Europe on 5 Wrong Turns a Day: One Man, Eight Countries, One Vintage Travel Guide

by Douglas S. Mack

  Even when Oktoberfest isn’t going on—when Lee and I were there, for example—it imbues much of the central part (the tourist part) of the city with its spirit, exuding a certain magnetism, keeping visitors’ attention focused squarely on the center of town, where the action, the stereotypes, and the beer abound.

  That evening, Lee (who had eventually roused himself from bed) and I went to Frommer’s top pick in Munich, a place called the Ratskeller. The menu was printed in English, French, Italian, and Spanish, although these translations weren’t really necessary, because there was a photo of each dish, and if there was meat involved—and in Germany, there’s always meat involved—the photo was accompanied by a little illustration of the animal in question. I had one of the lighter-sounding things on the menu: pork chop topped with bacon and fried pork rind.

  It was a charming space, kinda sorta: arched ceilings, wood paneling, murals on the walls, a rambling layout filled with booths in nooks. But it also felt contrived for our benefit—authentic plus one, as I’d felt that first day in Florence—because of the tourist clientele, the photo-filled menu, and the over-the-top “Ja, we are so German” vibe.

  I recalled Le Grand Colbert in Paris, the restaurant row section of Brussels, and the “Miller Lite Restaurant” in Berlin. Different cities, same phenomenon. The vast majority of Frommer’s 1963 recommendations that have survived offer an exaggerated version of the culture. Stereotypes sell: an eternal truth.

  The Ratskeller made for an odd comparison to Schwabing. Here, amid jovial tourist crowds and pork-festooned pork, you have the more superficially authentic scene and historic aesthetic character. And out there, up Leopoldstrasse, you have the actual Germans. The businesses may have changed, but the spirit of the place—the people, the general atmosphere—endures, at least more so than in the center of town, where the authentic, historic character is rather overwhelmed by all the people who have come to marvel at the authentic, historic character.

  Nearly 60 percent of Munich’s historic city center was reduced to rubble during World War II, but the Altstadt, as the area is known, still looks old, full of imposing Gothic buildings. How is that possible? Because they rebuilt it to appear pretty much as it had before the war. It’s fake historic architecture. Nigel pointed out examples like the Old City Hall, which ostensibly dates to the fifteenth century, although—shh—the tower was destroyed during the war and rebuilt in the 1970s. (And is newer than the so-called New City Hall.) Why would you do that? Tourists. The architects—both literal and figurative—of Munich’s postwar reconstruction were well aware of the city’s status as a hot spot of arts and tourism, and the role of the built environment in fostering that atmosphere. In 1930, according to Gavriel D. Rosenfeld’s book Munich and Memory, a full 10 percent of the city’s total revenue came from tourism. Munich’s modern reputation for historic architecture, Rosenfeld says, “was largely the product of postwar reconstruction, which paradoxically made it more ‘historic’ than other German cities that were more heavily damaged [during World War II] and less thoroughly rebuilt.”

  When you compare Schwabing and the big beer halls, it’s clear that at least here in Munich, tourism promotes a particular variety of preservation, an exaggerated, theme-park-ish, spectacle-heavy one, where amusement reigns supreme and where that destruction, that war, maybe didn’t happen. It’s a jarring contrast to Berlin: fewer souvenir stands but also fewer major monuments.

  So here’s the question: without tourists, would Munich’s beer halls be replaced with modern buildings and eyesore malls or would they remain packed, per tradition, with old men wearing lederhosen and singing drinking songs without the slightest trace of irony or snickering in their voices?

  I tried to answer that question—which, really, is one of the central ones of modern tourism in general, the tension between preservation and distortion—but couldn’t. It all seemed a confusing haze; the whirlwind of my Not-So-Grand Tour catching up to me, fixing me in a state of travel vertigo and unease. I reminded myself of my goal to stop worrying and embrace the cliché. There was one big heaping serving of Bavarian stereotypes left to consume.

  Come on, Cameron, finish it.

  “Bavarian cocaine!” yelled the guy in the green felt hat with a little red feather as Lee and I found an open table.

  “Wunderbar!” roared his friend.

