Airlines have reduced the number of seats on offer so travel is as costly as ever. There are, nonetheless, two ways to save money on this year's trip to Europe. Mine are named Jonathan and Sarah. Neither will be accompanying their mother and me on our upcoming vacation. When I consider the fact that I am the only member of my family capable of adding two-digit numbers in his head, and factor in that Jonathan is currently a freshman at Vassar, a trip to the Old World for my offspring seems somewhat superfluous.
Be aware that it will take two methods of conveyance to arrive at your European airport: a plane and a bus. Europeans have not discovered Jetways. That $3,500 Business Class ticket from Denver to Amsterdam may stick in your craw while you race from the aircraft through the rain with hundreds of others to a sodden double-wide bus and find yourself strap-hanging next to bawling triplets for the two-kilometer ride to your terminal at Schiphol.
For this reason, there is no need to rise immediately upon landing as the "fasten seat belt" light is extinguished and join a throng of eager, woefully misguided passengers who clutch their carry-on bags in a cramped, airless aisle for 28 minutes waiting for the buses to arrive. (There won't be enough buses anyway: Europeans don't like to waste energy or money. They do not, however, mind wasting time.)
The journey in from the airport will be an eye-opener. No rattletraps, no dented fenders, no road hogs, warriors, or rage, no Hummers, no low-riders, no "pimp my ride." Just an orderly progression of modest black and silver vehicles moving in unison through mist and light rain (if you're anywhere north of Lyon in any month except August). No one will shout at you, ridicule you, or flip you the bird. No playful triangular signs will announce that there's a baby, golfer, or cardiac surgeon "on board." No one will wield a tire iron, crowbar, ice pick, pistol, sawed-off shotgun, or surface-to-air missle launcher because you're driving too slowly, root for the Red Sox, possess a more prestigious college decal, or appear gay. People sit in their cars and drive. It's almost--dare one say it?--civilized.
Your hotel room will be small. A "boutique hotel" means extra-small rooms and Damien Hirst spent a night there in 2003. The people in the lobby will be small. Those in the tiny "elevator" will be small. The hair dryer, television, chocolates on your pillow, and terry-cloth slippers will all be small.
The rates will be high. Higher than you ever could have imagined when you were raking leaves back in Lincoln, Mass., admiring your costly home, and thinking you might take in a bit of Europe this year. An orange juice at the bar in Switzerland costs $22. At that price, it pays to take up alcohol.
So drink. Europe is a merry place and no more merry than when you're borderline shitfaced. A place like Bruges is a veritable movie set. Grey stone, gothic windows, arched bridges, gabled, timbered, or gabled and timbered roofs. It's like "Avatar" by Hans Memling instead of James Cameron. Rather than a flower morphing into a bison who then gives birth to a torpedo, lights flicker behind mullioned windows, swans float down wine-dark canals, and the breathtaking sonorousness of pealing bells fills the air. There will, however, be mist and light rain.
See art. Not because it's uplifting, not because you understand or appreciate it, and certainly not because admission to the Galleria Borghese is more than 13 euros. See it because your digital photos of centuries-old masterworks will elicit envy and possibly even low-grade depression in the folks back in Lincoln.
Most great pictures were painted in Italy in the 15th century. Titian was born in 1485 and completed more than 600 works. If you're standing in front of a decent painting (one which draws a disproportionate crowd at the expense of other works in the museum) in Italy, it's probably by Titian. If you're standing in front of a decent painting in Spain, it's a Velazquez. If in France, it's a Titian or Velazquez stolen by Napoleon.
There's a reason the great, pastoral, tradition-rich nations of Eastern Europe are predominantly untouristed. It may have to do with the fact that the one bus or plane on the airport tarmac is out of petrol or that Bulgarian ski chalets are available for £7,500 freehold. It may revolve around a scarcity of "amenities" (hot water and electricity 24/7) in major cities, but is probably directly attributable to the four-hundred-yard queue behind the velvet rope at the Starbucks in Krakow.
People can smell desperation. Even tourists. That's why France is the most visited county on the planet. Even if what you're primarily smelling there is perspiration. The French are better because they think they're better. Their fabled medical institutes and elite political-economic universities are just that: fables. Brigitte Bardot is a face-lifted, fascist harridan who cares more about a dog than the well-being of the entire populace of Morocco.
But are we really supposed to wait for a glimpse of Jennifer Aniston's tush in a Vince Vaughn movie when there's Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in "Breathless"? Are we really meant to drag the kids to Colonial Williamsburg and pay $47 per person so they can watch overheated, grouchy college students in wigs dip candles as a "lesson in living history"? For $47 (approximately five euros as of this writing), you can buy a baguette, a wedge of second-tier cheese, a pretty good half-bottle of plonk (or two cans of Orangina), spread out a blanket next to a brook in any town in France, light up a couple of candles yourself and no one will stare.
