Playboy's Guide to a Continental Holiday

What am I doing here? Sitting inside an aluminum pod, 29,000 feet high and traveling at 600 miles per hour toward Stockholm. Below me are neat Danish farms and, a few inches ahead, a disembodied hand waving the flight-information sheet languidly over the seat back.

We are a restless generation and a trip halfway across the world is hardly a cross to bear but, rather, a prestigious mark of wealth or power or status. Don't tell me it's educational; I've been one of those bemused tourists listening to the dimensions of church architecture and regal chronologies delivered in the even chant of guide English and I've been relieved not to comprehend.

What have I gained from pounding my way around this small and lumpy earth? What would I tell myself if this were the first stage of my very first trip abroad? First, I'd say that travel, far from broadening the mind, often is merely a way of confirming our own worst fears and prejudices. So I'd tell (text continued on page 126) myself to keep an honest, open mind and be slow to condemn people, foods, things or systems unlike the ones at home.

"No one sent for you, you came," an old friend of mine admonished anyone who overcomplained about anything anywhere. Expect the best of people and don't treat them with overt suspicion, I'd tell myself. An innocent walks through a strange land unafraid and unhurt. But don't expect miracles and be prepared for a few unpleasantries. If you don't speak a foreign language, then either carry a phrase book or cultivate a sense of humor. (Personally, I did the latter.) I would learn a few basic words, such as thank you, goodbye, hello, etc., and learn the difference between men's toilet and women's toilet. And I'd remember how many times patience and a smile have got me out of some awkward situation. I would especially remember this when dealing with uniformed officials.

If this were my first trip, I'd find out everything I could beforehand about the places I intended to go and try to plan a route that didn't need different types of clothing or sports equipment. I'd get foreign currency beforehand and familiarize myself with it. I would tell myself to buy or borrow a simple movie camera and carry a generous supply of film. I'd also take a notebook and perhaps some simple travel aids, such as Turns for my tummy. When I was all set to go, I'd tell myself that I wasn't going to do anything out of a sense of duty; and if I missed the Eiffel Tower by being too long lunching at Le Grand Véfour, there's always a next time.

For how many tourists is a trip to an art gallery or a museum a pleasure? For how many of them is it a penance that will justify an evening spent in a Hilton hotel hearing familiar voices and eating familiar foods cooked the way they've always had them? Not that I'm knocking clean, warm hotels with English-speaking staff. U. S. tourists have dramatically raised the standards of the world's hotels and I, for one, am truly grateful. But such accommodation should be only a starting point for personal explorations. Whether you want porcelain or pornography, go after it with single-minded determination. Why go to a foreign art gallery if you are not interested enough in art to regularly visit the good ones near your home? Take no account of what other people think you should do while on holiday, and heed this hoary truism: Above all, go with the aim of enjoying yourself and whomever you might be traveling with.

Among all the travelers I've ever met, the specialists get the most kicks out of their journeys. In Istanbul, a film art director examined the Blue Mosque's decor with an eagle-sharp eye and then explained in detail how he could re-create it in Pinewood Studios outside of London. In Leningrad, a Finnish sock manufacturer took me into a big store and, grabbing handfuls of merchandise, explained the shortcomings of local machinery. Everyone is a specialist in something, even if it's only sticky carbohydrates. Personally, I'm particularly interested in military history, a boring topic to most people, and any army museum is worth a detour on my itinerary. What's more, I have contacts with other nuts like me the world over. So consider your holiday a way of extending interests you already have.

The pace of our lives quickens as we travel overseas. We meet more people. We converse more readily with total strangers and we are dazzled by an avalanche of ideas, sights and manners. It's easy to become captious and demanding. Jovial Dr. Jekylls (hamburger- and hash-men at home) suddenly start to argue with wine stewards about the temperature of the beaujolais. Bathrooms are given an inspecting officer's scrutiny and cutlery and glassware are examined like the innards of a watch. Unfortunately for airlines and shipping companies, they usually bear the first brunt of this onslaught of traveling Mr. Hydes, and cabin crews grow old before their time, fighting back advice to angry innocents. "A local specialty, eh? In that case, I will"; and down goes that squid in ink and yoghurt, with fiery little local drinks to help things along. So what's wrong with that? For breakfast, man?

In spite of being more demanding, the traveling Mr. Hyde has often become a good deal less cynical than he ever was at home. Freshly painted nudie/clip joints that back home in Boise didn't get a glance can suddenly become delectable in Stockholm or Soho or Hamburg.

What do we expect from foreign countries--generous currency exchange, iced water and easy women? Is it easier to meet an attractive single girl in Manhattan than it is in Milan? The Italian tourist, walking across Washington Square, no doubt hopes so.

Visitors to a foreign city will inevitably spend money at a faster rate than at home. Even if they eschew large meals in glossy restaurants, take buses instead of cabs and hurry past "They're Naked and They Dance" emporiums, they still won't squeeze the sort of value out of a town that the natives can. The natives are specialists. They're specialists at living in that town. I'll tell you the little I know and find out all I can, but go with the idea of paying more than you need to. It's better to be overcharged by ten percent than to spend your vacation grit-tooth determined not to be taken for an escudo.

Remember that the places where tourists stay and the people in the tourist trades are seldom typical of the country in which you find them. I have been overcharged by a taxi driver but never by a subway clerk. Hotel staff might become impatient with foreigners who don't know their way around, while a passer-by on a boulevard will be delighted to help you.

I like traveling by subway and bus because, obviously, that's the way the majority of the less-stuffy, and prettier, locals travel. Any town in which I haven't used the public transportation system I don't regard as truly visited. Not that I go to great lengths to avoid tourists. Except for the obvious disaster areas, you should never worry about whether a restaurant or anything else is brushed off as "touristy" by the snottier guidebooks. A tourist's function is to tour; if you go to Madrid and never take a tour of the tascas--taverns in the old quarter--you might as well stay at home. Touristy is a term too often applied to some of the best places in Europe, perhaps in the belief that there exist in all foreign countries tiny uncorrupted havens that offer deep and rewarding insights into the national character. This is a lot of old guff, especially on the Continent, where about the only place you are unlikely to meet other tourists is inside your own car. Naturally, there are villages, restaurants and inns that only a few people know about; but these few people always seem to arrive there at the same time and sit around looking fed up. One friend asked me if I knew anywhere in Portugal that was truly, but really guaranteed, off the tourist track. He wanted somewhere beautiful, isolated and friendly, where tourists never went. Never, I really mean, never. I fixed accommodation for him in a tiny fishing village. Seventy-two hours later, he was back on my doorstep.

Friend: You sent us to a terrible place, Len.

Me: It's pretty, isn't it?

Friend: Very beautiful, but they have no sewage system in that whole village.

Me: The people are pleasant.

Friend: Not even running water.

Me: At night, when the fishing boats leave....

Friend: Fish for breakfast, fish for lunch, fish for dinner. Sardines, sardines, sardines.

Me: And wine.

Friend: Yes, and wine. I can't get beer. I can't even get coffee, except first thing in the morning.

Me: And bread.

Friend: Dry, hard, dark bread.

Me: It's isolated.

Friend: I nearly broke the springs on that donkey cart. I couldn't believe there's no other approach road.

Me: But at least no tourists.

Ex-Friend: Can you wonder! Who the hell would want to go there?

There's a lot to be said for hot showers. clean sheets and coffee that comes when you call. So let's not knock tourism and tourists. Personally, I'm very happy to be identified with that much-maligned and misunderstood body of citizens.

• • •

Unfortunately, most of the prose written about travel is frantically hard sell. One of the most attractive aspects of my job with Playboy is the freedom to say what I think about anywhere and anyone. "But first," they said, "please take a look at western Europe. ' If you've never been there, let me tell you that it's a big place. Although it is only half the area of the U. S. A., Lisbon is as far from Stockholm as San Francisco is from New Orleans. But the attraction of the Continent is the enormous changes that one sees, even driving short hops. The people change and so do the food, architecture, scenery and living standards. Don't try to see too many places and remember that crossing national borders--surprise!--means customs and immigration, new currency, new languages and delays. European airports, for the most part, are something to be avoided, unless you like to chat over drinks with your companion or are well provided with reading matter. Checking-in times at airports vary from place to place. If you have luggage, less than 30 minutes before flight time is very risky, and some airlines want 50 minutes.

Whenever he can, any dolt knows enough to reserve hotel accommodation in advance. (Although, as I sit in the Grand Hotel, Stockholm, penning this piece of modest advice, I'm planning to go to Copenhagen in a few days with no idea where I might stay.) When booking a hotel room, be sure to request one high up and off the street to avoid unwanted noise.

Some hotels provide transport to and from the airport; usually, the airport buses are reliable, so think twice before hiring a self-drive car the first day in a new town if you are going to spend most of your time in the town itself. Take a sight-seeing bus for a quick, expedient look at the highlights, then decide which places you want to revisit. Watch and learn the traffic patterns and parking systems; many will be new to you. Then rent a car, if you wish. Although many European car-hire firms will provide an American car, at a price, towns such as Lisbon, Madrid and Toledo have more than their share of narrow alleys and dead ends, where a large American car would be impossible to handle. In the countryside, you'll find also narrow mountain roads and small car ferries, so you're far better off renting smaller European cars.

A lot of people--wisely, perhaps--start planning their tour with the help of (continued on page 142)Continental Holiday(continued from page 128) a travel agent. Steer clear of the shady tour operators and find yourself an organization large or small that has a good working knowledge of the best air and sea routes and can find out accurately about connections and side trips. Discover an outfit that knows how to handle your customs and immigration problems, has cars at the airport when and where you need them and has staff that know the part of the world you're going to. Unearth one that keeps records of festivals and special events in chronological order, so it can inform you well beforehand what will be happening. And when you find a travel agent like that, tell me about him, please, because I'm still looking for one who doesn't leave me in Istanbul with a ticket for a plane that flies only in summer and then adds £20 to £1 and comes up with a total of £29. In short, I have been looking for a really good travel agent for many years, and I'm still looking. They exist, and enough of them obviously perform well enough to please people; otherwise, there wouldn't be so many of them looking quite so prosperous. But, in all candor, I've yet to encounter one myself.

Richard Aldington, writing many years ago in his book Death of a Hero, sums up pretty much my own thoughts about travel:

You may go thousands of miles by train and boat between one international hotel and another, and not have the sensation of traveling at all. Travel means the consciousness of adventure and exploration, the sense of covering the miles, the ability to seize indefatigably upon every new or familiar source of delight. Hence the horror of tourism [his italics], which is a conventionalizing, a codification of adventure and exploration--which is absurd. Adventure is allowing the unexpected to happen to you. Exploration is experiencing what you have not experienced before. How can there be any adventure, any exploration, if you let somebody else--above all, a travel bureau--arrange everything beforehand? It isn't seeing new and beautiful things which matters, it's seeing them for yourself.

• • •

All writing or talking about travel tends to lead author and reader into shoals of generalization and uncharted mine fields full of unexploded myths; e.g., London is a swinging city and Scandinavia is an open-air sex farm full of blonde nymphomaniacs. Compared with many Continental cities, London at night is dead and dismal, due to strict licensing hours. There is an abundance of Soho-style clip joints and a monotonous routine of gambling clubs. Many restaurants close before midnight and there's an absence of bright, well-stocked late-night snack places. There's also a taxi shortage and an over-all lack of nighttime things to do. Many of the places to go are membership-only clubs. London isn't Carnaby Street or Kings Road and never was. A stranger who knows no one in London and is unlikely to be invited to a Londoner's home will miss a vital part of the city's attractiveness and its bizarre quality when compared with any other place in the world, for the Londoner knows a London quite different from the one the tourist sees. As in most major cities of the world, there are indeed certain areas of London that swing wildly, but you must know the right people, be able to get in the right places and have plenty of pounds to spend. For one of the best guides to the insider's London, let me refer you to Playboy on the Town in London (December 1966), which is why I'm not including London in this report.

The myth about Scandinavian girls--that they're ready, willing and available at all times to all men--is the most durable one in existence. The trouble is, Scandinavian girls are so blonde and stunning that it seems impossible and unfair that they could be anything but licentious and permissive. What compounds the myth, especially in Copenhagen, is the fact that they tend to stare directly into the eyes of an approaching male and then run an appraising glance up and down the length of his body, much in the same way that men menially undress every good-looking girl they pass on a street. But it's as impossible to generalize about women, Scandinavian or any other kind, as it is to write about travel. All you can say is, "'Well, this is the way it happened to me."