  This, finally, was the ultimate tourist cliché in this ultimate tourist cliché city: the Hofbräuhaus. It’s the most famous of the Munich beer halls and one of Frommer’s top picks. It also now has outlets in Las Vegas, Dubai, and elsewhere. Across the street, another of his recommendations has been usurped by a Hard Rock Cafe. The two make an interesting pair, two symbols of globalization and two reminders of the worldwide appeal of a theme party. My mother came here, on her one day in Munich. She was miserable: she doesn’t like beer, and this isn’t really the sort of place where you order wine. Still, then as now, if you were a tourist in Munich, you had to go to the Hofbräuhaus.

  “Wunderbar!” yelled one of the Germans again. I had my back to them, so I was only able to see the goings-on with occasional glances over my shoulder.

  “You should come sit on this side of the table,” Lee said. “It’s quite a show you’re missing. Have you ever been to, like, a Lions Club or something similar? It’s totally like that, but they’re wearing lederhosen.”

  Sure enough. From my new seat, I could see that the “Bavarian coke” was actually snuff. The guy consuming it was a fiftyish, ruddy-cheeked fellow in suspenders, lederhosen, and that green felt alpine hat. And a mustache? Yes, of course: wide and well kept. Six of his tablemates were similarly attired.

  “I wonder if they pay those guys to be here,” Lee said, shaking his head in wonder. “They almost seem too perfect.”

  A waiter came to take our order. He had the classic Bavarian name of Nguyen. At the table on the other side of us, a family of Japanese tourists shared an apple strudel. A few feet away, another pair of tourists, clearly American—I could hear snatches of their conversation—but of Latino ancestry, examined a menu. It was, all told, a classic scene of the modern tourist trail, traditions and stereotypes both celebrated and subverted.

  The eighth guy at the table of old German men looked just like Jimmy Buffett—he might have been Jimmy Buffett, actually. He had long gray hair and wore a bright, patterned shirt under a leather vest, a toucan amid more formal penguins. They were all exceptionally drunk and sang along boisterously whenever the oompah band struck up “Ein Prosit,” which seemed to happen every thirty seconds or so (presumably because this is the only drinking song that most non-Germans know). Each man clutched an ornate beer stein, and we noticed that next to us was a massive wrought-iron rack with slots holding similar mugs, an ingenious convenience for the truly dedicated drinkers.

  One of the lederhosen-attired men was exceptionally old, the Methuselah of Munich—or perhaps the Ponce de León, because his wrinkles and hunched posture belied his energy: he was as boisterous, as beaming, as drunk as anyone. There was nothing self-conscious about their fervor, nor was it tempered with any concern for the voyeuristic tourists. It was an unalloyed enjoyment of life and friends… and beer.

  Nguyen placed two steins on the table, our first drinks since the tour.

  I raised my glass. “Thank you for joining me here,” I said to Lee. “I was sort of expecting that you’d ditch me for a date with the Contessa.”

  His response came out as one word: “Yeahshenevershowedupagain.” He was resigned to his fate as a lowly commoner. We drank in silence for a few moments, and Lee’s dispirited expression faded as we watched the German revelers.

  “Wunderbar!” The cry went up and the band started playing “Ein Prosit” yet again.

  We eyed the group from our front-row seats. They seemed friendly. They probably didn’t speak any English, but they were certainly gregarious. Maybe this was our best chance to meet the locals and—

  “Hey, guys!” Two backpackers—basically our
Canadian clones—slid onto the bench across the table from us, blocking our view of the Bavarians. “Cool if we join you?”

  We sighed and reminded ourselves that this, too, was part of embracing the cliché.

  “Sure,” I said. “Cheers.”

  Unfortunately, we had just met the only two genuinely boring tourists in all of Europe, all rosy cheeks and center-parted hair and zero stories to add to the communal stockpile. Their most grating characteristic, of course, was they were not lederhosen-wearing German men. This cliché sucked; that cliché, the one on glorious display at the other table, was interesting. Artificial, at least kind of? Sure. Kept intact partly through the artificial preservative of tourism? Yep. And sweetened with the synthetic sucrose of spectacle. But at least these were home-cooked stereotypes; Munich had evolved on its own terms.

