The Precious Few

That major American export, the tourist, is once again beginning to fan out across what Novelist Nancy Mitford's Uncle Matthew used to call "bloody abroad." The old familiar faces --collegian and schoolteacher, all-expenser and retiree--are about to turn up in the old familiar places, at the old familiar prices.

This year there will be more of them than ever. Airlines estimate an increase of about 25% over last year's record load of 683,000 Europe-bound passengers from May through September.* It is not just that hotels in Paris, London, Rome and Athens are jammed; even such once-obscure places as Portofino and Majorca are out of the question. This summer, Scandinavia is experiencing a big influx of those who, having already done the standard museums and churches, are ready for a fiord in their future, with smorgasbord and aquavit on the side.

And the search is more intense than ever for the Unspoiled Spot, where Those Who Know can get away from it all for a quiet taste of nepenthe with good food and a clean bed. It is more dream and less reality than ever. But there are still some.

> Vulcano, one of the Aeolian Islands north of Sicily, is compounded of black sand beaches and a wild lava landscape that looks like a modern sculptor's nightmare. The sea around it is an unbelievable sapphire, lined with small white polished stones, through which bubble numerous hot sulphur springs, which are supposed to work wonders on an amazing range of problems from acne to sex. And against this black and blue landscape are some 25 dazzling white Saracen-style houses built by rich vacationers, plus a hotel called Les Sables Noirs. Built around a flower-filled patio, Les Sables Noirs has 25 rooms with baths or showers and a restaurant where lobster and caviar are served to candlelight and the soft Sicilian music of two local singers. Most of the waiters and maids are English or Swedish students, who work there in exchange for three months' vacation. The island's telephones are cut off from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. And those in the know enjoy the highly civilized isolation (at about $9 a day, everything included, during July and August). Vulcano's visitors have included Alec Guinness, Adlai Stevenson--and Britain's Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, whose stay was unnoted by a single journalist or photographer.

> Yugoslavia has made a remarkable little summer resort out of Sveti Stevan, a 15th century town on a rock outcropping that rises dramatically out of the Adriatic and is connected to the mainland by a causeway that also serves as two splendid beaches. Once a fortress, then a fishing village, then abandoned entirely, it was transformed by the Yugoslav government in 1960 into a town-hotel to attract tourists from Europe and the U.S. The interiors of the old fishermen's houses in the winding streets and tiny flowered squares have been done over as comfortable modern suites with all the conveniences. The town is also equipped with an excellent restaurant that specializes in seafood.

> The south coast of Turkey is so undiscovered as yet that few Turks have heard of it, let alone been there. Most of it can be reached only by yacht, many of which are chartered in Athens, and there are no hotels--only peasant villages, sandy beaches, rocky promontories, azure water, clear skies and a background of snow-capped mountains. This coast was once a favorite Greco-Roman resort area (one town with a modern population of 500 has an ancient amphitheater with a seating capacity of 30,000), and on one beach the sea laps at the steps of a ruined temple and the traveler swims among marble columns. Not surprisingly, a few rich Europeans and Americans are quietly--and illegally--buying up land through Istanbul front men.

> Belle Ile is one of the prettiest of the offshore islands scattered along France's Atlantic coast, and it is one of the places the French have managed to conceal from tourists. They go there themselves, especially in August, but even then it is not crowded on the sandy beaches, protected by rocky cliffs, off which there is excellent sailing, fishing, swimming and skindiving. Sarah Bernhardt had a house there, and there is still an occasional theatrical or intellectual visitor who is delighted to discover hotels such as Manoir de Goulphar with a view of the sea from every one of its rooms.

> Connemara, on the Atlantic coast of Ireland's County Galway, is bleak in winter, but in summer has a dreamy, romantic beauty. Its heather-covered hills and mountains are dotted with trout-filled lakes and riverlets. The hotels are scattered but substantial, and some are notable, such as Ballynahinch Castle, where the fishing is famous. And the food is delicious: trout and salmon, lobsters and crayfish, clams, mussels and--come September--the famous Galway oysters. Not to mention the small Connemara sheep, which range the hills where wild herbs give their meat a rare, delicate taste.

> On Denmark's Jutland peninsula is the small old town of Ebeltoft--a cluster of low red-roofed houses, cobblestone streets and idyllic gardens set in a rolling coastal landscape with good bathing and a fine variety of Viking graves, castle ruins and old country estates within visiting distance. Small inns and pensions are scattered through the area, as well as a modern hotel, Hvide Hus (White House). Visitors to Ebeltoft will also hear the old reassuring sound of a night watchman singing out the hour as he makes his nocturnal rounds.

> One spot so unspoiled that there is still almost nothing there is Sardinia's Costa Smeralda. But a syndicate headed by the Aga Khan is busy trying to change all that. It has launched a $650 million development along 35 miles of mountainous coastline that embrace scores of beaches and several natural ports. Some 35 hotels are planned, with accompanying golf courses, hunting grounds, polo fields, theaters, nightclubs and casinos. Since the coast at present is nearly devoid of inhabitants, the promoters plan to provide authentic quaintness by building some fishing villages from the ground up, complete with imported fishermen.

* The traffic is heavy in the other direction too; between January and May, the U.S. consulate in Paris granted 57% more visas than in the same period last year.

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