My advice is that you are better off in Milan with good introductions than in Stockholm without any. Put the word around before you go, because you know what will happen: The week you get back, everyone will be giving you the address of his cousin, and some of those cousins will be delicious. If you are in a town and know no one, then remember that strangers will be far more prepared to talk to you within a normal working situation--a bank, travel agency, shop, restaurant or hotel--than on the street. If you want to be scientific about meeting young people, a look at any city map will show you that the residential areas are vast and full of housewives, but between nine and five each day, young people are concentrated in the business and shopping districts in which they work. That's where you should be.

You won't meet many young local people in the town's best restaurants, because most of them don't have the time or the money to spend; but the snack bars and quick-lunch counters will be packed with young models, salesgirls and secretaries. So if you would with workers of the world unite, steam along to the sandwich counters and trattorias, sir; you've got nothing to lose but your chins. What's more, you'll save money as well as calories.

When you are putting your baggage together, remember that, mirabile dictu, they sell clothes in Europe. If you run out of shirts and the laundry room doesn't answer, buy one. I suppose it's a good idea to have drip-dry shirts, but I don't give a damn for them. The one thing I would unreservedly recommend that you take along is a strong strap to go around your case (and help identify it, too). The fancy jobs are two straps linked by a handle. With one of those devices, you can laugh along with the airport loaders as they throw your baggage across the concourse.

Airlines vary and vie with one another for service. When a fleet of dramatic new airplanes is added to the routes, the demand for seats goes up and very often cabin service sags a little. Right now, BEA's medium-range Tridents are among the finest commercial aircraft flying. British airlines--BEA and BOAC--offer the most personal service, but this is a two-edged knife and means that the cabin crew will make their moods known directly if they are feeling cheerful and considerate or tired and impatient. Pan American has a truly remarkable worldwide organization and their offices are the place I'd head if in travel trouble in a strange town; but their cabin service is not too high on my list. KLM, Sabena and SAS are reliable, methodical and clinical. Some U. S. airlines that handle short trips well are equally good on long distance--TWA, for example. Aeroflot--the Soviet airline--has super stewardesses, but the service will sometimes consist solely of a paper cup of fizzy lemonade and an obscene cellophane tube to put your leaky fountain pen into. I believe there's no airline in the world that couldn't learn from Lufthansa's transatlantic service. The last time I traveled with them, I was knocked out by the sheer excellence of it. My only complaint: soft, nothing music in the cabin. Most airlines do this and I wish they'd stop it.

First class or tourist? Way back when airplanes wore propellers and transatlantic first-class passengers got clean sheets and were tucked in at night, I was a BOAC airline steward. (Many have told me I should have remained in that line of work.) In those days, I envied the (continued on page 171)Continental Holiday(continual from page 142) first-class passengers their royal treatment. Since then, the airlines of the world, using the excuse that flight times are shorter, have lowered their standards year by year. "What the public has got to understand is that flying is as ordinary as a bus trip," they say. It will be a lot easier for the public to dig that subtle point when the fares are correspondingly lowered. The airlines have, of course, taken great care to maintain the differentials between first and tourist treatment by lowering tourist travel standards, too. Where is an airline that wants to give tourist passengers first-class service and first-class passengers something that could set new standards in the whole travel industry?

The Confrèrie de la Chaine des Rôtisseurs, founded in 1248, is the oldest and most renowned culinary society in the world. BEA is honored to have been appointed a member.

It says on the menu. Then along it comes--a plastic tray of warmed-up meat and two veg. with canned fruit and processed cheese.

• • •

How does one write a Playboy travel article that in one installment provides a sweeping and comprehensive view of the Continent? Answer: One doesn't. Or at least not unless the author is very brave or exceedingly reckless, and I have never been accused of being either.

The Continent, a generalization in itself, defies broad analysis: despite the onrush of De Gaulle's mistiness, of technological and social revolution, of political and economic union and of the globe-shrinking effects of transportation and mass communication, it still consists of villages whose inhabitants live their threescore and ten without venturing into the nearby city, of towns whose inhabitants speak a different dialect from that used in the nearby city and of cities whose inhabitants are indifferent to and often contemptuous of the way in which life is lived in other parts of the same country. Traditional and usually petty prejudices nurtured by one nationality for another have not been swept away by satellite television, nor are they very likely to succumb to the age of the upcoming jumbo jet and the SST.

Thus, it would be misleading to suggest that what follows is an exhaustive report on Continental travel today. It is not. At best, it is my sampling of three selected regions of ambiance chosen as much for their diversity of history, language, countryside, culture and cuisine as for their accessibility by air. Obviously. I don't recommend that you attempt to cover all three areas in a two- or even a six-week vacation, for anyone who did would spend too much of his time riding to and from airports and sitting in departure lounges.

For those of you who wouldn't dream of crossing the Atlantic without visiting the major cities of the Continent not covered in what follows, the ones you've heard so much about--good and bad, accurate and inaccurate--we've provided the chart on pages 124 and 125 that gives you succinct comments on what we consider to be the best hotels, restaurants and night life, what to purchase and what not to miss. This chart is intended only as a brief Baedeker to where the urban action is; with a little adventuresome initiative, you're bound to discover that there's far more to Europe than meets the eye, even in these fact-filled pages.

I don't profess to "know" a great deal of the Continent. I have lived most of my life in one country--Britain--and I certainly don't even know it in the sense that I could thoroughly explain it or even thoroughly understand it; and it would be difficult to persuade me that the most eloquent and critical Frenchman or American could do much better for his country. All that I can do is explore and, I hope, discover; and what I discover I shall attempt to pass on to you as Playboy's Travel Editor. The rest is up to you--and the bloody weather.

Lisbon--Madrid

Madrid, the capital of Spain, is only an hour by air from the Portuguese seaport of Lisbon--an hour that serves to lessen the separation of the two cultures these cities typify, but not to merge them. Culturally, physically and in almost every other imaginable respect, Lisbon is a total contrast to Madrid. Madrid, for instance, is inaccessible by sea and retains a peculiarly Spanish insularity; Madrileños believe their city is the very birthplace of urban sophistication. Cosmopolitan Barcelona, on the Mediterranean and closer to the cultural influences of France and Italy, would disagree, but few could deny Madrid its status as one of the world's great capitals. Emotionally, as well as geographically, it is the very heart of Spain. Lisbon, older and more worldly wise, has fewer pretensions; it is languorous, pristine, Moorish, unassuming. But with Madrid, Lisbon shares both a subcontinent and a special attitude. The attitude is one of splendid isolation--more by preference than by geography--from the stereotyped mainstream of European life. A tour of that fat, sausage-shaped section of lower Spain and Portugal, bounded at the ends by Lisbon and Madrid, will give the American visitor a taste of southern Europe that the London-Paris-Rome-and-home sight-seer will never know.

The starting point, of course, should be Lisbon, the most westerly capital in Europe and a logical landfall for Americans bound for a Continental holiday. Its leisurely life style provides a perfect setting for recuperating from the time-change trauma of an eastbound transatlantic flight: and it's just a short drive from some of the finest, least spoiled and most relaxing beaches in Europe.

From the southern bank of the Tagus river. Lisbon looks like a cluster of wedding cakes perched upon the hills; tier upon tier of ocher-roofed white houses, marble palaces, battlements and huge monuments raised by republicans to honor dead kings and noblemen. It has the slightly ripe smell of North Africa, but it's cleaner than most Western capitals.

Its broad squares and boulevards are lined with outdoor cafès; flower stalls stand in the spray of fountains and the black-and-white-mosaic sidewalks are maintained by gangs of city employees who lever up the broken bits and bang new ones into place with mallets. There are special drinking troughs for pigeons, and Lisbon's waiters are among the few who do not share the universal waiter's weakness for one-upping the customer.

Of all the capitals of western Europe, Lisbon is probably the least expensive to live in and live in well; it's easy to get into and out of; and it's remarkably honest in its dealings with visitors. Yet, for all this, after you've toured its ancient sights, eaten in its great restaurants and listened to the melancholy wailing of its fado singers, you come away feeling that something is missing--guts and nonchalance, elements only too evident in most other capital cities. Arrogance or surliness is as rare here as it is omnipresent in, say, New York or Paris; to meet it in Lisbon comes almost as a relief. Perhaps the city is too civilized.

If you go in for liberal nit picking in a big way. you might as well stay away from Portugal, because the truth is that you're not going to change things. But for every debit that may be applied to the Portuguese way of life, there are a dozen credits. This tiny country (Maine is only a little smaller in area) explored three continents at a time when the rest of the world thought there was only one; it gave its language to more than 100,000,000 people, from Brazil to Timor; it survived occupation and subjugation by Celts, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths and Arabs; it kicked out the French and the British; and it's lived through civil war and earthquake. As a visitor, you have no news to take the Portuguese; they've already been there.

Make a hotel reservation before you arrive, or you may find yourself without a room. Be prepared to present your passport when you check in and don't expect it back for an hour or so; many hotels will keep it overnight. There is only one luxury-class hostelry in town: the Ritz, where for $13 you can get a huge room, a bathroom like a private marble quarry and a terrace. Get a room on the Edward VII Park side; the views across the city are magnificent. Specify that you want room-and-breakfast rate only, or you may end up eating all your meals in the hotel. Though this would be no hardship, since the food is excellent, you would miss the opportunity to sample Lisbon's first-class restaurants.

Among other good hotels: the Avenida Palace--old-fashioned, central and a bit noisy, because it's on the Rossio, the main square. The Flórida--rooms aren't too big. but it's quiet and the room service is prompt. Music is piped to the rooms (vintage Inkspots). The Tivoli--big, fairly modern, bustling and right in the middle of everything.

There is one luxury-class A hotel in Lisbon, ten first-class A and six first-class B, classifications courtesy of the Portuguese State Tourist Office. They can be depended upon for comfortable accommodation and for service that is generally more attentive than that received in the average American luxury hotel, Break! as t-only rates for single-room occupancy start around five dollars or less and increase according to the class of hotel.

When you get settled, the first thing you should do is get an excursion bus and lake in the sights. One of the biggest tour outfits in Lisbon is Europeia (phone 53 61 21). which runs city tours that seldom last more than a few hours and cost two dollars and change. Avoid the "Lisbon by Night" tour (for that matter, avoid all Anywhere-by-Night tours), because you'll probably end up with a busload of German drunks singing the Horst Wessel song. But any of the other tours should be tried. Europeia classifies each excursion: artistic, ancient, panoramic, etc.

You'll find the State Tourist Office (at the Praça dos Restauradores) helpful, informative and abundantly supplied with tourist literature. You should also get hold of a copy of the "Monthly Tourist Guide" that's available at Portuguese tourist centers abroad, as well as in Lisbon itself. Replete with maps, a guide to resorts, hotels, restaurants and museums, it's generally a lot more explicit and useful than any five-dollar guidebook.

Since Portugal is England's oldest ally, it's not surprising that much of what you will first see in Lisbon is British. The streets are filled with Leyland double-decker buses; the mailboxes are red and round, as in England; and the telephone booths are of ancient British lineage. But that's as far as the resemblance goes.

The Portuguese are what a visiting San Francisco hippie (mistaken by the locals, with his beard and bush jacket, for a gypsy) described as garden freaks--which is to say that you find gardens everywhere, green and opulent, splashed by fountains, shadowed by palms and vivid with color. Near the foot of Avenida da Liberdade, one of the finest boulevards in Europe, there are ponds with white and black swans, big, fat goldfish and carp, waterfalls and ornamental iron bridges, all overlooked at one end by a statue of Neptune sitting on a pile of mossy rocks and pouring water out of an urn. This bucolic oasis (there are actually two, one on either side of the street) is situated on a blocklong island surrounded by traffic, for Liberdade is one of the busiest--and widest--streets in Lisbon.

There are too many museums, castles, monuments, parks and districts of varying degrees of interest to list here. But make a point of seeing the Coach Museum, which houses an enormous collection of gilded and silken-pillowed state coaches, including three of the biggest Baroque models ever built: and--forgive me this personal indulgence--the Naval Museum, with its royal galleys, state barges and the Portuguese seaplanes that crossed the Atlantic in 1922. See the splendid Jeronimos Monastery, which was founded in 1502 by King Manuel I, who gave his name to the architectural style--Manueline--of the period; and the Monument to the Discoveries, a gigantic memorial that was unveiled in 1960 and reminds me of a tail fin on a 1958 Dodge. Near here is the Torre de Belém, a 16th Century fortress that marks the spot from which Vasco da Gama set out to look for India. If you're a boat freak, take a stroll past the yacht basins that lie between the Tone de Belém and the Monument to the Discoveries; you'll find there some of the largest privately owned sailing vessels afloat.

