Tourism Europe

The euro's collapse has made the green in their pockets worth more here than at any time since the mid-1980s, and the Americans are coming, in greater numbers than ever. Bostonian Kelly Moore, 18, jetted into Rome this week from Britain, where Europe's fledgling common currency isn't legal tender, with two bargain-hungry friends.

I'm at the Cybergate Cafe in Zurich's main train station checking my e-mail, still not believing that this whole crazy idea just might work. The cafe sits at the far end of the cavernous American Bar and Bistro restaurant and blends in so well you have to look hard to see that keyboards, not plates, occupy the hands of mostly eighteen-somethings surfing the Web.

For my husband's birthday this spring, I decided to take him to Paris. It would be my first chance to experience the city of which he has been enamored for years. Well, not really my first chance; in a way, I had been there many times before. I grew up reading Ludwig Bemelmans' classic children's book "Madeline." Bemelmans' charming illustrations and his tale of Madeline's adventures defined my image of Paris. When our daughter was born, we named her after Bemelmans' feisty heroine.

After several rainy days in Toulouse last fall, I was ready for a sunnier part of France. The hotel desk clerk pointed a you-got-that-right finger at me when I mentioned heading for the Cote Vermeille, or Ruby Coast. Something about the last bit of Mediterranean France before the Spanish border had grabbed me, and there was only one way to get over it. Not much frequented by Americans, the Cote Vermeille (pronounced coat ver-MAY-uh) is the kind of place that induces a satisfied indolence.

I spent the first weeks of January walking the great writers' environments of Ireland--Joyce and Shaw's Dublin; Heaney's Ulster coast; Yeats' Sligo. Remarkable about these areas was the preservation of ambience; stepping into the text and across the locale revealed what the land had coaxed out of these men and onto the page. And so, prodded by the display in every bookstore window I passed, I added one more stop: McCourt's Limerick.

This, the Berry area of France, is the geographic center of the country. It also is one of the least known, least traveled regions, which makes it delightful for the visitor bent on discovery, as I was on my first visit in 1986. I've gone back just about every year, each time uncovering another element of the Berry's treasure, its almost-secret gardens. A circuit that takes in half a dozen of my favorites is a journey through centuries of gardening styles and traditions.

When my stepson and his wife, longtime Londoners, told us they planned to relocate to Guildford in Surrey, I could ask only, "As in the Guildford Four?" All I knew of the town was that, in 1974, it was the site of two fatal bombings by Irish Republican Army sympathizers. So when my husband, Gerry, a British native, and I visited last fall, Guildford was a pleasant surprise--a nice change of pace from London.

This city seems to be the capital of everything these days. Not only is it Belgium's, but as the century turns it is also the political capital of Europe--home to the European Union (EU) and headquarters of NATO. Moreover, next year it will enjoy star billing as one of the continent's nine "cultural capitals," an honor that seems only appropriate for a city that boasts more than 70 museums, gorgeous buildings and some of the finest cooking in all of Europe.

After several rainy days in Toulouse last fall, I was ready for a sunnier part of France. The hotel desk clerk pointed a you-got-that-right finger at me when I mentioned heading for the Cote Vermeille, or Ruby Coast. Something about the last bit of Mediterranean France before the Spanish border had grabbed me, and there was only one way to get over it. Not much frequented by Americans, the Cote Vermeille (pronounced coat ver-MAY-uh) is the kind of place that induces a satisfied indolence.

Our Basque guide, Joserra, took yellow ribbon from his pack and tied it onto a tree branch. Our small band of hikers looked quizzically at one another. "What are you doing that for?" I asked him. "I want to try a shortcut," he said. "If it doesn't work, after you kill me, you can find your way back to the road by following these ribbons." We followed him trustingly as he led us through a dark forest, then across an alpine meadow covered with wildflowers.

When my wife, Gwen, and I left this mystical island after our first visit nine years ago, we brought home vivid memories: the fragrance of wildflowers and sea air, the scenery suffused with a thousand hues, the peace that had settled over our souls. We returned three years later to make the memories come alive again. Pantelleria is 70 miles southwest of Sicily, and just 44 miles off the Tunisian coast--actually closer to Africa than Europe.

Sturdy, stolid, elegant but grumpy old England, land of cold showers, warm beer, bad menus and declining GNP--my wife, Alden, and I knew it well from past travels. But we had heard that England had grown hospitable to families on vacation. With our two daughters, Celia, 5, and Lydia, 7, we set out on our first trip overseas as a family to see if that was true. To our delight (and moderate surprise), it was a terrific place for kids.

Come to this medieval Dutch city where the modern European currency, the euro, was born in 1992, and you can have breakfast in Holland, eat lunch in Germany and sit down to dinner in Belgium. Maastricht's location in the southern Dutch province of Limburg, only a few short miles from the now easily crossed borders of these three nations, makes it a convenient jumping-off spot for day trips. But before you jump, take a closer look at Maastricht.

If French rivers were royalty, I suppose the Seine would be king, exerting its Parisian will over courtiers like the dashing Loire (storybook castles, medieval towns, rolling green fields) and the Dordogne (more castles, more towns, more green). But if you look beyond the royal court to the serf turf in France's southwest corner, you find the wriggling, surging Lot.

Airlines serving transatlantic routes are moving to soothe passenger jitters over Europe's outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease amid travel industry concern that the livestock disaster might hurt summer bookings. Though airlines serving Britain and Ireland said they had not felt a major impact on ticket sales, some carriers have waived cancellation fees charged to customers, cut prices and even taken some meats off in-flight menus.

In Europe, these are tough times to be a beef eater. First there was mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, which riddles the brains of its victims with sponge-like holes. It hit Great Britain hard and has spread to the Continent, where updates on la vache folle (French) and mucca pazza (Italian) are heard almost daily. Cattle contract the fatal, untreatable disease from eating contaminated feed.

We're surrounded. We stand on an observation deck above the Potsdamer Platz, once among the liveliest intersections in Europe, then one of the deadliest, now a hard-hat zone. Builders' cranes rise on all sides, like skeletal dinosaurs. Dozens of pink and blue pipes suck ground water from the damp earth and snake through the area like extension cords of the gods.

Airlines serving transatlantic routes are moving to soothe passenger jitters over Europe's outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease amid travel industry concern that the livestock disaster might hurt summer bookings. Though airlines serving Britain and Ireland said they had not felt a major impact on ticket sales, some carriers have waived cancellation fees charged to customers, cut prices and even taken some meats off in-flight menus.

Turbot and pigs' feet are often mixed in a tasty stew in Catalonia, but Sergi Arola has taken it to a savory new level. At La Broche, his chic Madrid restaurant, the upstart chef pan-sears the fish with a touch of cilantro and wraps the pork with onion in a delicate gelatin. He then eases the two dishes like miniature sculptures onto opposite sides of a plate as big and bright as a full moon.

I don't know what was worse: the violent waves that made me so seasick, the people who sat nearby and pointedly left once they got a whiff of me or the prospect of spending a night in a London train station in that wretched state. Funny, this wasn't the scene I imagined when I signed up for the "Spend a Year in England" program in college. It was December 1973. I was 21 and had left UC Santa Cruz for a year in northern England at the University of Leeds.