By Stephen Weeks

Charles Bridge's closure for repairs this summer might seem like a tragedy for Prague tourism: the severing of its main artery, the stopping-up of the old milch cow. What on earth will those guys dressed up as unconvincing sailors pushing boat trips do now?

Where will the beggars on their knees ever find so many footfalls passing so near to their polystyrene cups? Where will the smiling organ grinder in his straw boater grind out his Barnum & Bailey's repertoire? And what will all those terrible shops peddling tat on both approach streets do with all those Russian dolls, "Souvenir from Prague" boomerangs, and "I threw up in Prague" T-shirts? (With a bit of minimal repainting, they could, of course, be recycled as souvenirs in Moscow, Sydney or Glasgow.)

No, this rest could be as good as a change — on the basis that things never quite return to how they were before. This could be a great time to pause for reflection on what Prague really wants from its deluge of tourists, and where the deluge is leading this wonderful city.

But first, the bridge itself. As it looks now, sans statues, it was built under Charles IV in 1357. Two-thirds of it was swept away in a terrible flood in 1891, and was carefully rebuilt, including the miraculous rescue of most of the Baroque statues. There was a scheme in the early 1900s for trams to run across it, and it was closed three times last century for repairs, most recently when it was pedestrianized. It withstood the 2002 floods.

This year the Association of Charles Bridge Artists is helping finance the restoration of that wonderful sculpture group on Pier 14, near the Malá Strana end, of St. John of Matha, St. Felix of Valois, the Blessed Ivan with a Turkish guard and prisoners in a little prison (in which people often left flowers during communism to commemorate those imprisoned for their beliefs).

Nowadays, the bridge is a de facto shopping mall. The main thing the visitor sees while crossing is a tacky collection of sales stands for homemade goods. Nothing really wrong with this idea: In the past, the bridge was crammed with peddlers and sellers of almost everything, but now we have to be more careful as to how all this looks.

The bridge has become an icon. People fly in from all over the world to see it as part of an ensemble of visual perfection along with Prague Castle and Old Town Square. Since the bridge is such an important monument, why is it allowed to be furnished with such junk? Would such low-grade stuff be allowed in the grand rooms of the castle? Why is it allowed on Charles Bridge?

Second after this in the visitor's memory is the sight of the guided tours: gaggles of tourists following, like obedient sheep, some prickly character striding onward holding aloft a furled umbrella. This is the real punishment of visiting Prague. The tours have gone on seamlessly since communism, and now must be the time to ask a simple question — why? I don't know of any other capital city where it appears to be essential to see the sights like this. Under the old regime it was the way of controlling foreigners, keeping them from straying and perhaps — God forbid — meeting some poor Praguer and telling him or her that outside of the Soviet bloc, it doesn't take 12 years to get a phone, or three years to get a car, or that listening to the BBC doesn't rot your brain.

That's all a thing of the past, so why aren't the tours?

Whatever happens, the flow of tourists will be diffused, and this can only be a good thing in the long run. Wouldn't it be good if more tourists got to see the City Museum, at the end of Na Poříčí, just past the flyover? It's a great museum and always has great exhibitions; the current one is about pastimes in the city through the ages (with English captions as well as Czech). Upstairs, it has an incredible cardboard model of 18th-century Malá Strana and Old Town. Returning to the main center, tourists would also get to see, under the flyover, the only McDonald's in the known world with a 'McWalk' window!

They might also get to see more out-of-the-way attractions such as the excellent Technical Museum, or Troja Chateau, the much underrated Army Museum or the great old citadel of Vyšehrad. Might we even consider panelák tours, to give visitors a true taste of how most Czechs live, in aging concrete prefab apartments? Closing Charles Bridge would be an opportunity to expand tourism to include the ever-larger number of ever-more-discerning tourists.

This break would also be a time for the Prague 1 City Council to revisit its tourism strategies.

For example: On Old Town Square, restaurants are gradually building permanent structures where once there were simply outside tables and chairs; now they have floors, roofs, heaters, and cakes whirling round in refrigerated displays. If you've flown halfway round the world to see this famous square, then you want to see it — not these buildings-by-stealth, which have erupted in the past two years.

The Gothic arcading at ground-floor level of one whole side of the square has now become invisible behind these structures. More than one historical city in France solves this problem by simply allowing restaurants what they want, but with the proviso that everything must be cleared away each Monday morning for street cleaning! Ingenious solutions exist for all the problems.

Let's hope that this will indeed be a rest as good as a change, and deflect Prague's tourism success from throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

— The writer is an author, broadcaster and conservationist who lives in Prague and whose new detective novel, The Countess of Prague, is being