At the opposite end of Lisbon is the Alfama, a district that dates back architecturally and culturally to the Eighth Century and must be seen on foot, because it's full of stepped, cobbled streets. To get a sweeping view of the city and the river, climb from the Alfama to the walls of St. forge Castle, which was built by the Visigoths, held by the Moors and subsequently taken over by the Portuguese and some passing Crusaders in the 12th Century. It's a magnificent panorama.

If you want more places to see, there are plenty of other sights, including zoos, palaces, an indoor botanical garden called the "cold greenhouse" (full of tropical plants and rocky streams and very refreshing on a hot day) and the bullfights. If you're the squeamish type, you may watch one in Portugal without fear of seeing the bull die.

The Aviz is still the most outstanding place in the city for food and service. closely followed by Tavares, which is a couple of streets away in one of Lisbon's older districts. Founded in 1784, it was redecorated in 1861 and, except for the occasional touch-up jobs, has retained a heavily Victorian appearance, with crystal chandeliers and gilded minors around the walls. For less than four dollars--expensive, by Portuguese standards--you can have a first-rate meal of fourcourses, accompanied with wine and followed by the excellent house brandy that is poured from venerable, unlabeled bottles.

Other worthy tables will be found at: Solmar, a shellfish joint specializing in huge Portuguese crayfish and percebes, a repulsive-looking limpet-type shellfish (known in France as goose barnacles) that have a sweet and salty flavor. Delicious. The Ribadouro Cervejaria is another spot for fresh crayfish--and also for lobster, cachorros (Portuguese frankfurters wrapped in a crusty bread roll and toasted) and clams (slightly smaller than Long Island cherry stones) that are lightly steamed and have a sweet and nutty taste. Draught Sagres beer is served here and you'll probably be given a dish of tremoços, crisp, cold beans, to munch while you drink.

Fish is what the Portuguese cook and prepare best; they do serve other dishes, but not with the same love or expertise they lavish on seafood. Most restaurants and quite a few bars and night clubs serve very appetizing meals of steak and eggs, but the meat is not of top quality. So unless you loathe any kind of fish, you'll eat very well, indeed.

New York--Las Vegas--style night life is nearly nonexistent in Lisbon; no big-name rock groups and no jazz, either; so if that's your craving, you've come to the wrong place. Here you eat out at night; you go to movies (they're screened in the original language and the last show is around 9:30 P.M.); you drink; you dance; and you go to bed. There are so-called night clubs, but the standard of entertainment is lamentable, consisting mainly of third-rate Continental comedians and a troupe of clumsy dancers who wear national costumes and laugh a lot. You'll have to pay a minimum (usually around two dollars) whenever you enter one of these establishments. One of the biggest in Lisbon is Maxime's (in Praça da Alegria), which is decorated like a Baltimore clip joint of the Thirties and is very popular with the better type of Lisbon's golden-hearted hookers. Interestingly enough, the same building houses the Lisbon bureaus of AP, UPI and The New York Times. A few of these places have strippers, but most of them aren't worth a first look. There's a reasonable striptease, however, at Nina's, and a passable floor-show at the Cave; both places have a band and a dance floor.

Discothèques have opened throughout Lisbon, but the most swinging are in Cascais and Estoril--nearby resorts--and most of the girls there are likely to be German or Scandinavian. Some discos have live groups, most of which are terrible, but they all play a fair selection of the latest pop hits from both sides of the Atlantic. The Pop Clube on Avenida Estados Unidos da America is one of the liveliest discothèques in the city. There's also Galeria 48 on Liberdade. (In Cascais and Estoril, you'll find the Forte Velho, the Vão-Gogo and half a dozen others, as well as the new ones that no doubt will have opened by the time this appears.)

There's a word in Portuguese that won't easily translate: saudade. Take the first syllable of this and you have a word that says soul, and this is what the fado is: soul music. Gutbucket blues, passionate, haunting and, once heard, unforgettable. The singer may be male or female (the most famous is Amália Rodrigues, who rarely appears in public) and the accompaniment is usually the Portuguese version of the mandolin and a 12-string guitar. In the city's best fado places, such as A Severa, Lisboa à Noite and O Faia (all in the same neighborhood, the Bairro Alto), the singers are professionals; but at the Galytos in Estoril, anyone in the audience is welcome to sit there and wail. It's not uncommon to walk into a Lisbon night club and hear a prostitute singing a fado. It won't matter that you don't understand the words; you'll know the song's about a love that ended, about loneliness, longing, melancholy, nostalgia and eternal regret.

Along the waterfront on Rua Nova do Carvalho, the most popular sailor joints are the Europa Bar and the Lusitano, both of which have bands and jukeboxes. The Europa has what may be one of the most unique rock groups ever assembled, a quartet of 70-year-olds led by a very wizened, very little and tone-deaf lady pianist who has no right performing in public. When the ships are in (every day during the summer), the bars along Carvalho are awash with drunken merchant seamen, Swedish, German, American and British.

Depending on where you meet them, in sailor joint or classy night club, prostitutes have a fairly standardized method of accosting men: " 'Ello, German, you want focky-focky?" Unless you speak Portuguese or she speaks English, there will be little conversation beyond this, which can be tedious, as many of the girls mistakenly believe focky-focky to be a form of dialog in its own right and are liable to keep repeating it. Focky-focky once or twice is all right; but when it's used as a question, an endearment, an explanation and a statement, the charm wears off quite rapidly.

The city has an excellent public transportation system, but taxis are so inexpensive (a half-hour trip from the airport costs about a dollar) that it's not really necessary to use the bus or the Metro on your various nocturnal excursions. The Metro, incidentally, smells of warm newspapers and musty socks, like London's underground. The electric trains to the beaches at nearby Cascais and Estoril are swift and frequent and should be tried, because the tracks run along the edge of the Tagus and you get views of the river and the huge Salazar Bridge that was opened in 1966.

If you plan to spend several days in Lisbon (four days on an intelligently planned schedule is enough to give you a good flavor), rent a car. Both Hertz and Avis have offices there, and there's a wide selection of independents.

The roads are good and well marked out of the city and the traffic-sign system conforms to the usual Continental standard. This, of course, is entirely different from the American system; so it's best, if you're not familiar with European road signs, to glance through one of the free driving-information booklets available at most tourist offices in the U. S. All you'll need to get a car is an international driver's license and, if you have one, an appropriate credit card or a $100 deposit. You should make a reservation in advance if you're traveling between June and September; but otherwise, you'll be all right.

Driving in a westerly direction along the Auto Estrada from Lisbon will take you to innumerable resorts, beaches and scenic delights. You can lunch in what used to be the royal kitchen at the palace in' Queluz, where you'll dine among great old copper pans and intricate floral arrangements. Afterward, you can walk through the citrus groves in the gardens. Then stop off at Pena Palace in Sintra, which is situated among hills dotted with bubbling springs and covered with camellias; it's literally a Victorian castle--built by the cousin of Prince Albert, Victoria's husband. Go south and you'll see the incredible beach at Guincho, which looks something like Big Sur. South will eventually take you to Cascais and Estoril, neighboring resorts that are slowly approaching St.-Tropez in the international popularity league but which still have many unfrantic attractions for the newcomer. Hotels are modern and--in Portuguese terms--expensive (four dollars a night and up at the biggest places); you'll find first-class food at most of them and will probably never want to leave.

One of the best restaurants in the region is the Pescador, right behind the Cascais fish market, where you can watch them laying out the catches of tunny and swordfish. Next door to the Pescador is a fisherman's bar where, if you're very brave, you can order a shot of the local poison, bagaço. It's like being struck by a laser beam and the fishermen drink it by the tumblerful before they put to sea. A chic place in Cascais, though you'd hardly guess it from the name, is Snobissimo, a restaurant chiefly notable for its cozy atmosphere and expertly mixed drinks. Taken singly, none of these places is more than an hour's drive from Lisbon, but you should plan on stopping overnight en route if you want to see them all.

It's no easy matter to find a bad beach or a bad vista on this section of the Portuguese coast. You can water-ski, swim, skindive, take in staggering views, sleep in converted fortresses, tilt at windmills and generally do your thing, whatever it may be. The air is clean, hot and dry; it never rains, or hardly ever; the people are warm and honest; and you'll see any number of well-filled bikinis capering in the coves, nooks and crannies dotting the coast line. It's the sort of place that should have been ruined by real-estate developers a generation ago and perhaps one day it will be, but not yet. The colors are vivid, the sea is crystalline and the tires on your car make a nice noise when the sun is on the road. It's all here; this is the place. Hurry while it lasts.

For another worthwhile trip, drive out of Lisbon across the Tagus via the Salazar Bridge. If you take the Auto Estrada from the top end of town, you'll pass through a wide and impressive valley bounded at one end by an aqueduct and leading finally to the bridge approach itself. You turn off where it says Ponte Sul. Once you pass over this fantastic span (the longest in Europe and fifth longest in the world), you'll be surrounded by more views than you can absorb. Stop your car and get out, and from some far-off hill you may hear the tinkling of sheep bells. You'll hear very little else, in fact, apart from passing traffic, as silence is one of the local industries.

Follow the road to Sesimbra through the dark forests of pine, through the villages and past the squat windmills on the hilltops. Before you drop clown into Sesimbra, turn off and drive up the steep hill to the castle that overlooks the village and the sea. This coast is famous for its lofty vantage points. It's desolate, awesome and utterly beautiful, and when you stand there looking out at the limitless horizon, you can easily understand why such a tiny nation as Portugal produced so many world-ranging discoverers. If you can tear yourself away, head down into Sesimbra and check in at the Hotel do Mar, which is built into the hillside and has a private terrace for every room. Lovely place, nice smell of sea, highly polished terracotta tiles, friendly bar and good food.

Leaving Sesimbra, you might tool down to Portinho d'Arrábida, where you can dine in a converted coast-guard fort and laze around at the edge of the bay. Super drive up the slopes of the ridge, where I'd stop and have a look at the old monastery. I wouldn't really, but what the hell. The road continues along the ridge with more of those knockout vistas all around you and goes on to Setúbal. which is worth visiting, if only to eat in its lovely converted fort-type restaurant, the Estralagemde sa Filipe, where you can lunch and stare across the Sado river to the tremendous beaches at Tróia.

It's a good land to drive through, and if you park, picnic or doze, there's no fear of blocking traffic; there isn't any. Drive all the way south and, as you cross the range of hills that the Portuguese call mountains, you'll enter another world: the Algarve. It's a sunny land of beaches and almond blossoms, where the Arabs have left their mark on everything from architecture to the flavor of the local vino, which is pressed in jute sacking and has the same resin flavor as many Greek wines. Along this coast are resort towns and beach hotels with year-round sunshine and scuba-diving blondes. And here, also, at Sagres, is the school of navigation from which Prince Henry the Navigator watched his ships set off to the ends of the world.

If you drive a rented car to the Algarve and want to fly back to Lisbon, you can leave the car at Faro, which is the principal town in the region; but be sure to make these arrangements before leaving Lisbon. The flight takes half an hour by jet; if you schedule it right, you should be able to make connections to Madrid with no more than a two-hour layover. You may need one of them for the ponderous Portuguese ritual of passport and customs inspection; the other hour you can use to reread the following description of your next destination. If you think you'll be briefed well enough by then, of course, you might take a little siesta instead; once you arrive in Madrid, you'll have better things to do than sleep.

In midsummer of 1938, the Spanish Civil War had another nine months to go before Franco's Nationalist armies could claim victory over the Republicans. The Republicans still held most of Madrid and a large, roughly square-shaped pocket that extended inland from the Mediterranean coast line between points outside Almeria and Valencia, and they still controlled Catalonia in the northeast corner of Spain. By July, Franco's troops were in sight of victory; and on the first of that month, evidence of their leader's confidence was to be seen in the form of a bus carrying three French nuns and a British journalist. They were tourists, the first to respond to an ad campaign mounted by Franco's newly reorganized Spanish State Tourist Department, which billed the excursions as "Rutas Nacionales de Guerra." The first trip was to Civil War battlefields along the northernmost border of Spain; it lasted nine days; and when the British journalist got back to Fleet Street, he wrote with some justification that most tourists in Spain were nuns.

