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WEST GERMANY. Some prices have gone up this year, especially on restaurant meals and hotel rooms in the luxury class. However, the 30% rise in the value of the dollar since 1980 more than offsets such increases. A pleasant middle-class hotel like Munich's Bundesbahn Hotel charges about $55 for a double. Says Josef Dureck of the German Tourist Board: "Far from being hard to afford as it was three years ago, for the American tourist Germany now appears to have turned into the bargain it was a decade ago." Indeed, Americans (the second biggest national contingent after the Dutch) are Germany's biggest-spending visitors, laying out some $930 million a year.
Germany's music attractions are among the most prestigious in Europe. Apart from the Munich and the Bayreuth Wagner festivals, which have long since been sold put, there are Jugendfestspiele at Bayreuth in August, Ansbach's legendary Bach week also early in August, and open-air opera at Augsburg and Heidelberg, followed in September by the Berlin Festival centering on Herbert von Karajan. West Berlin has become as racy as it was in the '30s, drawing Americans by the hundreds with dozens of cafés offering every variety of decadence.
A big event for many Americans visiting Germany is the tricentennial of the first German immigration to the colonies; there are more than 52 million U.S. citizens of German descent. Lufthansa has arranged a series of German Heritage Tours to various areas.
AUSTRIA. A low inflation rate (about 4%) and ambitious plans to earn tourist income seem to be paying off. In May, 17% more Americans visited Austria than in the same month last year, while 30% more registered in Vienna alone. Hotel and restaurant prices have been firmly kept down. A good dinner with wine or beer in a pleasant restaurant can cost around $10; a first-class double room in Vienna with bath and breakfast costs about $100, but is not even half as much in the provinces. The Austrians have developed a variety of "hobby vacations," ranging from a course in engine driving on a narrow-gauge railroad to auto racing with formula Fords. Village festivals include Tyrolean wrestling matches, boatmen's jousting on the Salzach River, and the special day when the cattle are driven down for the winter from the high Alpine pastures. The festivities are invariably accompanied by the oompah of local brass bands in native costume; the Austrian Tourist Board claims that there are more such bands than there are villages in their country.
SWITZERLAND. Despite the country's expensive image, more and more Americans are heading for the Matterhorn. In 1982 there was a more than 15% leap in the number of nights spent by U.S. guests in Swiss hotels; a 10% jump is expected this year. Thanks to an inflation rate that has averaged 4.5% over the past five years, some hotels have not raised prices since 1980. In addition, notes John Geissler of the Swiss National Tourist Office, "you can eat in ordinary restaurants with reasonable prices and have a very good meal. You do not have to go to the luxury restaurants." Nonetheless, grande cuisine can be savored in Switzerland, notably at Girardet, near Lausanne, which ranks as one of the finest "French" restaurants in Europe.