Table of Contents
- So What Exactly Is the Devil's Channel?
- Where You'll Find Čertovka (and How It Carves Out Kampa Island)
- Why Is It Called the Devil's Channel?
- A Quick History of the Canal
- The Grand Priory Mill and Its Famous Wheel
- Why People Call It Prague's Venice
- Seeing Čertovka From the Water - the Devil's Channel Cruise
- Things to See Right Next to the Canal
- How to Get There
- Where to Stay Nearby
- A Few Things Worth Knowing Before You Go
- Quick Answers
There's a narrow strip of water tucked behind Charles Bridge that most people walk straight past without realising it's there. It's the Devil's Channel, or Čertovka in Czech, and it's probably the most photographed canal in the country that nobody actually plans to visit. You stumble onto it, lean over a railing, spot an old wooden mill wheel turning below, and suddenly you've lost twenty minutes just staring at the water.
So let's talk about it properly - what it is, why it's got such an odd name, and how to see the bit of Prague that turns up on half the postcards.
So What Exactly Is the Devil's Channel?
The Devil's Channel is a side arm of the Vltava River, the big river that splits Prague down the middle. Instead of being a separate stream, Čertovka peels off from the Vltava, runs for about 740 metres through the Lesser Town (Malá Strana), then loops back into the same river again. That's it. It's short, it's narrow, and in places you could throw a stone across it.
You'll see the name written loads of different ways in English - Devil's Channel, Devil's Canal, Devil's Stream, sometimes just Devils Channel without the apostrophe. They all point to the same place. The Czech word Čertovka comes from "čert", which means devil, so every version is really just a translation of the local name.
And here's the clever bit. By cutting that channel away from the main river, people created an island - Kampa. So the Devil's channel in Prague isn't only a pretty waterway. It's the whole reason one of the city's best little islands exists at all.
Where You'll Find Čertovka (and How It Carves Out Kampa Island)
The canal sits on the western bank of the Vltava, right under the shadow of Charles Bridge. It starts near the northern end of Malostranské nábřeží (the Lesser Town embankment) and flows back into the Vltava just behind the bridge. Over its whole course it separates Kampa Island from the rest of the Malá Strana district, so you're never far from the historic heart of the Lesser Town.
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The key thing to picture is the layout:
- The Vltava River runs on one side.
- The Devil's Channel runs on the other, closer to the buildings.
- The thin slice of land trapped between the two is Kampa Island.
Kampa's actually pretty old - it first turns up in writing back in 1169, in the founding charter of the local Maltese Order church. For centuries the island was mostly gardens and pottery markets before houses crept in. These days it's grass, art and one of the calmest spots near the centre. A well-known travel site once voted it the second most beautiful city island in the world, which is a big claim for a chunk of land you can cross in a few minutes.
Charles Bridge crosses right over the top of the channel, so the most famous view of Čertovka is actually from the bridge itself - lean over the railing on the Lesser Town side and you're looking straight down at it.
Why Is It Called the Devil's Channel?
Right, the name. Nobody's completely sure where it came from, and that's half the fun. There are a couple of stories, and honestly the messy one is the best.
The bad-tempered woman and the seven devils
The canal only picked up the name Čertovka fairly recently - the year usually given is 1892. Before that it went by plainer names like Strouha (which just means "ditch" or "stream"), and back in 1585 it was even called the Rosenberg Race after a local landowner, Vilém of Rožmberk. For a while it was simply known as the Malá Strana stream.
The "devil" part is tied to a house on nearby Maltézské náměstí (Maltese Square), called U sedmi čertů - "At the Seven Devils". The story goes that a sharp-tongued old woman used to do her washing by the water, and one day she yelled at a group of young lads hanging around. They didn't take it well. So they declared she must belong to the devil, painted seven devils on the front of her house, and the name stuck - first to the house, then to the whole canal. A bit harsh on her, but there you go.
The other story - water that ran like the devil
The second version is less dramatic but more practical. The channel was built to drive watermills, and when the river was high the current through it could turn those wheels at a fierce, "devilish" speed. Some say the name comes from that - water running like the devil. A few tellings even pin it on a miller so tough that people nicknamed him "the devil" himself.
So take your pick. The seven devils legend is the one most locals will tell you.
A Quick History of the Canal
The Devil's Channel isn't natural - someone dug it on purpose, and that someone was the Order of the Knights of Malta (also known as the Knights Hospitaller, and today the Sovereign Military Order of Malta). This is the same Maltese order that gives the square and several buildings round here their names.
Most sources put the construction somewhere in the Middle Ages, with the 12th century the usual guess. The point of it was simple and not at all glamorous - a controlled flow of water to power a row of mills along the bank. Grain needed grinding, and a steady channel did the job far better than the moody main river ever could.
