Charles Bridge is terminated on both sides by towers. The Old Town Bridge Tower and two Lesser Town Bridge Towers. The minor of them is called the Judith Tower because it was once part of the Judith Bridge, the predecessor of Charles Bridge. (In 1517, the severed head of the robber knight Henry of Bohnice was exhibited on the Judith Tower. And hundred years later, the heads of the executed Czech lords after the Battle of White Mountain were exhibited on the gallery of the Old Town Bridge Tower.)
At the foot of the higher Lesser Town Bridge Tower is the summer garden of the restaurant. And above the heads of its guests, a medieval toilet sticks out into the street.
At that time it was called prévet (this word comes from the Latin locus privatus – a private place). And if the restaurant had been there in the Middle Ages, it would definitely not have been advisable to sit and dine near the tower, because all the excrement fell from a height directly onto the street.
Toilets are really different today than in the Middle Ages, but in a way, the word prévet remained in Czech. The word prevít is derived from it, which is used to describe either a person who is not very good or even a thing that causes complications. In short, something there are problems with.
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