As the War progressed in favor of the Nationalists, the itineraries gradually moved south and the travelers began arriving by the hundreds and then by the thousands. A civil war, one of the bloodiest in history, had helped create what would become the country's biggest industry. Last year, there were some 17,000,000 of these pilgrims--more than one for every two Spaniards. There are still those who go to Spain to retrace the battles of vanished armies; others are drawn by the ghosts of Manolete and Hemingway; and some arrive because a travel agent tells them they can make a free stopover in Madrid if they hold a round-trip ticket from New York to Rome. But most come for the mountains, beaches, salmon rivers, skiing, food, sun, castles, desert, silence, action, solitude, the corrida and the parade of the cuadrillas, the bullet holes in the walls of the University of Madrid, La Mancha and a people who give the impression that even if they were invaded by 60,000,000 tourists a year, they would remain Spaniards, unchanged and unchangeable; perhaps not proud and arrogant in the way they are depicted by most travel writers, but independent, impervious and ironic, and ironic usually about the matters that Spaniards are reputed to regard as the most sacred. In a Catholic state such as Spain, which has a concordat with the Holy See, the religious processions wend their gloomy penitential route through streets thronged with the faithful and littered with empty wine bottles. A man dressed as a shepherd in the live tableau of Christ's birth, which is staged annually on the steps of the cathedral in Toledo, leans down to give a passer-by a light from his own cigarette and then nudges one of the Three Wise Men to point out a leggy blonde who is trying to struggle out of a tiny car.

Try to avoid going to Spain in August--it's a madhouse; late May, early June or September are perhaps the best months to dodge the golden tourist horde. The bullfight season runs only from late March to October; but if you don't mind missing that, you can go in the winter--especially to the south, where you'll always find sun, even if the water's not warm enough for swimming. If swim you must, there's a daily flight from Barcelona to Minorca.

Iberia, Spain's national airline, leaves much to be desired in its service. Recently, I flew with them four times, once (o London and three times within Spain itself. Every one of the flights was delayed for at least two hours for mechanical reasons; and on the last flight, the passengers were disembarked after boarding because of "trouble in the electrical system." I've never flown Iberia transatlantic, so I don't know what it's like: but 1 don't recommend them unless you're as unhurried as the Spanish.

Upon arrival at Madrid airport, you may be approached by a friendly, smiling man who will offer you a taxi and take your bags. Retrieve them immediately and tell him no thanks. He's a limousine driver and the fare into town will be three times the usual amount. Taxis are black with a red stripe and they have meters; you'll have to walk outside the terminal to find one, but it's worth the inconvenience. Unless you're very unlucky, this will be one of the few occasions in Spain when you'll be likely to meet that familiar figure, the tourist con man. Later, you may also be approached by people who will offer you "genuine gypsy entertainment." Surprisingly enough, it is--performed with great verve and authenticity by job-holding professional gypsies who live in comfortable flats: it won't cost much and it can be an enjoyable experience. But you might wait until you get settled in your hotel before taking them up on it.

On first sight, Madrid can be a drab, cheerless, dirty city that looks as though most of it was built in eastern Europe and shipped to Spain bit by bit. Don't be fooled. You have to do some digging to discover this city, and when you do find it, you'll be handsomely rewarded. It may not have the ordered cleanliness and Continental sophistication of Barcelona--Spain's second city, which carries on a perpetual feud with Madrid similar to the New York--Chicago pattern--but it has immense vitality, many surprises, some of the best restaurants in Europe and many of the lousiest hotels.

Don't stay at the Castellana Hilton unless you are overcome by a sudden yearning for some good old-fashioned indifference. In the winter, you'll be briskly poached by the inaccessible, and therefore uncontrollable, central heating, which maintains a steady clanking and groaning through the night: and if your bed is too close to the wall, you may hear your nextdoor neighbor taking off his socks. You'll possibly find yourself surrounded by great flocks of middle-aged ladies who look as though they're on the way to a D. A. R. convention. The Castellana Hilton is also noisy, depressing, inconvenient, inhospitable, expensive and dull. I would like to put in a good word for the chocolate milk shakes they serve in their coffeeshop, however, and there are airline offices and an American Express branch located off the lobby. Also on the plus side, the Castellana Hilton magazine is one of the finest hotel publications I've ever seen and it publishes a first-rate free guide to Madrid, very informative as to where everything is. At the Luz Palacio, another deluxe mausoleum just up the street, the only object of fascination I found was the water supply in the sinks of the men's room oil the main lounge. It's operated by electric eyes that turn the water on when you lower your hands below the rim of the sink.

If I were going to Madrid tomorrow, I'd book a room at the deluxe Madrid Melia, which opened last December and is one of the few Spanish hotels that has remote-control television and a fridge in every room. It also boasts a sauna, a Turkish bath and "eggs cocked to your order," to quote from a hotel menu. Very modern, bright and friendly. In the Meliá, I watched on my telly a cartoon program produced in Germany, with subtitles in German and English. One of the characters, a very small baby, was credited with the remark: "Oh, shit!"--followed by the parenthetical explanation: "Popular English word."

Madrid's most fashionable hotel is, of course, the Ritz, sister to the Lisbon Ritz and one of les grands hôtels européens. If you can get in, you'll find it a luxurious cocoon, smallish, civilized and indisputably one of the world's memorable hotels. Almost next door is the Prado museum and, beyond that, the Botanical Gardens. A friend once told me that he checked in at the Ritz wearing T-shirt and Levis; if true, this speaks volumes for the unflappable equanimity of the front-desk staff. A lesser, more pretentious hotel would have refused to let him in the lobby. The largest and, in my opinion, the best-managed deluxe hotel in Spain is the Palace. It's nearly always full, winter and summer. When you make your reservation--and do it before you leave home--ask for one of the restored, modernized suites.

Once installed, you have a choice of restaurants that ranges from supersnob to what the Spanish call tipico--and some of the typical restaurants, predictably, are a hell of a lot better than the deluxe. I would reserve a table at Casa Botin's (adjacent to Plaza Mayor, a vast colonnaded square that is being excavated for an underground garage). Though it has been universally scorned for its popularity with tourists, Casa Botin's serves delicious food in surroundings that look as though they were left over from a Three Musketeers movie set. Their specialty is roast suckling pig: they've been cooking this delicacy over the same open oven since 1725. The fuel is evergreen oak, and if you take a look inside the tiny kitchen and glance up at the ceiling, you'll see washing hanging out to dry over the heat from the oven. The Jockey Club, one of the most elegant restaurants in Spain (it's so elegant it closes in August), serves impeccable food with impeccable taste; and O'Xeito, another luxury joint, specializes in seafood. Unless you have a yen for a particular vintage, ask for the vin de la maison; you'll seldom be disappointed in either place.

Horcher, one of Madrid's top-rated restaurants, is open all year round. No guide to Spanish restaurants would omit mention of this establishment, and no gourmet in his right senses would fail to pay it a visit. But--and this doesn't say much for me as guide or gourmet--I've never been there in my life, not because I doubt the quality of the Horcher cuisine but simply because whenever I've been in Madrid, I've been too preoccupied investigating the taverns in the old quarter. I understand, however, that its visitors' book contains the signatures of everyone who was ever anybody, so I suppose that should be recommendation enough.

Along the small streets adjacent to Plaza Mayor there are numerous bars and tascas that offer stand-up snacks if you're not in the mood for a sit-down dinner with all the trimmings. It's quite easy to turn one of these tavern excursions into a lull meal, for the variety of dishes is both wide and tempting. Some places specialize in only one dish; others offer a selection of meat, fish and fowl cooked in many different ways.

At the Mesón de la Tortilla, for example, the specialty is--appropriately enough--Spanish omelets, made with eggs, onion and potatoes and cooked in front of you by the most nonchalant chef in the Western Hemisphere. Nothing deters him from the stirring, chopping, mixing and pan-flipping stages of the operation. Eggs may break unexpectedly; the pan may suddenly burst into flames; a finished omelet may slither to the floor; a gasoline truck may explode on the street: but the maestro carries on, whistling, scowling at his fingernails, mixing, chopping and flipping with a style more fitting for the bull ring than the kitchen.

At the Mesón del Champignon, you get mushrooms, hot and sweet and cooked in the finest olive oil; and at Mesón de la Guitarra. everything from hard-boiled eggs to legs of roasted chicken. These places are real taverns, lively and lusty late at night and filled with shouting and song. I went into one of them about two in the morning. One man was punishing a guitar; another was making that wild honking sound peculiar to a certain kind of Spanish flamenco singing and a nice fat lady was dancing on one of the tables. At the very next table to this happy trio, a group of American Servicemen was playing a fierce game of poker, oblivious to the noise around them and to a sign that some student had scratched into the wall over their table: Paz En Vietnam.

There are certain traditions in Spain that should be exported immediately. One of these is that when you order a drink, the waiter brings the bottle to your table and pours until you tell him to stop. (One of the few places I visited where this was not done was an English-owned bar on the Costa del Sol, where the bottles are attached upside down to the wall and capped with automatic measuring devices that release just enough alcohol to dampen the glass.) This generosity may be due to the fact that until quite recent years, hardly anybody drank hard liquor in Spain. It was all wine.

At night in Madrid, there are movies, discothèques, night clubs, symphonic concerts, outdoor-dancing gardens, flamenco houses and taverns. English-language movies are now screened with the original sound track and the Spaniards are eagerly catching up on what they've missed. The Prisoner of Zenda, with Stewart Granger and Deborah Kerr, and Night and the City, with Richard Widmark--relics both--were being held over in their second week while I was there. New releases may be seen all over town, but don't look for anything naughty. This being Spain, censorship is all part of the new liberty. A Madrid publisher of art books was ordered to remove a picture of the Nude Maja from a showcase window, although the same painting is on daily view at the Prado. This deficiency of sex in print and on films, however, is compensated for by the abundance of sex in the flesh, as represented by the prostitutes who ply just about every bar in the vicinity of Avenida de José Antonio, or Gran Via, as the main shopping street of Madrid is usually known.

In the summer, there is open-air entertainment at the Pavilion and the Florida; and throughout the year, there is discothèque and flamenco all over town. Piccadilly Club usually has the best rock groups in town (it's located around the corner from an excellent little steak restaurant, the Zum Zum) and you'll have to pay a small minimum to get in. All flamenco places are what is known as touristy: but since they're also filled with Spanish fans, they can't be all bad. The Zambia, near the Prado, is one of the leading flamenco houses, and the best time to go is around midnight. There's also the Corral de la Moreria, where press agents take their celebrity clients (recent visitors included Robert Mitchum, Fabian and French rock-'n'-roll star Johnny Hallyday), and El Duende, one of the owners of which was a matador on the same bill the day Manolete was killed. Flamenco is muy groovy if you have a thing about tap dancing like I have.

En route back to your hotel after all this late revelry, you may notice a man walking the streets wearing a uniform and carrying a long stick. He is the sere-no and his job is to open doors for the tenants of houses. He carries a chain of keys around his waist, and if one of his clients wants to get out his front door, he must lean out of the window and attract the sereno's attention by whistling or clapping his hands. The sereno, if he hears this summons, will respond by rapping on the sidewalk with his stick--after which he will open the door. I have not been able to obtain a satisfactory explanation as to what happens if he doesn't hear your call nor, for that matter, have 1 been able to find out why the tenants can't have keys of their own. It seems to be one of those customs buried, as they say, in the tradition of an ancient and incomprehensible past.

Culture? It's all around you: The Royal Palace, monumental in size and design, rich with Goyas, carpets, vast salons and chandeliers; the Prado, stacked with the works of El Greco, as well as Italian and Flemish masters; and too many buildings and museums of interest to list here. At the Spanish Tourist Office, ask for a copy of their informative booklet "Spain for You" and get maps and pamphlets on all the places you intend to visit. There you'll get all vital data about museums, galleries, hotels, excursions, etc. Also get a copy of the 1968 Tourist Calendar, which gives dates and locations of every festival in Spain.

If you're staying only a short time in Madrid (two days, say), and plan to leave by air, don't rent a car. Taxis are cheap, though sometimes scarce, and you can see all you'll have time for by taking one of the many sight-seeing bus tours of the city. Driving in Madrid can produce an instant coronary. All the traffic cops seem to be on the verge of breakdowns; the traffic lights are placed in unexpected positions and angry little cars ricochet at you from all directions across the open squares. One of the reasons taxis are scarce in Madrid is that so many of the drivers have passed their maximum accident level and are now uninsurable. Another hazard is the condition of some of the city streets, a few of which have holes big enough to qualify as grottoes.

