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

by Douglas S. Mack

  Which is absurd. It’s absurd when it means visiting only the most famous cities and landmarks, strictly hewing to the instructions of the latest Frommer’s or Lonely Planet. It’s equally absurd when it means avoiding cities or landmarks for the sole reason that they’re popular. The net effect is the same, an attitude that views travel as a collection of merit badges to be earned, then flaunted: Saw This, Did That, Stayed at the Four Seasons, Slept in a Ditch. In some ways, both viewpoints are the legacy of Frommer and his generation of budget traveler, but each attitude completely misses Frommer’s essential underlying point: what matters is not finding something your friends haven’t found but appreciating and understanding that thing—that culture, that place, that food—on your own terms.

  And though the task of finding the unexpected delights in Europe may have gotten more difficult since Europe on Five Dollars a Day, it’s by no means impossible. You might need to put in some extra effort to find them, but therein lies the pleasure. There’s still plenty of delight and wonder, both of the old-fashioned and the completely modern varieties, to be found.

  Sometimes it is right there in front of you, in those tourist traps, the places that have stood the test of time, equally intriguing in Frommer’s era and today. The Hofbräuhaus in Munich, Casa Botín in Madrid, landmarks like the Eiffel Tower or the Colosseum. These are places with stories and history—there’s a reason they’re iconic, there’s a reason ancient Romans, seventeenth-century Grand Tourists, 1960s backpackers, and modern-day tourists all go there. They’re part of the fabric of culture and spirit of place, and if you’re paying attention, you can hear the echoes of history whispering, telling stories, tales that—as with David or the Anne Frank House for me—just might have their own unique resonance for you.

  You’ll find it, too, in the remixed culture—because, like the rest of the world, the beaten path is constantly evolving in interesting and unexpected ways. Of course it is. And to come here is to hear the discussions of how we live now and to see, firsthand, the modern world in the making, the past and the future manifest in the present.

  One essential truth will never change: the tourist trail is the crossroads of the world, and not just for travelers. You meet people from the Official Local Culture but also immigrants who live there now and visitors from across the globe. You often can’t tell who’s who, at least not at first glance. In Brussels, you can eat frites and doner kebabs with EU officials, Malaysian tourists, and Algerian-immigrant locals (to be sure, this particular scene is possibly an idealistic pipe dream… but then, so are most of the touristic visions of Provence or India). It’s a New Old World even more complex and wonderful than the long-gone version of collective memory… which never really existed at all.

  I retired to the hostel bar for one last sangria while I checked my flight information online. I made the mistake of opening my email, where there was a message from my boss. There had been a semicrisis in the office while I was away. I was supposed to be back at work in two days, on Thursday… but this couldn’t wait. Could I meet with him on Wednesday?

  I looked around the room at the happy travelers chatting and drinking. I glanced outside to the view of Madrid parading by.

  Sure, I wrote. I can meet on Wednesday. Fine, whatever. A throb of corporate angst pulsed through my head; an unsteady weight settled into my gut. I stared at the screen for a long moment and remembered a quote from one of my mother’s letters: “Do you understand that Minnesota… seems very insignificant?”

  But it wasn’t worth worrying about right now, I reminded myself. For the moment, I was still in Madrid, and the hum of friendly travelers beckoned. My gaze came to rest on a group at a nearby table. They smiled at me warmly.

  I closed my laptop and tucked it in my bag, along with my dog-eared copy of Europe on Five Dollars a Day—I no longer needed it as an icebreaker. I ordered another sangria and went over to make some new friends.

  FIVE LISTS FROM MY TRAVEL

  NOTEBOOKS

  Five Things You Can Get for Five

  Dollars in Europe Today

  A lollipop in the shape of the Eiffel Tower

  A pregnancy test from a vending machine at the Oktoberfest grounds in Munich

  A ticket in the nosebleed section at a novillada con picadores bullfight in Madrid

  A medium-sized gelato in Rome

  Two East Berlin stamps in your passport from a vendor at Checkpoint Charlie

  Four Expressions I Really Wish

  Had Been in My Phrasebook

  Nee, dank je, ik ben niet op de markt voor verdovende middelen. (Dutch: “No, thanks, I’m not in the market for any narcotics.”)

