought. Mayors from other world cities are to be invited to the celebration, though an official guest list has not yet been released.

As for the non-VIPs, they can look forward to performances and battles by people in period costumes and, well, plenty of beer and sausages. According to czech.cz’s Marcela Zoufalá, bridge construction has a numerological basis:

On that day, 650 years ago, several odd numbers came into alignment: The year was 1357. It was also the 9th day of the seventh month. The first stone was placed at exactly 5:31. As a result, the sequence of numbers occurs as 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 7, 5, 3, 1. Moreover, the timing also had significant astrological importance, as all the known planets were on the horizon while the Sun, Mercury and Saturn were mutually conjoined, disrupting the latter planet’s unfavorable influence.

Fancy! If the construction of the metro extension to Ruzyne was half as well organized, it might already be built by now.

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