The Clam-Gallas Palace

In the summer of 1990, the city of Prague became a significant flagship for many suddenly accessible freedoms following the events throughout Eastern Europe at the end of 1989. On the streets of the city during the month of August the most evident of these freedoms was that of the ease of tourism for foreign visitors who were present in large numbers. I never saw Prague in earlier days and maybe British friends who did were rather unprepared during those years for the differences between this city and those in the West, for their tales were of few visitors in a city of austere and beautiful grandeur beset by restrictions and shortages.

The volume of crowds last summer, by contrast, was extraordinary, but as with many centres of tourism it was most manifest along a single great thoroughfare between the chief sites. From the Old Square along the Karlova and over the Charles Bridge to the castle of Hradcany the crowds were concentrated and, as if to remind us that in a sense the Westernisation of the city stopped in the summer of 1968, the way was lined by manifestations of Western culture of the late 60s and early 70s; street music, fast food and the like.