  Mi scusi, ma non ricordo in che lingua parli qui a Bruxelles—è questo quello giusto? (Italian: “Excuse me, but I can’t recall what language you speak here in Brussels—is this the right one?”)

  Je meurs d’envie de privation pain au chocolat. S’il vous plaît aider! (French: “I’m dying of chocolate croissant deprivation. Please help!”)

  Was ist das eindringliches Mahnmal Übernahme durch die hässliche Plakatwand? (German: “What is that haunting memorial over by that ugly billboard?”)

  Five Things I Ate in Berlin While

  Attempting to Avoid German Food

  Sushi

  Tacos

  Currywurst

  Large quantities of pastries

  Doner kebabs

  The Five Stages of Learning to

  Cross the Street in Rome

  Virgin: Stare slack-jawed at the automotive mayhem, then decide to take a different route or maybe, you know, just stay on this block.

  Amateur: Wait for a group of Italians—nuns, preferably—to cross, then let them block for you… until one Vespa driver singles you out for Tourist Bowling.

  Intermediate: Wait to cross when there’s a gap and then feel smug about how you crossed alone, confidently, suavely, just like an Italian. Do not mention to your friends that it was 3 a.m. and said gap was roughly the size of the Colosseum.

  Advanced: Have faith. Stride confidently into traffic, trusting that the cars will buzz around you and giving a small prayer to the patron saint of pedestrians. (Is there one? There should be. Let’s call him Mort.)

  Black belt: Same as above, but with you blocking for Italians/nuns. I’m proud to say I reached this level my final morning, on my way to the train station.

  Five Unexpected Gift-Shop Finds

  Condoms at the Eiffel Tower

  Expedition-weight parkas at the Heineken Experience in Amsterdam

  Clog-shaped plush slippers at any given souvenir stand on Damrak in Amsterdam

  Reproduction of a letter from Galileo at the Vatican Secret Archives shop

  Chocolates in the shape of Manneken-Pis throughout Brussels

  FURTHER READING

  In addition to following the path of Arthur Frommer and my mother, I’ve relied on a number of other travelers, writers, and scholars to tell the story of European tourism in the last generation. I’ve mentioned these works—including books, newspaper and magazine articles, and government documents (useful but decidedly less enthralling than the other research materials)—throughout the text, but a few merit special mention.

  For a big-picture view of American tourism in the mid-twentieth century, I highly recommended Christopher Endy’s Cold War Holidays: American Tourism in France, which focuses on de Gaulle–era France but touches on many broader themes relating to the Grand Tour experience in that period. Maxine Feifer’s Tourism in History: From Imperial Rome to the Present was also a key resource, outlining the cultural basis for and implications of mass tourism in different places and eras. And Dean MacCannell’s book The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class is simply the seminal work on the sociology of travel and tourism, thought-provoking but with a light, engaging touch. Pico Iyer is my go-to guide on the topic of travel in our era of hyperconnectivity and globalization—see, in particular, his books The Global Soul and Video Night in Kathmandu.

&nbs
p; Among the many volumes that examine the evolution of European culture in the twentieth century—including the role of tourists in shaping that culture—two particularly lively and insightful books are In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century by Geert Mak and Not Like Us: How Europeans Have Loved, Hated, and Transformed American Culture Since World War II by Richard Pells.

  Looking a bit further back in time, The Grand Tour by Tim Moore and Route 66 A.D. by Tony Perrottet trace the routes of long-forgotten European travelers; in their comparisons between those earlier eras and our own, these books also helped guide my own approach.

  And there were the vintage guidebooks, of course—Europe on Five Dollars a Day plus assorted other guides by Arthur Frommer, Temple Fielding, Eugene Fodor, and their contemporaries. If you want to learn more about tourism and broader culture in an earlier era, start there, with the guidebooks. Find a copy and open it up at random. Enjoy.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Doug Mack has written for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, WorldHum.com, and other publications. He is based in Minneapolis with a digital home at www.douglasmack.net.