  We stopped talking with the Canadians and stared over their shoulders instead.

  “Wunderbar!”

  *After I returned home, I got in touch via email with an American expat in Munich. Another key factor, he said, was rental prices: “In Munich, Schwabing is the most expensive [area]… so most of the touristy or hip cafés and restaurants just couldn’t pay the rent and moved to less expensive parts of town.”

  Zurich

  Money Matters

  [The city] enjoys all the better attributes of a Swiss

  tourist attraction: heartstopping scenery; the restful

  calm that comes from an atmosphere of cleanliness

  and honest dealing; [and] the variety and interest

  to be found in the multi-lingual, multi-national

  character of the country.

  —Europe on Five Dollars a Day

  The Russian couple stood ten or fifteen feet away from us trying to look nonchalant, but their cameras betrayed their attention: Lee and I were the local color in their snapshots. I like to imagine them pointing out the details to friends later: a background of a historic apartment building with eye-catching turquoise shutters and flower boxes overflowing with red petunias; a cobblestoned public square below; and in the center of the frame, two Swiss locals—bookishly handsome Swiss locals—lounging at an outdoor café, dipping baguette slices into a pot of fondue, their wrists moving with a fluid grace, like a Roger Federer forehand in slow motion. Just a typical Zurich street scene.

  I gave the Russians a nod of acknowledgment and then turned my attention back to the task at hand: stuffing myself with bread and cheese. Elegantly.

  My mother and Ann had finished their trip with a gourmet meal in Paris, courtesy of Dad’s parents, so now, as I prepared to bid Lee farewell—he had to get back to his job—my own parents had offered us the same present.

  The point of the gift, in both cases, was to live it up, to eschew frugality for once. I was particularly keen to have some fondue, because (a) it would be a nice change from the meat overdose of Germany; (b) it’s considered somewhat highfalutin back home, so, I figured, it must be superexpensive over here, where it originated; and (c) Frommer touts it as a real whiz-bang novelty, right at the top of the chapter’s meals section: “‘Fondu’—melted cheese with wine and Kirsch, lapped up with chunks of bread—is the food specialty of Switzerland, and you ought to head immediately for a place that serves it.”

  Lee and I had walked around the city for a while before settling here, taking in the bourgeois bustle, marveling at the lake and the fog-cloaked mountains beyond, and having a drink at what may have been a transvestite bar (though, this being Zurich, everyone was dressed conservatively). The neighborhood, filled with students and hip boutiques and cafés, was on the east bank of the Limmat River, just across from the historic city center. It was a warren of hilly, cobblestoned streets and tall, narrow buildings at once overbearing and twee with their gabled roofs and brightly colored shutters—storybook gone big city. We had selected our fondue spot in part because it had a detail that seemed befitting of the quirky but well-kept spirit of the neighborhood (and which was perhaps the real reason for the Russian tourists’ photos): on the balcony above the café’s front door, a blue fiberglass cow appeared to be walking through the railing. It wasn’t charging, mind you; there was no intensity to its gaze, and it had been positioned so as not to disrupt a flower box filled with petunias. It seemed very Swiss, cordial in its contrariness.

  “I need to get a fondue set and have parties,” I said. “Or maybe I can just take my parents’ pot.” Mom and Ann had both had their first taste of fondue in Switzerland, and when my parents got married the following March, Ann gave them a set.

  “Would you actually use it?” Lee asked.

  I stopped to think about how often my parents use theirs.

  “Once,” I said. “Every few years, maybe.”

  “Yeah, exactly,” Lee replied. “It’s like a sushi kit—everyone has one in an unopened box. Get a grill instead. You’ll use a grill.”

  “Okay, but in concept, you must admit, fondue is cool. Even those Russians thought so.”

  “Please. Just get a grill.”

  Our bowl of bread had a single token piece of wheat baguette—health food. I speared it with my fork, dredged it through the fondue, and popped it in my mouth, then quickly wiped the cheese goatee from my chin. And then I said the words I never thought I’d hear come out of my own mouth.

  “So we’re going to go out barhopping tonight, right?” I asked. “It’s your last real night in Europe.” Lee would be leaving two days later, but early in the morning. “Last call to live it up and stay out late.”