But none of this should put you off if you intend to use Madrid as a base for short trips to the attractions outside the city, and you'll find all the major car-rental companies represented. It's best not to get one of the bigger models, or you may find yourself in the position of the tourist whose Buick Riviera got jammed in one of the arches at the Roman aqueduct in Segovia. It would be best to rent a Renault, a Simca or a Seat, the Spanish licensee of Fiat.

There is a multitude of trips to choose from, but my first choice would be a circle tour of Segovia, Ávila and Toledo. It's possible to make this round trip from Madrid in a day. I've done it, and I got back to Madrid in time for dinner; but I don't recommend a one-day effort, because you'll spend more time in your car than on your feet. I would go to these three places for these reasons: Segovia has a superb aqueduct that was built by the Romans and is still used to carry water; Ávila is surrounded by huge, battle-mented walls; and Toledo is a city of great beauty, situated high above the Tagus river, which runs almost from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. If you don't find these compelling reasons to go, I'd still recommend the trip for the scenery between the cities, especially between Ávila and Toledo. The mountains through which you'll pass en route from Madrid to Segovia are filled with ski resorts, hotels, lodges, restaurants and a plenitude of snow-capped vistas. And on the road from Ávila to Toledo, you'll see tiny castles perched on inaccessible crags; shepherds, skinny sheep and barking black clogs; peasant laces, blank and faceted like Stone Age axheads; villages of midget houses in the shadow of gigantic churches; roads that wind along mountainsides and across semidesert; dams and dry rivers and, as you get closer to Toledo, forests of holm oak. which, seen as you descend from the hills, look like carpets of voluptuous green sponges.

The Hostal de Castilla, just outside the gates of Toledo, houses a restaurant and a factory that makes swords, souvenirs and damascene art objects. At late afternoon in the smallest room of this cavernous restaurant, the sunlight pours through the leaded and tinted glass and bathes everything with an ethereal golden glow. Excellent food and warm, prompt service. In the high-ceilinged factory that leads off the restaurant lobby, a score of men work over benches and vises, hammering and working steel, which they fashion into rapiers and cutlasses, some new and gleaming, others "antiqued" with rough edges and dull metal. They made the swords here for the movie El Cid. Other men hammer gold leaf into damascene jewelry and ashtrays. They work with the light that comes in the windows. It's true that these swords and objects are fake, in the sense that they're for tourist consumption, but they're made in the same way they were made two centuries ago--by hand. Some of the equipment may be more advanced; the steel may be of a better quality, but it's still laborious, skillful work. The big workroom and the smithy next door ring to the sound of hot metal hammered on old-fashioned anvils, and an old leather bellows regulates the open tempering furnace.

I found it very moving to watch these men at work, I suppose because they did it so well and with such concentration. None of that shop-floor chitchat you find on a car assembly line or in a canning factory; just silence and deft fingers turning a lump of metal into something' fantastic. It's a bit incongruous to watch these dark, impassive-faced men swish a rapier to test its flexibility and think that the object of his skill and care will end up on some wall in Cleveland or Toronto. It was the first and only time that I think I understood what people mean when they talk about Spanish pride; what they really mean is prideful humility.

There are great things to see in Toledo: the Alcázar, scene of a bitter siege in the Civil War; the streets themselves, five feet wide and narrower in some cases; the views from the lookout by the Alcázar; the cathedral; and the prospect of Toledo by moonlight or at sunset from (he Hermitage of the Virgin del Valle. El Greco lived in Toledo; his house is there and many of his works remain there and in the adjacent museum. There are no sensational hotels in Segovia, Ávila or Toledo, but comfortable accommodation in either small hotels or government-owned inns is available. Try to make Toledo the last stop on your Spanish itinerary before returning to Madrid--and drive out of this fortress city at sunset, even though you'll have to journey the 43 miles back to Madrid in darkness. Some cities are best seen in bright sun and others are best not seen in any light. But Toledo fits neither category and certainly not the latter. At sunset, its grim walls are softened with pink; its spires and gables, copper-edged against a sun that hangs low in the sky like an open wound, cast deep black shadows across the rooftops. Except for the tumult of the Tagus, far below, it is still and silent, as still as the plains that lie between Toledo and Madrid, as silent as the mountains in the north. It is not an easy city to leave.

For trips farther afield from Madrid--the Spanish Costas, for instance--it's best to forgo the rigors of driving and take to the air, with the hope, when you do so, that Iberia is operating on time for a change. The Costas were the subject of an extensive Playboy feature (May 1966, but I'd like to add a few observations of my own just to update the scene.

Along this sun-baked Mediterranean coast line, you'll find everything from gaudy pleasure oases to drowsy fishing villages. Some regions, notably on the Costa del Sol, have been devastated by deranged real-estate developers, while others are comparatively untouched. Málaga, unofficial capital of the Costa del Sol, and its neighboring eyesore, Torremolinos, have been transformed in the past ten years from quiet town and sleepy village, respectively, into a small-scale version of Miami Beach. If Torremolinos has anything to recommend it--beyond its beautiful name and the fact that it provides one of the happier hunting grounds for unattached girls--it is the roads that lead out of it to the mountains in the east. The third-highest peak in Europe, after the harsh Alpine giants, is not too far off in the Sierra Nevadas: Mulhacén, 11,420 feet and capped with year-round snow.

There's little evidence that anyone has exercised much discretion or control over building or zoning in Torremolinos. It's full of cheap souvenir and postcard shops: the reek of hamburgers and French fries hangs like a greasy smog over the smell of jacaranda blossom; and the streets are filled with large, square-bottomed English matrons and natty pimp-type youths in tricky clothes.

The Pez Espada, the most expensive hotel in Torremolinos, deserves special mention because it is possibly the nastiest hotel in Spain--overpriced and underserviced and full of wealthy cadavers, who might have been drawn by Gerald Scarfe in an ugly mood. There's a night club in the Pez Espada that has lights set in the flower box outside the picture windows; when lit, their bilious green color glows on the people inside, making them look like denizens of some grotesque aquarium. Entertainment at the club runs the gamut, as they say, from mediocre to terrible; but the performers--trick cyclists, singers, belly dancers--almost glow with talent when compared with the Spanish rock group I heard there. The people get up and dance, anyway, wagging their fingers and smirking oafishly, hyperthyroid businessmen who make unpleasant decisions in London, Brussels and Berlin, accompanied by wives with brittle hairdos who cackle when the belly dancer does her number. What I mean is, don't go there; stay away; you'll be an unwanted guest at a wake. The Pez Espada was the only place in Spain where a hotel employee, a bellboy, asked for a bigger tip than the one I gave him.

Once out of Torremolinos, there are great things to see on the Costa del Sol; but whether you get to them will depend on the time of year you go. Even in the summer, you might find an isolated little beach set between huge rocks; and you should have little trouble finding beaches jammed with Scandinavian sun worshipers. There are also night clubs, discothèques, adequate restaurants, little villages, no big cities--but no really impressive stretches of sand.

Along the entire Costa del Sol, from Gibraltar to Almeria, which mark its limits and which will probably be joined one day into one long (220-mile) resort, there is no lack of the good life. Not too many Spaniards about, however, except in the villages. I would go farther north, to one of the other coasts--the Costa Blanca or the Costa del Azahar--which are not as spoiled as either the Costa del Sol or the Costa Brava. I'd also recommend a flight to either Ibiza or Minorca, the beautiful Balearics.

If you do base yourself in Torremolinos or any of the villages between Málaga and Marbella, drive through the mountains to Ronda, where you'll find the oldest bull ring in Spain. Ronda is one of the most romantic towns in Andalusia. Take the road just west of Marbella: you'll find Ronda perched on a volcanic cone overlooking a deep gorge cut by the Rio Guadiaro and spanned by three soaring arched bridges. If you want to stay overnight, there's the Queen Victoria Hotel, antiquated but adequate, just like the old girl herself.

About ten miles to the southwest of Torremolinos are the resorts of Los Boliches and Fuengirola, which are like Torremolinos but on a smaller scale. If you don't feel like eating in a restaurant, buy some bread, ham, wine and cheese at one of the stores and find you and yours a quiet bit of beach farther along the coast. It's a lot cheaper than eating at a table and it's always more fun, especially with company. Most of the local wines have snap-oft caps, so you won't need a corkscrew or an opener.

Farther along to (he east is the Costa Blanca. There are beautiful stretches of beach, rugged mountain scenery and great water for sailing and skindiving oil Cape Gata, Cape Palos, Mazarrón and Águilas. You'll find hospitable hotels and inns all along this stretch of coast--and not so many people by the water's edge, because the road doesn't hug the shore line. There are dazzling light and vivid colors inland from (he orange groves, vineyards and groves of olive and palm. Go to Alicante, either by air or by rail, and rent a car when you arrive, for coastal trips.

Costa Brava means rugged coast. It is. Rocky inlets and steep promontories, spectacular mountains that drop into the sea and a tourist to every grain of sand. You turn a bend in the road high over the sea and catch a quick glimpse of beach that seems deserted, and when you finally arrive, you find half a dozen neat trailers parked in the shade with half a dozen neat families cooking their respective national dishes over small stoves. If you charter a yacht, Blanes otters good mooring facilities as well as a long beach that may provide you with a new load of passengers, should the previous load prove unfriendly. There's excellent seafood everywhere, as, indeed, you'll find from one end of Spain to the other.

Milan--Montreux

Scarcely 120 air miles separate Milan, in northern Italy, from Montreux, in western Switzerland; but since this distance encompasses the Alps, the real distance seems vast. It's difficult to imagine--in Europe or anywhere else--more dramatic contrasts in such a small span of territory. Passing through the St. Gotthard rail tunnel into the Tessin, the Italian-speaking canton of Switzerland, brings you from winter to summer in a matter of minutes. A tour of this region, starting at Milan and ending at Montreux. at the east end of Lake Geneva, will give the traveler contrastingly unique flavors of both Italy and Switzerland.

Milan is the commercial, industrial and banking center of Italy and, after Rome, the country's most sophisticated and expensive city. As a business capital, it has never sought to pamper tourists, even though it attracts thousands, partly because of its location--in the heart of Lombardy and close to the great Italian lakes and the Swiss border--and partly because of its function as a major terminal for air, road and rail travel. It is not a city that sells itself on first glance. Its treasures, though plentiful enough, must be excavated with diligence.

The principal enticements are cultural: music, architecture, sculpture and painting. There would be little point in adding Milan to a vacation itinerary if these elements were of secondary importance to the traveler. Pilgrims come here to pay homage to Leonardo, to gape at the collection of his visionary drawings in the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology and to marvel at his fresco of the Last Supper, which fades year by year from the walls of the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, after centuries of exposure to Milan's none-too-temperate weather and the ravages of war and invasion. I've often thought that if the fresco had been painted in any other Latin city, there would probably be a local legend to the effect that when it vanished altogether, terrible plagues and scourges would be visited upon the populace; but this is Milan--dynamic, realistic and hard-nosed--and if there are any such legends, I've never heard them. On the contrary, the fresco is periodically retouched, which must make the Last Supper one of the world's oldest continuing Happenings.

There are two good hotels in Milan--the Principe e Savoia and the Palace, both on Piazza della Repubblica and close to the main railroad station and the shopping-business district. A recent addition is an air-conditioned 200-roomer, the Jolly Hotel. I haven't stayed there, but I hear it ranks with the best Milan has to offer. Don't waste your time on the Excelsior Gallia, however, which, though ranked as a luxury hotel and located even closer to the station than the Palace or the Savoia, is dull beyond belief and as noisy as hell if you get a room overlooking the construction site in the square.

Nobody could make a very strong case for Milan as a vibrant focus of night-life activity, and I don't intend to try. However, there is dancing in the roof gardens at the Palace and Cavalieri hotels, and the Astoria Club has a floorshow that, although the best in town, is not exactly sensational. There's cabaret and more alfresco dancing at the Rendez-Vous, which is operated by the management of the Piccolo Bar, a minute and expensive night spot in which every clique of customers seems to know every other clique; so if you're traveling solo, you may feel left out of things.

Much more informal--and a lot more fun--is Aretusa, a cellar--cum--junk shop--discothèque, very popular with the younger Milanese and a relief alter the sterility of its more mature competitors.

Fortunately for those on a hurry-up schedule, the majority of Milan's most notable monuments--the massive Duo-mo, a Gothic cathedral from the roof terraces of which you can see the plain of Lombardy and the far-off Alps through a forest of spires; and La Scala, rebuilt since its destruction in the last War--are located in a surprisingly small area almost exactly in the center of town. Here also are the city's famed glass-enclosed shopping arcades; these and the adjacent streets are lined with stores of every type, ranging from Messaggerie Musicali (for books and records) to newspaper stands that hawk Italian-style fumetti, a lukewarm "pornographic" product in comparison with the Scandinavian variety, in that it mixes the sexes without combining them. Try Franzi or Gucci for leatherwear, Fragiacomo for shoes, Peter Sport for casualwear, and Red and Blue for menswear. Rinascente is a well-stocked--and air-conditioned--department store; and Baratta's sells stylish custom-made fashions for both men and women.

