Grand Tour

Europe braced itself for the invasion. After a slow start (when the Suez war slashed transatlantic bookings by 25%), 1957 promises to topple even the lofty travel records set by wandering Americans last year. Travel agents estimate that more than 2,000,000 U.S. citizens this year will leave North America, v. 1,850,000 last year, and that they will spend $2.14 billion v. $1.86 billion in 1956. On the Atlantic run, ship lines expect to carry more passengers than in 1956, when they loaded 1,004,000. Though five additional liners (total: 76) are plying the route, it was virtually impossible last week to book tourist space before August. Airlines flying the Atlantic expect to top last year's record 830,000 passengers by 10% to 15%. From January to March, the State Department issued or renewed 11% more passports than in last year's first quarter.

Stately Homes. Europe is still the first love of footloose Americans. Britain expects 5% more Americans than last year's 255,400, who enriched Her Majesty's dollar reserves by $148 million. One-fifth of them will do the Windsor-Stratford-on-Avon-Warwick Castle-Edinburgh packaged run. But more and more are turning up in Torquay, the poor man's Riviera, and in Brighton, Britain's Atlantic City, or in the picturesque homes of British aristocracy which have been thrown open, at a fee, to tourists. Last week the Duke of Bedford, one of the most businesslike of the stately-home owners, laid on a lunch of home-slaughtered-bison pie at Woburn Abbey for a luxury tour of 51 Americans. Although they have paid more for their food, fuel and transport since the Suez crisis, the tourist-conscious Britons have kept restaurant and hotel prices at the same level as last year while raising the quality of tourist meals. In London, one Mayfair pub owner has installed a charcoal grill for the U.S. trade.

France will draw some 550,000 Americans, who will spend about $170 million. Many of them will be surprised at the high French prices, which are up 10% over last year. For nightclubbers, the best bargain is Paris' Lido, Europe's splashiest nightclub--$6 for a three-course dinner, a half-bottle of champagne and a nude (from the navel up) chorus line. Every small town is making a bid for some of the tourist cash, and theatrical and musical festivals will ring all over France through mid-September. Among them: the Chamber Music Festival at Prades (July 15-Aug. 1), the International Music Festival at Aix-les-Bains (July 10-31).

Italy is easier on the dollar than France, although prices are 7% above last season's. This year Italy expects 750,000 American visitors, 10% more than last year's record. To house them, 1,278 new hotels or pensions have opened in the past year, and airports and railroad stations throughout the peninsula will list every local hotel on an electric board (red lights for a full house, green lights for vacancies). For motorists, the Italian Auto Club has opened 16 autostelli motels ($6 a night).

Bargain Rates. Resurgent West Germany will try to outdo her neighbors in merrymaking and culture. All summer, folk tales will come to life in ancient German castles, monasteries and town markets; the Pied Piper will tootle through the streets of Hamelin, and the Hans Sachs dramas will run in the medieval, walled town of Rothenberg-on-Tauber. In Berlin, where Americans can walk through the Iron Curtain to the shattered East sector, some of the world's top architects have rebuilt a war-gutted neighborhood in the West sector for the city's International Building Exhibition, which runs from July through September.

Spain, Austria and Greece are trumpeting their bargain-rate attractions. On Spain's craggy, eastern Costa Brava, hotel and cottage prices have zoomed 1,000% since 1950, but a fisherman's seaside cottage still rents for $70 a month. In Austria, pensions are charging as little as $3.30 a day with three meals. In Athens, an air-conditioned deluxe hotel room with bath and breakfast costs $7. For tourists who seek to savor the Continent's off-the-beaten-path charms, Greek villagers rent out clean rooms, are reluctant to take payment from foreigners. No nation will outshine Greece in tourist-luring music, dance, drama.

Rush to the South. After Europe, Mexico and the Caribbean will be the attraction for the wandering American. Mexico this year expects 600,000 tourists, most of them Americans, to spend more than $500 million--both record-breaking figures. Prices are low from June to September because the major tourist season is in winter. Mexico City in the past year opened 14 new hotels, still has trouble accommodating all the visitors. Motels and trailer parks are springing up around the city, and some boast swimming pools and TV.

Brazil expects a 40% boost in tourism for the comfortably cool "winter season" in July, thanks to tourist-fare cut rates introduced by air and sea lines. Hotel and restaurant prices have risen 20% in the past year, but are still only about half the U.S. level.

In Asia, more and more Americans are searching out lightly traveled Shangri-Las, and are willing to trade off some comfort for new romance. After hundreds of years of isolation in the Himalayas, Nepal's Katmandu is opening up to venturesome tourists. Now peaceful, Viet Nam next month will open a hunting bureau in Saigon, with safari guides, rifles and elephants for hire. Package price for hunting panther, tiger, elephant, buffalo, bear: $8 a day. In all, 115,000 Americans will travel in the Pacific--a gain of 15% over last year.

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