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Tourists can settle down in a comfortable three-bedroom chalet in a mountain village for about $240 a week, and are encouraged to live like the natives. Venturesome vacationers can rent gypsy wagons in the bucolic canton of Jura, on the French border, and clop-clop from one village pub to another. For the stalwart, there are donkey safaris in the Alps; one partner rides and the other pulls. International cultural attractions include Lucerne's music festival saluting Brahms and Wagner in August and September, the Locarno film festival in August and performances of William Tell in Interlaken through September.
SPAIN, which has been one of the leading vacation bargains of Europe for more than three decades, is still a country where a dollar goes a long way. Though Low prices make it one of Europe's most popular with backpackers, the government has tried hard to attract older, better-heeled visitors from the U.S. One magnet is the national chain of paradores, handsome, comfortable country inns, many of them in old castles or monasteries like the Parador Nacional de San Francisco in Granada, where the atmosphere is Moorish and rooms are priced at less than $50 for two. Granada is also the site of an international music and dance festival during July with world-class chamber music and ballet. Tourists are discovering Galicia, on the northwest coast, a mild, fertile country with magnificent fjordlike inlets or rias. Galicia is also famed for its oysters, which rival French Belons or English Colchesters. The Basque country is attracting tourists who are not deterred by terrorist incidents. The Basques are Spain's unchallenged gourmets, renowned for such dishes as marmitako (fish soup), shangurro (stuffed king crab) and porrusalda (leek and potato soup with cod). At the Arzak restaurant in San Sebastian, a topnotch Basque meal, traditional or nueva cocina vasca (Basque nouvelle cuisine), costs less than $30, including wine. A fairly new attraction is touring the wine country, whose products are increasingly familiar in the U.S.
PORTUGAL, which for cognoscenti has long been a charming backwater, may be Europe's best bargain as a result of a 45% devaluation of the escudo in one year. Though hotels have raised prices 15%, rooms are still cheaper than they were last year: $55 to $70 for a double with breakfast at a five-star hotel; the fanciest suite at Lisbon's luxury Ritz is priced at $115. A Pan Am package includes airfare and seven nights in a first-class hotel for $479. Portugal's celebrated pousadas, a state-run network of 27 four-star inns, many in castles and palaces throughout the country, charge from $24 to $40 a night for a double with bath and breakfast. Restaurants, which still serve mostly superlative native dishes like chanfana de cabrito (kid stewed in red wine) and leitāo assado à Bairrada (roast suckling pig), provide an excellent meal with vinho verde for as little as $13 a person. Portuguese food is changing. With the mass return of citizens from the country's former colonies, the cuisine has become one of Europe's most exotic, with dishes from Angola, Goa, Cape Verde and Timor.