When you've bought all you want, seen everything you have time for and sampled Milan's restaurants (see chart on pages 124 and 125 for recommendations), about all that is left is to pick a route out of the city--a monumental challenge in itself. In summer--often unpleasantly humid in northern Italy--those Milanese who can afford it head north for the hills and lakes of Lombardy, which are transformed overnight from tranquil stretches of water into churning maelstroms by cruising powerboats that roar past the bikini-burdened diving floats. No two people who know the region will agree as to which is the most beautiful of these lakes; but my own favorite is Garda, which lies in a great cleft between mountain ridges. Plan lo spend al least a night in one of the lake-front towns--they spring to life as soon as the sun starts to drop in the west.

Garda, Maggiore and Como can all be reached by autostrada, a superb network of highways that runs almost the entire length of Italy; few driving experiences could be more exhilarating (or nerve-tingling) than to find oneself being tail-gated by a convoy of drivers who appear to have taken religious vows never to drop their speed below 100 miles an hour. From Milan, the northernmost junction of this network, the autostrade reach out like concrete fingers: Venice, Florence and the Italian Riviera, with its miles of sheltered coves and beaches, all lie well within a morning's drive and every route offers beguiling diversions. It would be difficult, for example, to drive to Venice without stopping at Verona en route for an unhurried view of its almost perfectly preserved Roman amphitheater (open-air operas are performed there in the summer) and to take a look at Juliet's balcony, that legendary and almost inaccessible fixture that leads the cynic to marvel at Romeo's prowess more as athlete than as lover.

On the way from Milan to Florence is Bologna, another center of great wealth and learning (it was here that Marconi was born and Galvani discovered how electricity flowed) and--more important--a shrine for lovers of good food and wine. If you have time and it isn't too crowded, have lunch at Pappagallo's and leave the choice of food and wine to the waiter. All you need do is order un pranzo (luncheon) alla bolognese and prepare yourself for a stupefying banquet.

One of the hazards involved in making such detours from a planned itinerary is that the diversions tend to become destinations. The first time I planned a trip from Milan to Florence, I detoured to see Bologna, intending to stay overnight before getting back onto the autostrada. Once there, however, I learned that if I continued south toward the Adriatic, I would pass through the town of Savignano, the chief landmark of which is a parched stream you've probably heard of--the Rubicon. It was about this now-humble trickle that the Roman senate, frightened by the increasing power of their own legions, issued their sonorous edict: "General or soldier, veteran or conscript, armed person whoever you may be, stop here, and let not your standards nor your arms nor your army cross the Rubicon." I never did get to Florence.

For a dramatic exit from northern Italy, nothing matches the spectacular rail route through the Alps. There are five train stations in Milan, but only one--the Stazione Centrale--serves the main route north to Switzerland. Book your seat as far in advance as possible (before you leave home, if you can) and, if you're in a hurry, book it on Trans Europe Express.

Where to go in Switzerland? It depends, as the travel truism goes, on what you're looking for. I happen to prefer Montreux, the international resort and wine center, which is just two and a half hours from Milan by Trans Europe Express. Unlike many Swiss towns--especially those in the German-speaking parts of Switzerland--it combines mountains and lake as well as the right sort of night life. From Milan, the tracks skirt Lake Maggiore before plunging into the 12-1/2-mile Simplon Tunnel and emerging into a mountainscape that beggars adequate description. One's first feeling on seeing these awesome crags is envy: it seems almost unjust that one country, Switzerland, should be so rich in economic wealth and even richer in natural beauty. In fact, it's long been fashionable in Europe to suspect the Swiss. People say they are too clean, too clever, too busy and--crime against nature--too wealthy. Visitors sometimes go home with the uneasy feeling that the sole function of that precision apparatus known as the Swiss Tourist Industry is to instill a sense of inferiority in the visitor.

"The other day," said an American lunching on the terrace of a lake-front hotel outside Geneva, "I called the desk at my hotel and told them 1 wanted to get to Gstaad immediately. I asked them to check on the fastest route and told them not to worry about expense, because it was urgent business. I figured they'd get me a fast car and a good driver. Ten minutes later, I hear this whirring noise outside and the desk clerk phones to say there's a goddamn helicopter waiting for me."

But efficiency isn't the whole story. If you scratch a Swiss, you'll be reassured to find that he's not the superhuman efficiency apparatus described in the travel folders. The difference lies in the country he inhabits. Swiss life is magnificently orchestrated, not by chance but by design. Organization, a Zurich concierge assured me, doesn't necessarily lead to regimentation. It just makes life more pleasant and usually easier. But still, I was to discover, it creates occasional problems.

The Swiss railway system, for instance, is one of the most efficient in the world; but for the baggage-laden traveler, this can be a highly mixed blessing. Changing trains often consists of throwing your gear out a window before your train has properly halted, dashing out yourself, retrieving everything, then stowing it aboard another train as it pulls mercilessly out of the station precisely on time. All this must sometimes be accomplished in less than three minutes, without the help of baggage porters; and if you pause to tie your shoelace, you may have to wait an hour or two for the next train. (Members of the American ski team, sitting last winter among a forest of skis at the station in Montreux, complained that they'd never made a successful train connection during their entire tour of Switzerland.) To avoid all of this confusion, the Swiss railways offer the same baggage facilities as airlines. If you check your baggage ten minutes before departure time, it will travel with you. no matter how many times you change trains, and may be claimed upon arrival at your destination.

Most people in Switzerland travel by train. In the winter months, when the roads are impassable and the airports all but invisible under ten feet of snow, there's literally no other way to get around. Even in summer, rail is faster than road and (except when traveling between the major cities) far handier than air travel. Swiss trains are swift and comfortable--and eminently civilized, thanks to uniformly gratifying cuisine and a steady flow of beer and wine, consumed amid flashing Alpine panoramas. In Italian, French and German trains, the coaches are compartmentalized, as in England, which means you're thrown willy-nilly into semi-intimacy--sharing cigarettes, wine and anecdotes--with your compartmentmates. The most interesting passengers--especially from the point of view of the unattached young male--will be traveling second class, and you're well advised to do likewise.

Companionship aside, a train ride across Switzerland, which you can make in one long day, will give you a fine sampling of the kaleidoscope of vistas that this remarkable country offers. From the placid lakeside lowlands around Geneva, through the mountainous grandeur above Montreux, on into the semi-industrial starkness of Swiss-German Zurich, you will have seen as much natural variety as you could expect on a coast-to-coast train ride across the U. S.

Even the lowliest Swiss has an acute awareness of the loveliness of his land, and the national consensus is to preserve this beauty at all costs, even at the cost of what we call progress. A factory will not be built on the shores of Lake Geneva simply because that's the most efficient place to build it. Factories are ugly and they taint the landscape; the Swiss insist, therefore, that they be hidden, or at least disguised. A superhighway will not be built along the banks of the Rhone simply because dial's the cheapest place to build it. Rivers are for people and they should be accessible to those who like to stroll along the banks. You can travel from one end of Switzerland to the other and never see a billboard, a plastic drive-in or a telephone or electric cable. Even pneumatic-drill compressors are muffled with rubber padding to reduce noise. For this reason, a tour of Switzerland can be a refreshing revelation to Americans, as well as Britons; because, no matter how much they love their own country and deplore its desecration, many of them still think that private enterprise has a God-given mandate to uglify.

Montreux itself, a fine departure point for train trips all over Switzerland, is one of the liveliest summer resorts in the country. It's set in an amphitheater of mountains, vineyards and rolling meadowland, overlooked by the great peak of the Rochers-de-Naye, 6700 feet above (atthe top of which is a restaurant that can be readied by cogwheel train).

Montreux faces south across a lake of crystal clarity; the mountains behind the town protect it from the bise, the dry wind that cuts in from the northeast. Byron, Shelley, Dickens, Tolstoy, Wagner and Tchaikovsky all fell in love with the place, and today the mountains around Lake Geneva and above Montreux are studded with the villas of resident celebrities: Taylor and Burton, Bardot, Chaplin, Nabokov, David Niven, Noel Coward and William Holden, among them.

In Montreux, as in most Swiss resorts, the tourist office is financed partly by private investment and partly by contributions from local businessmen who depend on tourist trade. The result is that instead of a civil service staffed by indolent deadbeats whose only function is to hand out leaflets notable mostly for their tedious repetitiousness, the office is a tightly organized, superefficient corporation. Claude Nobs, its assistant director, will do everything short of moving an Alp for a visitor. He (or one of his staff) can tell you where to rent a yacht or a pair of water skis, can set up a private winetasting session, provide a plane to land you on a glacier for summer skiing, put you in touch with a guide for a scramble up the Matterhorn or have you driven to one of the ten 18-hole golf courses within an hour or so of town. When you get to Montreux, visit his office.

There are more than 60 hotels in and around Montreux, the best of which are the Montreux-Palace, the National and the Excelsior. The newest hotel in Montreux is the Eurotel, where every room has a refrigerator stocked with liquor; you pay for what you drink and settle when you check out. Stock is replenished daily. All rooms have staggering views, of either the lake or the mountains, and fast, ultra-courteous service. Swimming pool, sauna and massage rooms are at your disposal. Rates start around $8 for room and breakfast and go to about $18 for full board.

If you really like the place, incidentally, you can buy your suite. Eurotel belongs to a chain of resort hotels operated on a principle similar to American cooperative apartments. For anywhere from $15,500 to $47,000, you can own an apartment in the hotel and either occupy it yourself full time or have it rented out to paying guests. As an investor in the Eurotel chain, you get a discount ranging from 20 to 50 percent every time you stay in any link of the chain. There are now 15 of these in some of the finest resorts in Europe, and others are in the works in Taormina, Tenerife, the Algarve and Cap Ferrat. Well worth considering.

Youthful night life abounds in the area. There's the Museum, named for its location--a 13th Century monastery--which features top rock groups but whose main attraction is a floorful of saucy-hipped girls from the finishing schools that dot the area. In June, there will be a new discothèque, Le Strobe, decorated in Bonnie and Clyde style, which plans one of the most ambitious light shows on the Continent, using equipment purchased by the indefatigable Claude Nobs earlier this year on a trip to London and Los Angeles, twin centers for the manufacture of psychedelic electronics. There's also dancing at the Hungaria (beware of the exorbitant and predatory B-girls there), at the Casino and at numerous other cabarets and night spots in town and along the lake front.

You can, of course, gamble at the Casino, but the only game is roulette and the maximum stake is five francs (about one dollar) a throw. For stronger stuff, go to Divonne on the French side of Lake Geneva or to one of the neighboring casino towns in France. There's also an international television festival in April, an international jazz festival in June and a music festival in September; if you plan to go there in any of these months, make sure to reserve your room well in advance. And when shopping in Switzerland, bear in mind that the retail prices on all goods are established and enforced by the manufacturers.

A one-and-a-half-hour train ride (or a 15-minute helicopter hop) east of Montreux is Gstaad, one of the most popular watering spots for the international jet set. You haven't won your jet-set wings, incidentally, until you can unblinkingly--and correctly--pronounce Gstaad ("Staad"). Skiing in Gstaad is superb from December well into March; the cognoscenti flock there in February because the sun warms the slopes longer as the winter wanes. Summer is sedate and relaxing. Whatever the season, Gstaad is a village of perfect beauty, studded with gingerbread chalets, quaint barns and charming little craft shops staffed by multilingual local girls. The town resembles a full-scale Disneyland creation without the saccharine coating. There are more than a dozen fine hotels in Gstaad and, if you avoid the seasons, you can stay at any of them without a reservation. By far the best known is the Gstaad Palace, rated one of Europe's top hotels--a huge, faded fortress strategically commanding the village below. Rooms are smallish and a bit austere, but the service--like the French cuisine--is lavish and impeccable. Tariff is somewhat steep, beginning about $26 a day full fare, with the inevitable extras running your bill up to $40--$50. No credit cards, please, but the Palace will unhesitatingly accept your personal check. If you're willing to settle for something less than the grand manner, the Park-Hotel Reuteler is charming and modestly dignified; and the handful of hotels in the village itself (L'Arc-en-Ciel, for instance) offer honest accommodation at moderate cost. M. Ernst Scherz, who owns the Palace, seems to control much of the available real estate around Gstaad; and if you fall in love with the town--as many do--he might be persuaded to rent you a chalet.