Over the centuries the island filled out, the banks were firmed up after a big Lesser Town fire in 1541, and the gardens slowly gave way to houses. The mills kept turning the whole time, and a few of these preserved mills are still standing today - which brings us to the most famous one.
The Grand Priory Mill and Its Famous Wheel
If you've seen one photo of Čertovka, you've seen the big wooden wheel. That belongs to the Grand Priory Mill - Velkopřevorský mlýn in Czech. A mill's stood on this exact spot since around the year 1400, and the wheel you see today is kept turning purely because people love it, not because anyone's grinding flour anymore.
But the mill's gone by a few names over the years. Because of its links to the Maltese order it's sometimes called the Maltese Mill, and older records knew it under names like the Stephen's Mill too. There's actually a second working wheel a short way along the channel, at the old Huť mill, so on a good day you can catch the clatter of two of them turning at once.
The best free view? Stand on Charles Bridge, look down toward the Lesser Town side, and the Grand Priory wheel is right there below you. It's one of those small details that makes the bridge worth a second crossing.
Why People Call It Prague's Venice
You'll hear Čertovka called Prague Venice - Pražské Benátky in Czech - pretty much everywhere. The reason's easy to see once you're standing there. The old houses are built right up to the water's edge, their walls dropping straight into the canal with no embankment in between, and the whole thing's narrow enough to feel intimate rather than grand.
Now, don't get too carried away. It's not Venice. There are no gondolas gliding around every corner, and the whole canal's shorter than a single Venetian backstreet. But for one tight little stretch, with the reflections and the leaning houses and the mill wheel, the nickname earns itself. It's the kind of corner you didn't expect to find in a landlocked country.
Seeing Čertovka From the Water - the Devil's Channel Cruise
Here's the thing most visitors miss. From the street, you only ever see the canal from above, peering down from a bridge. But the channel's so narrow that the big sightseeing boats can't fit into it - only small craft can squeeze through. So the one way to actually float along Čertovka is on a little boat built for it.
These small cruises run on compact electric and solar-powered boats, the sort that can slip under the low bridges and right up to the mill wheel. You board at a pier near Čech Bridge on the Old Town side, and from there you sail under Charles Bridge and into the channel itself. You get a view of the Grand Priory wheel from water level that you simply can't get on foot, and your photos of Charles Bridge come out completely different from everyone else's.
What you'll usually pass, depending on the route:
| Stop on the route | What you're looking at |
|---|---|
| Charles Bridge | The boat slips underneath it - your best low-angle shot of the whole thing |
| Grand Priory Mill | The famous wooden wheel, seen from the water |
| Prague Castle | The skyline view up on the hill above Malá Strana |
| Rudolfinum | The grand neo-Renaissance concert hall near the Old Town bank |
| Mánes Bridge | One of the elegant river crossings along the way |
| National Theatre | Often visible on the longer river loops |
| Dancing House | The famous wavy modern building, on extended routes |
| Vyšehrad | The old fortress on the cliff, if your cruise runs that far south |
Most of these trips come with a local guide on board, and the commentary's included in the ride. These are experienced local guides who run the cruises year-round, and they often speak several languages, English included. They'll talk you through how the channel came about, drop in the seven-devils legend and a few personal stories that add real colour - so you get far more than just a captain steering the boat. Free Wi-Fi and an open deck for photos usually come as standard too. The little boats run pretty much year round, with covered, heated ones used in winter. And on a calm evening, gliding past the lit-up mill wheel, it really does feel like a bit of a fairy tale cruise. Just bear in mind that if the river's running too high or too low, the channel section can get cancelled on the day - it's that shallow and narrow.
Things to See Right Next to the Canal
The lovely thing about the Čertovka canal is that some of Prague's best small sights are all clustered within a few minutes' walk. You can easily turn a quick canal stop into a half-day wander.
The Lennon Wall
Just off the canal, on Velkopřevorské náměstí (Grand Priory Square), you'll find the Lennon Wall - sometimes searched as the John Lennon Wall. It started as a scruffy patch of political graffiti in the 1980s and turned into a constantly repainted shrine of Beatles lyrics, peace slogans and colour. Every year on 8 December, the date of Lennon's death, people gather to light candles here. It's free, it's always changing, and it's a two-minute stroll from the water.
Kampa and the Kampa Museum
Cross onto Kampa Island and you've got open grass for a picnic plus the Kampa Museum (Museum Kampa), a modern-art gallery set in an old mill building right by the river. The little square of Na Kampě is one of the prettiest in the city, lined with cafés and pastel houses, and the riverside there gives you a calm view back across the Vltava. It's a proper local spot to slow down for half an hour.