  “I think I’m up to the challenge,” Lee replied. He paused and his smirk slumped into a grimace. “Though I have to say, I’m feeling kind of tired. I didn’t sleep well last night. It’s those damn European sheets—I was dying under them and freezing without them. Not sure how long I’ll last.”

  “No!” I couldn’t believe it. “You’re the rascally sidekick! That’s why you’re here! To lead me to the parties, to get me into trouble, to help me find my own Contessa!”

  “Ah, the Contessa…”

  “Maybe she’s out there, at the bars,” I said. “Waiting for you. For us. C’mon. The drinks are on me. Let’s go.”

  We were tired of hostels. Tired of the noise, the grime, the lumpy mattresses, the lack of top sheets and presence, instead, of duvets—“those damn sheets” that Lee despised—of such bulk that they surely would have suffocated us had we used them. Some of the duvets we’d encountered had suffered such wear and tear and aggressive staining that we could only assume that at some point they had, indeed, been used to transport a corpse or two. And the hostels and cut-rate hotels had been loud, packed with all manner of yellers and stereo-blasters and hyena-laughers. We kept track of our earplugs like they were family heirlooms.

  So when we saw that the Zurich hotel that Frommer described as “restful and quiet, old-fashioned” was still around, we decided to go for it, even though it was in an outlying neighborhood and the rate was twice what we had been paying elsewhere. (In 1963, it cost $3, including breakfast. Adjusted for inflation, that’s $19.61. Actual price for us: about $140. Breakfast not included, we learned the hard way when we were presented with a bill for $16 each.) No matter. The hotel was near the convention center, so presumably that meant it catered to businesspersons from around the world. Which meant top sheets and other elusive luxuries: Washcloths! Reliable hot water! Sleep!

  Well… yes, it had those. Other than that, though, the best I can say is that the next time someone wants to make a movie about the existential angst of a globe-trotting executive, circa 1985, I have the perfect setting. All of the old-fashioned charm had been Sheetrocked over—no molding, no trim, just flat white surfaces everywhere. It almost made the teal carpeting and discount-bin acrylic landscapes on the wall look appealing. It boggled my mind that at some point, this was considered good interior design; truly, the 1980s have a lot to answer for.

  “There is no such thing as a bad Swiss hotel,” Frommer says. “This is the ‘nation of hotelk
eepers,’ the training ground for aspiring hotel managers of every land.… The difference, therefore, between a low-cost and a deluxe Swiss hotel is in decoration, not in comfort, and not in service.”

  Okay. Yeah. Fine. But it turns out decor matters. No highly trained concierge could compensate for this soul-sucking bleakness.

  It all made us feel very sorry for the businesspeople for whom this is the norm. It used to be that those who traveled the most were the explorers and conquerors. Today they’re the globe-trotters like Ryan Bingham, protagonist of Walter Kirn’s 2001 novel Up in the Air—better known as the George Clooney character in the 2009 film adaptation of the same title. People who travel the world without seeing much of it beyond settings like this hotel. People for whom, in fact, such settings are so familiar as to be comforting; people who find their identity in the most anonymous of places and feel grounded only when in transit. “Planes and airports are where I feel at home,” says Bingham, an archetype of our age, in the opening chapter of Up in the Air.

  Everything fellows like you dislike about them—the dry, recycled air alive with viruses; the salty food that seems drizzled with warm mineral oil; the aura-sapping artificial lighting—has grown dear to me over the years, familiar, sweet.

  … I suppose I’m a sort of mutation, a new species, and though I keep an apartment for storage purposes… I live somewhere else, in the margins of my itineraries.

  The Ryan Binghams of the world are decidedly at ease on the road; they fit in everywhere and nowhere. But theirs is a Bland Tour, a journey to the most placeless parts of the world’s great places, a sojourn without struggle, devoid of the necessity of figuring things out. It’s travel, too, with obligations; it is not the road as “third place” but, instead, as both home and office. I thought of Jay back at Montmartre, Tara and Amy and Jian in Berlin, Terrance in Amsterdam, travelers all—initially on the road for purposes of study or work—but at their happiest, it seemed, when escaping the rigors of the everyday to revel in the sights of the beaten path.