To walk in the city of Prague at night, with the mist lying wet on cobble-stoned alleys, is to walk in the footsteps of Mozart, Kafka and maybe Good King Wenceslas himself.

The cold dead eyes of statues look down upon you, lending an animated spookiness to the night scene. It's nearly midnight, yet tourists strolled casually through the colossal medieval squares of this once-walled fairy land.

Cafes were booming, and on the Old Town Square, people were ambling, doing nighttime sightseeing. In the Segafredo Restaurant, talk was lively, in voices that were Czech, Italian, German, French, English, American. About 20,000 of the latter have moved to Prague since 1989, living there as ex-pats after the barbed wire of communism was cut and trampled for the final time. . . MORE

Photo © John Hilferty 1997