The narrowest street in Prague
This one's a genuine oddity. Just off U Lužického semináře Street, near the canal, there's a tiny passage so narrow that two people can't pass each other in it - so they fitted it with a pedestrian traffic light. Red and green, the whole deal, just to stop people getting wedged. The street's so small it doesn't even have an official name. Locals just call it the narrowest street in Prague, and it's a fun two-second detour while you're down here.
And you're right next to a cluster of bigger landmarks - the Lichtenstein Palace sits over on the Malá Strana side, Charles Bridge is overhead, and if you walk across to the Old Town you'll hit Křižovnické náměstí and then Old Town Square (Staroměstské náměstí) in about ten minutes.
How to Get There
Getting to the Devil's Channel is dead easy since it's smack in the historic centre. You'll mostly be walking the last stretch whatever you do, because cars don't go far into these lanes.
| Coming by | What to do |
|---|---|
| Metro | Take line A to Staroměstská on the Old Town side, then walk across Charles Bridge. Malostranská also works if you're coming from the Lesser Town side |
| Tram | Trams 17 and 18 run along the embankment - hop off at the Právnická fakulta stop, which is closest to the Čech Bridge dock |
| Car | Honestly, don't. If you must, there are paid garages near the Rudolfinum - the streets themselves are no good for parking |
| On foot | From Old Town Square (Staré Město), just head for Charles Bridge and follow the crowds. Five to ten minutes and you're there |
For the cruise specifically, aim for the dock by Čech Bridge on the Old Town riverfront, which is the usual departure point for the small boats.
Where to Stay Nearby
If you want to wake up to the canal, the streets of Malá Strana right around Čertovka are full of small hotels and guesthouses built into old houses - some of them centuries old, a few literally sitting on the water with windows over the channel. There's even a small Baroque place built into a 17th-century house right on the canal bank. And rooms in this pocket book up fast because the location's so good, so if you've set your heart on staying here, sort it well ahead. Staying in the Lesser Town also means you get Charles Bridge to yourself early in the morning, before the day-trippers arrive - which is reason enough on its own.
A Few Things Worth Knowing Before You Go
Some bits and pieces that'll make the visit better:
- It's a film star. Čertovka and the streets around it have shown up in some big movies. The area featured in Amadeus and Mission: Impossible, so there's a decent chance you've already seen it on screen without knowing where it was.
- Watch for the flood marks. Look closely at the walls of some houses by the channel and you'll spot plaques marking how high the water reached in past floods - one from September 1890, another from the big August 2002 flood. The calm little canal can turn nasty when the Vltava rises, and those plates are the proof.
- Evening's the best time. Late afternoon and dusk are when Čertovka really comes alive - the low light hits the water, the mill wheel turns lazily, and the crowds on Charles Bridge thin out a bit. End-of-summer evenings are about as good as it gets.
- You can't really walk the canal banks for long. Unlike a riverside promenade, there's no continuous path right along the water. You see it from the bridges and a few small embankment points - which is exactly why the boat ride's worth it.
Quick Answers
Can you walk along the Devil's Channel?
Not really, no - there's no full towpath. You view it from the bridges that cross it, from Charles Bridge above, and from a couple of small embankment spots. To travel along the water itself you need one of the little boats.
Can big sightseeing boats enter Čertovka?
They can't. The channel's too narrow and too shallow for large vessels, so only small electric and solar boats can slip in. That's a big part of why the canal still feels quiet and intimate.
Is the Devil's Channel cruise worth it?
If you like getting a different angle on a city, yeah. The view of Charles Bridge and the old mill wheel from water level is something you just can't get on foot, and the channel's narrowness makes it feel like a proper little adventure. The ride's short, so it's easy to fit in.
How long is the canal?
About 740 metres, start to finish. It branches off the Vltava near Malostranské nábřeží and rejoins it behind Charles Bridge.
Why is it called Prague Venice?
Because the old houses rise straight out of the water with no embankment, and the narrow channel with its reflections has a Venice-ish feel. It's a nickname, not a serious comparison - but stand there at dusk and you'll get why it stuck.
Who built it and when?
The Knights of Malta (the Knights Hospitaller) dug it in the Middle Ages, most likely the 12th century, to power a row of watermills along the bank.
The Devil's Channel is one of those Prague spots that rewards you for slowing down. It's tiny, you can see the whole thing in an hour, but between the legend of the seven devils, the old turning wheel and the Lennon Wall round the corner, there's far more packed into Čertovka than its size lets on. Come for the postcard view from Charles Bridge - stay for the little boat ride and the quiet corners of Kampa just beyond it.