Returning to Montreux, you'll find that Geneva is just an hour down the lake--in any season, one of the most beautiful waterside train trips in the world (make sure you take a window seat with a southern exposure). Geneva's international airport connects with all the major European cities and now offers almost as many transatlantic flights as the airport at Zurich. Geneva's airport has been modernized to include satellites and moving sidewalks that transport passengers from the plane to the terminal.

Stockholm--Copenhagen

When asked for his preferences among the Scandinavian nations, the more aged travel snob invariably names Norway and Finland, presumably because these rugged and empty lands have remained relatively untainted by plastic, concrete, exhaust fumes and frozen dinners. I'll certainly concede that the blessings of urban civilization are mixed, but I can't bring myself to romanticize the virgin wilderness. And this simplistic conceit, I think, does a gross injustice not only to Oslo and Helsinki, which are among Europe's most gracious cities, but also to Denmark and Sweden, which boast a countryside as unspoiled as any in Europe and a pair of capital cities as stylish and alive as any in the world. This isn't to say, of course, that Stockholm and Copenhagen are sister cities--except in antiquity, architecture and geographical proximity. It's their differences rather than their similarities that provide real insights into the charm and complexity of the Nordic nature. But, happily, both cities do share an attitude of hospitality toward foreigners that assures the visiting American a warm welcome in either capital.

Let's begin our tour in Stockholm--a city of unexpected beauty, a city on the water, latticed with islands, bridges and great green rolling parks, fresh and warm and crowned in summertime by fluffy clouds set in a pale-blue sky. Ferries steam to and from the island suburbs, sending frothy wakes across the broad waterways to lap against the columns of low-lying bridges. Hundreds of swans glide along the canals and noisy families of moor hen and ducks argue over the scraps that children throw from the river-front promenades. You'll find the swans there even in the winter, because instead of making the long trip south when it gets cold, they stay in Stockholm at a winter feeding station near the Opera House, where, along with the gulls, ducks and other water birds, they feed in royal abundance: Eleven hundred pounds of bread and 440 pounds of wheat and corn are issued by the city each day.

Whenever I'm in Stockholm, I'm surprised to rediscover that the city's hotels don't live up to the quality of Stockholm itself. Not that the hotels are bad, exactly. They just don't match the standards of efficiency, progressive ness and sophistication that have come to be expected of Scandinavia, and of Stockholm especially. The Grand Hotel is best recommended because of its view; if you stay there, make sure to ask well in advance for a room overlooking the Royal Palace. The Grand has the reputation as the best and most fashionable hotel in Stockholm, but it leaves a lot to be desired in its standard of service and efficiency. On a recent stay, it was impossible to get a jacket pressed or a button sewed on after seven P.M. The shower didn't work and nothing was done to repair it, and a further inconvenience was that the Grand does not accept American Express cards. (Fortunately, if you run out of money, you can always present your card at the local American Express representative's office--there's no full-time Amexco office in Stockholm--and draw up to $500 in traveler's checks.) Only two hotels in Stockholm do take American Express cards: the Diplomat and the Strand. This is hardly sufficient basis on which to recommend them; but one, the Strand, in the center of town facing the water, has been recently renovated. It has a handful of corner suites that are both spacious and reasonable--around $36, service compris. Besides the normal hotel offerings, the Strand has a roof garden, an excellent seafood restaurant and a mini-casino. Most of its rooms, though, are small and rather dark; make sure you inspect your room before you accept it. Other hotels worth considering are the Foresta, a cab ride from the center of town, and the Carlton. on the Kungsgatan, near the shopping district. But there are over 30 large hotels in Stockholm, many of them currently being improved, so perhaps you'll stumble on a good one I don't know about.

Once you're comfortably established, instead of taking a bus tour such as I recommend on our other itineraries, see the city by boat; you can appreciate Stockholm's lambent beauty best from the water. Boats leave throughout the day from the quays near the Opera House and the Grand Hotel. Take a day to see Drottningholm Palace, nearly an hour by steamer; or take a boat ride by night to beautifully lit-up, idyllic Djur-gården Island, in Stockholm's Lake Mälaren, which boasts an amusement park and open-air theaters.

You should plan to spend at least a week in Stockholm; but even that won't be long enough, because it is one of those cities that won't let the visitor go; there's simply too much to see and do. There's an old quarter, a maze of medieval streets lined with tiny shops and restaurants, and there's a modern shopping center in the heart of the city, featuring a car-free mall (Sergelgatan) and restaurants that provide every cuisine from Cantonese to French. The city museums alone need a week: Skansen, the outdoor museum in which is displayed every architectural style known in Sweden, covers 75 acres. Here you can listen to a recital of chamber music in a manor house or you can watch demonstrations of glass blowing, pottery, baking, weaving, butler churning and cheese making. There's also a printing works, a goldsmith and all kinds of other handicraft demonstrations. At Solliden, Skansen's first-class restaurant, there's an immobilizing smorgasbord at lunchtime and (from mid-May to August) open-air dancing for those who can still stand afterward.

You don't have to be a boat fanatic to go to see the Vasa and the accompanying museum. This mighty old oak-hulled wreck, once flagship of the Royal Swedish Navy, was raised from Stockholm harbor in 1961, its first exposure to air since August 1628, when the Vasa sank on her maiden voyage. Restoration work on the proud old vessel will take years; meanwhile, she is housed in a special prefabricated building and shrouded in a perpetual spray of preservatives to prevent the onset of the drying and molds that could destroy her. Regular films in the adjacent Vasa Museum explain every stage of the recovery and restoration that still go on. One museum room has a gallery of ornate wooden carvings taken from the wreck: another has a reconstruction of Vasa's lower gun deck, including one of the massive 24-pounders whose weight probably contributed to the disaster.

Though it costs only a couple of kronor (about 40 cents) to see the Vasa--like most of the major museums in town--Stockholm can be a somewhat expensive city. A simple dinner for four--consisting of one round of beer and schnapps, an appetizer, fish course and coffee--can run to nearly $50 in a place like Den Gyldene Freden, an old inn and tavern that opened three centuries ago. Fortunately, there are scores of restaurants in Stockholm that serve excellent food in less exotic surroundings for around three or four dollars. In the best of these, such as Riche, Operakällaren, Stallmästare-gården and Berns, reservations are recommended. Order the pickled salmon with fresh dill.

At the Opera House, there is a series of remarkable restaurants that vie with one another for sheer stylishness. You can eat lavishly under the great painted ceiling in the main dining room or you can enjoy a first-class simple meal at the Back Pocket snack bar. Or you might wish to visit the wine cellar; admission is by key, but if you tap on the metal door and speak nicely to the doorman, he might let you in. Inside, you'll find a fantastic selection of wine and great slabs of Swedish cheese, with an old music box supplying background melodies. Adjacent to the Back Pocket upstairs is the Opera Bar--beautifully decorated in art nouveau style--where you can drink draught Tuborg from a hallmarked silver tankard. Some of the finest wines produced in France are, oddly enough, obtainable only in Sweden. This is because the state liquor authority sends its wine tanker to France periodically to buy an entire year's output from a single vineyard. This government monopoly is the world's biggest single customer for French wines. A fifth of Scotch, should you insist on a taste of home, will cost you at least ten dollars in Stockholm and may climb to $20 if you order it in your hotel room after hours. It's best to buy your own on the plane at duty-free rates--or acquire a taste for Swedish aquavit, which isn't difficult; it comes in more than 15 different flavors. Some Swedes develop their own personal brand by adding dried flowers and herbs to pure aquavit.

As far as night life is concerned, it's best to ask the younger employees at your hotel which places are currently the most swinging. If they don't know or if your hotel doesn't have any young employees, inquire at any airline office. You can find big-name entertainers at Berns (Belafonte, Chevalier, et al.), but most Stockholm night life consists of standard cabaret acts, some jazz clubs, striptease joints and discothèques. Along with everybody else in the world, the Swedes are dance-crazy. It's quite all right to ask unattached Swedish girls to dance; many of them, in fact, go out with their girlfriends solely to meet guys in the discothèques and night clubs. There's a lot of coming and going in the Stockholm discothèque scene; clubs change hands and names overnight and the ones we recommend may be out of business by the time you read this, but a current favorite is the Lord Nilsson, small and informal: records only and bevies of unaccompanied girls. It's open till three. You can get in either from the street or from a spiral staircase that lezds up from the Ambassadeur, one of Stockholm's oldest established night clubs. At the Ambassadeur. the entertainment is of unchanging simplicity: Big blondes take their clothes off--to the accompaniment of a bubble machine, smoke and colored lights; there's even a Las Vegas--style walkway extending from the stage. The night I went, an Amazonian honey-blonde stripped down to a shred of shorty nightie and belted out the latest pop hits; legs all the way lo her ears and the best matched pair of back dimples in Scandinavia.

Other discos: The Domino, for the younger set between l6 and 20. The Cecil, another Stockholm fixture, recently renovated to cope with the pop era, which boasts two discothèques, one with live groups, the other with records. Lots of single girls float around here and there's also a roulette table. Maximum stake is one krona (20 cents) and you are not allowed to exchange your winnings for cash, though you can pay your check with them.

Other night spots worth a visit: Skå-pet, Bacchi Wapen, Hamburger Bors. In summer, there's outdoor dancing at the Tivoli, and at the Opera House a huge veranda is opened.

If you've had a wet evening, you'll find merciful resuscitation the morning after in a sauna. Turkish bath or massage room at the Sturebadet and Centralbadet--but don't expect anything naughty in the massage rooms, because you'll be quickly disappointed. Think clean in both mind and body. The Sturebadet is nearly always crowded and there's often an hour's wait for a Turkish bath. My own choice is the Centralbadet, which is located in a delightful courtyard with ornamental pond and fountain.

The Centralbadet is on Drottninggatan, close to the Stockholm pornography center. There is no censorship of printed matter in Sweden and there are so-called "sex shops" that make Soho's dirty-book stores look like Christian Science reading rooms. One nice touch is a sex LP of two people making love issued by the Porno-phone Company. Browse in them at will--but you'd be well advised not to buy for taking home: it's strictly illegal to import pornography into the U. S., and Customs inspectors are trained to keep an American eagle eye out for such contraband. No such restrictions, fortunately, will inhibit your shopping expeditions along the Hamngatan and the Kungsgatan, Stockholm's main commercial thoroughfares. Go to the NK department store, the best in Sweden; you'll find good buys everywhere. See particularly the Tre Tryckare prints of ships, planes and boats; fine lithographs by modern artists at fairly reasonable prices; and the hand-crafted leatherwear in fine suede and soft calf. If they haven't got what you want, go to one of the specialty leatherware shops; Mailings is one of the best.

But Stockholm, of course, is far more than an agglomeration of shops, night clubs, hotels, restaurants, theaters, museums and sauna baths. To the east of the city stretches the Archipelago, a labyrinth of some 24,000 islands ranging in size from uninhabited clumps of rock to verdant land masses big enough for villages, hums and silent forests of pine. The Archipelago is a relatively new feature of the landscape, geologically speaking, since its highest points started to surface only 5000 or 6000 years ago; it grows at the rate of more than a foot and a half a century. Beyond the comparatively civilized and long-inhabited Inner Archipelago lies the Middle Archipelago, where the sea wind blows and Stockholmers make their summer homes, and the waters are filled with pleasure craft of every description. Beyond is the Outer Archipelago--low, rugged islets, wild and isolated, the seaward barrier that bears the onslaught of the Baltic breakers.

Sandhamn, a pilot station on the eastern edge of the Archipelago, is summer headquarters for the Royal Swedish Yacht Club, scene of annual sailing regattas and races. Saltsjöbaden, in the Inner Archipelago, is another popular yachting center, also good for water-skiing and boat rental and charier: it's less than a half hour's drive from town. In summer, questing bachelors cruise the Archipelagoes in rented boats, making frequent additions to the crew, depending on the availability of land-bound fauna along the waterways. Ask at the downtown tourist center about boat-rental fees.

It's hard to imagine tiring of Stockholm and its Archipelago; but if you do, Swedish State Railways offers seven-day tours of northern Sweden, through the spectacular lake and mountain scenery of Dalarna, Jämtland and Lapland, north lo me Norwegian fjord country and then back to Stockholm. Swift, clean electric trains, equipped with observation car, diner, bar, showers, telephones, library and even a movie theater, transform this formidable-seeming journey into a sumptuous and relaxing overland cruise. Though it's probably impractical for a traveler on a two-week junket, it's the best way to see the remarkable north country.

A less ambitious but equally worthwhile side trip from Stockholm is the eight-hour rail-ferry journey to the walled medieval town of Visby, on the Baltic island of Gotland. You'll find there miles of deserted beaches, coastal waters that stay warmer longer than the mainland shore line, flower-filled meadows, deep, dark woods, castles and slate-roofed farmhouses nestling among thatch-roofed barns.

Once you've returned to Stockholm--it's a 45-minute plane hop from Visby--you're just an hour from Copenhagen by air: but there's an alternative route of such charm and beauty that it should not be missed if you arrive between May and September: a three-day cross-country boat cruise, beginning at Stockholm and meandering through an intricate system of lakes and canals to Sweden's second city, Göteborg, on the opposite coast, some 350 water miles southwest. If you're lucky with the weather, few excursions anywhere can compare with the serenity of the Göta Canal cruise. Besides touring the largest lakes in Sweden, the ship negotiates 65 locks, giving you ample time to jump ashore, stretch your land legs and look around a bit as the ship waits for the water level in the locks to equalize. Cabins for the cruise must be booked 14 days in advance; doubles--including all meals aboard--cost 475 Swedish kronor (about $95). Some of the boats have side-by-side beds: others, one above the other. If you have a preference, make sure you say so when you buy your ticket.

Once in Göteborg, spend some time at the Liseberg amusement park, sparkling with lakes, fountains, girls, outdoor restaurants, dance pavilions and all the usual attractions of a Scandinavian fun fair. If you plan to stay a few days, stop in at the Ferd Lundquist department store in the center of town and chat with one of the delightful tourist hostesses at the information center there. She'll tell you what's happening, when and where, and she can advise you on hotels, restaurants, car rentals and routes. From Göteborg, you can rent a car and head north for the rocky coves and quiet fishing villages of Bohuslän, or you can drive south, following the line of beach resorts that will eventually take you to Malmö (Greta Garbo's home town), the southernmost big town in Sweden and springboard for the ferry trip across to Copenhagen. If time doesn't allow this drive--and it takes a couple of days, if you want to stop and explore--you can get a direct flight from Göteborg to Copenhagen. There are upward of eight flights daily and the trip takes 45 minutes.

Denmark is the only Nordic country with a direct road connection to Europe proper, and the result of this proximity, a decidedly European "feel" to the place, is apparent from the moment you step off the plane or ferry. Compared with Stockholm--which is an open city, full of light--Copenhagen seems rather dark and dour. But I have spent many happy times here, for the Danes are a kind and cheerful people, courteous to visitors and efficient at running things--and nowhere more so than at the Royal Hotel, which, though one of the more expensive in town, is the only one in Copenhagen that I would unreservedly recommend. The rooms are big, bathrooms are full-sized, service is flawless and friendly, the view is terrific (the Royal has 22 stories) and there's a sauna and massage room. It's also built over the downtown air terminal. The Imperial, which is rated as a first-class hotel, has decidedly third-class service and gloomy, midget-sized rooms. If you can't get into the Royal, try the D'Angleterre or the Palace. Be warned, however, that hotel accommodation in Copenhagen is very scarce during the summer months--so scarce, in fact, that the tourist office runs a special emergency service (kiosk P at the central train station) that will put tourists in touch with private homeowners prepared to rent a room. I took advantage of this service a few years ago and stayed in a most pleasant large apartment not far from the center of town.

Once installed, try to get hold of two very handy booklets; one is called "Up and Down Str?get," the other is "Welcome to Wonderful Copenhagen." Both are free, from any Danish tourist office; they're also available at the front desk in most of the better hotels. Str?get is the city's busiest shopping thoroughfare, reserved for pedestrians after 11 A.M. The "Welcome" booklet is a compact and comprehensive guide to hotels. restaurants, museums, shopping, sightseeing and entertainment. Don't expect 10 find in it, however, any useful information on the subject that's foremost in the minds of most visiting males on arrival in Denmark for the first time. Other people worry and argue about sex; the Danes accept it. At least the younger Danes do. Danish girls are not more brazen or less moral than others; they are simply more honest, and it is unfortunate that this honesty has helped create one of the more durable myths of our generation, the myth of the Scandinavian woman. In a short visit to Copenhagen, there is little chance that the globetrotting male will have any more or any less success than he would in any other world capital. This might be a frustrating experience, because in Denmark's population of less than 5,000,000, there are more stunningly beautiful girls than in most countries on earth.

Whether dining alone or with a newfound friend, at a private apartment or a 200-table restaurant, abandon hope, all ye calorie counters who enter Copenhagen's portals. This city will be torture if you can't enjoy the goodies that garnish the tables of even the humblest cafeteria. The Danes love to eat and there's nothing they love to eat more--and more of--than the national specially, sm?rrebr?d, succulent open-face sandwiches of such infinite variety and opulence that their consumption has become almost as competitive a contest as their preparation. The tallest creation gets the prize--provided the diner can get his mouth around it. Oskar Davidsen's is the most famous sm?rrebr?d restaurant in Copenhagen, with 178 varieties available--if that isn't overdoing a good thing. I would unhesitatingly recommend Krogs Fiskerestaurant (near the fish market on Gammel Strand) for great seafood; also the Stephan a Porta, where you can dine in the open, and the Langelinie Pavillonen by the harbor. Or you might like the idea of eating freshly caught fish in a restaurant on a canal and then taking a ferry from Kongens Nytorv to Christianshavn for a walk along streets lined with Renaissance- and rococo-style merchants' houses. When you return, take a stroll through Nyhavn, which has been the sailors' quarter for nearly three centuries. On the second floor of number 67, Hans Christian Andersen sat and dreamed about en-chanted castles and cunning witches while in the taverns around him, many of which still stand, seafaring men from every port in the world boozed and brawled over Copenhagen whores. For a reasonable sum you can have a map of Scandinavia etched into your chest at a Nyhavn tattoo parlor, or you can stop at an old ship's chandler and pick up a couple of decorative handmade brass-pinned tackle blocks. At Gammel Strand, you can join a tour of the canals and harbor; there's no more appropriate way of getting the feel of this tough old seaport than from the water.

With a fair amount of ingenuity and the stamina of six Vikings, it's not too difficult in Copenhagen to stay awake for 24 hours without once leaving that twilight world known by the generic term of night life. The Danish capital doesn't just swing until sunrise, it roars. Clubs, discothèques and many restaurants and bars stay open until five and some reopen an hour later. I have to admit to a certain fondness for bed and to an aversion to being awake when it gets light; but if you like a 24-hour scene, it's waiting for you in Copenhagen.

There are places to avoid, however, on your round-the-clock rounds; and chief among them are the Kakadu and the Wonder Bar, unabashed pickup emporiums for pros that--wonder of wonders--are actually listed by the Danish Tourist Bureau. These and similar establishments should be shunned because they arc both seamy and, I would have thought, unnecessary in a town like Copenhagen. Try the Star Club, where the atmosphere is pleasant, though noisy, and the crowd is young. Live music downstairs, records upstairs.

The Prins Henrik features dancing and striptease, and the Valencia, one of the biggest night clubs in town, offers the same, plus cabaret entertainment; I can't really recommend either. There's also the tiny Club 10 (admission by membership only, or by good will of the doorman if you're a visitor). The only limes I've been there, it was full of Nordic giants and bodybuilders, three of whom, with partners, filled the minuscule dance floor. If you want something bigger (and better), try the Ambassadeur in the Palace Hotel, or the Adlon, which close on Sundays.

Tivoli Gardens is open May 1 to mid-September. As everyone on earth knows, it's an amusement park; but it bears as much resemblance to Coney Island as the Lincoln Memorial does to a jukebox. The lake in Tivoli was once joined to the city moat; almost the entire area, in fact, formed part of Copenhagen's ancient fortifications. Today, the park is an open-air festival of concerts (the concert-hall symphony orchestra gives one or two nightly, starring leading soloists and conductors). Also on the grounds, you'll find pantomime, dancing pavilions, beer gardens, side shows and eating houses, ranging in style from snack bars to first-rank international restaurants. Only in Tivoli would you find, as I did on my first visit there, a string quartet playing its collective heart out for an audience of two; and they were necking. In the large glass-covered hall, you can hear anyone from jazzman Dexter Gordon to Marlene Dietrich and Sammy Davis Jr. To go to Copenhagen and not see Tivoli would be a wasted journey.

Last June, the Danish Parliament ended all censorship of literature written in Danish. They acted upon the recommendations of a committee that said pornography seemed to have no dangerous psychological effects upon readers. Immediately, there was an avalanche of pornography. Books of illustrated erotica are now displayed openly in some of the better Copenhagen bookshops. Leo Madsen, a 35-year-old photographer, has become rich and famous as a result of the law's change. He owns four porno shops, prints and publishes books and magazines and has gone into production of big-budget blue movies. Although the sale of written pornography has slumped, illustrated material is in ever-increasing demand, perhaps due to its more exportable nature, for few foreigners can read Danish, even Danish pornography. (Although I knew a man who learned to read French by reading French pornography. He explained it as having a "built-in incentive factor.")

If your inclination runs toward the better-known products of Danish design, drop in at the Illums Bolighus, a super-modern department store on the Str?get, featuring house and apartment accessories straight off the boards of the best designers in Denmark. You should also visit the exhibition of Danish arts, crafts and contemporary furniture at Den Permanente; everything on display is for sale.

It would be a sorry error to miss a chance to explore the Danish countryside, which is neat and rectangular, like a lot of Mondrian paintings stretched end to end with cows walking across them. Take the 30-mile trip up the coast from Copenhagen to the mighty castle of Kronborg in Elsinore. It's touted as Hamlet's castle, although Shakespeare's Hamlet died many centuries before Kronborg was built in the 16th Century. Authentically Shakespearean or not, it's a majestically melancholy sight and one well worth the pilgrimage. If you can't spare the time for a two- or three-day tour, then at least go by train to the Open Air Museum at Aarhus, where houses and shops from all over Scandinavia--each complete with furniture and even china-ware--have been reassembled in a huge park that captures in microcosm not only the look of this bucolic and industrious land but the warmth and cheerfulness of the singular people who live on it. It will make a fitting final chapter for your visit.

But it isn't over yet. Be sure to leave a little room in your luggage, for Copenhagen's airport (Kastrup) has an enormous duty-free store that sells Cuban cigars (but, since they are illegal in the U. S., smoke them in the airport while waiting for your plane, which is bound to be delayed), liquor, cigarettes, perfume and pipe tobacco. Don't be startled, while you're walking along the corridors leading from the check-in desk, if you see soberly dressed businessmen zipping past on foot-propelled scooters. They are simply taking advantage of the novel form of transportation thoughtfully provided by SAS for that long trek between the terminal and the plane. Grab one and have a go. You'll have to leave it behind when you climb on board for the (light home, of course: the airlines take a dim view of scootering up and down plane aisles.

• • •

If you elect to explore any of my suggested three regions of ambiance--or any other parts of Europe, for that matter--give thought to your own inner ambiance. The mood you're in will play an even more important part in your enjoyment. But even if you read every available guidebook and travel article about the place you intend to visit, none of this information will prepare you for the single element that makes all vacation travel worth while: surprise--by which I mean the astonishment and delight that comes when you discover something that nobody has told you about. It might be an inn tucked away in the Pyrenees or a bookshop full of English-language publications that you stumble across just when the rain is in its second day and getting heavier. It might also be another kind of enlightenment--like the discovery that Leningrad has had TV-phones for years or that both European color television systems have color far superior to the U. S. variety. Or you might be walking through Central Station in Copenhagen and come across a magnificent model-train layout, complete with miniature town, street lights, boat marina and mountain villages. But there--I've told you about it.

My opinion is that travel writing at its best can supply only a foretaste of the wonders--and the disappointments--of traveling. And you may find on returning home that you disagree with the author; a restaurant that sends me into ecstasies of appreciation might, because of poor service or a change in management, throw you into a dyspeptic rage. And you might find that the place you enjoyed most was at the head of my "Don't Go" list. But it doesn't really matter whether we always agree, as long as I've persuaded you to go and find out for yourself--keeping in mind that there's only one immutable rule for travelers: Never order fish in a strange restaurant on a Monday.

Playboy's Capsule Guide to Urban Europe

For further information on any of the countries covered in this article or in the accompanying travel chart, use the REACTS card at page 27.