The other day, a copy of “Fodor’s Budget France ‘82″ landed in our office. The cute little book, measuring no larger than a pocket-sized Agatha Christie novel, has captivated and charmed us ever since.

For one thing, it’s so simple. The 178-page book is all text, providing three maps (France, Paris, and the Metro), ten chapters, and a phrase index in the back. The only photo to be had was an advertisement on page 174 for a Fodor’s language course, audio cassette-edition. The book retailed for $5.95 (about $13.00, adjusted for 2008).

Money and prices abroad in 1982

Obviously in 1982, France used the franc, which had an exchange rate of about $.17, or 5.89 francs to the US dollar. That is, if you exchanged your travelers checks at a bank. The book explains that travelers’ checks “are still the safest and simplest way to carry money.” Today, of course, travelers’ checks have mostly been replaced by credit cards and ATM machines, which can be found in airports and on every other street corner in Paris.

MasterCard? Visa? ”Credit cards are not widely accepted in France, and you’re very unlikely to find restaurants … that accept them.” We were in mid-snicker before we realized that there are still many small hotels and restaurants in Paris that don’t accept credit cards. Some things don’t change.

Sample costs in 1982

According to the book, you could expect to pay the following prices in Paris in 1982 for these “everyday expenses”:

• A ticket to the opera - 80-200 ff ($13-34 in 1982; $29-75 adjusted for 2008)
• A “tot of whisky or gin” - 15-25 ff ($2.50-$4.25 in 1982; $5.25-9.15 in 2008)
• A woman’s shampoo and set - 60-100 ff ($10-17 in 1982; $21.50-$36.50 in 2008)

In other words, prices haven’t really changed that much, even with the dollar tanking against the euro. Perhaps that shampoo and set would cost you more today, but you could still find plenty of “tots of gin” for less than €6.30 ($9.15).

Hotels in 1982

The Fodor’s guide recommends over 40 budget hotels in Paris, categorized as either “Inexpensive” or “Moderate,” and lists them all, with impressive brevity, on just two pages! Several of the hotels mentioned can still be found 26 years later in our Paris guide. (Don’t worry–we’re reasonably certain that they’ve purchased new sheets!)

For example, here’s what they have to say about de la Sorbonne, a charming little thing in the Latin Quarter: “6 rue Victor Cousin, a Latin Quarter special, atmospheric and genuine.” Did you notice what was missing, besides room descriptions? Prices! And phone numbers!

The book explains broadly: “Inexpensive hotels will charge about 80-140 francs ($13-24, 1982) for a double room, moderate ones will charge 150-220 ($25-37, 1982).” Those really were the days. Today, as we note in our “Expect to Spend in Paris” guide, you can easily find an acceptable budget hotel for €80-130, or $116-188 ($53-87 in 1982). So yes, hotel prices seem to have outpaced inflation. Hotels, however, have probably upgraded their standards.

As for reserving that special place, well…

“Remember too that many inexpensive hotels have guests on an almost permanent basis and aren’t interested in tourists wanting accommodations for a few nights; as many of them won’t take advance reservations and don’t answer letters, your best bet is to go from hotel to hotel until you get lucky.”

So much for the good old days!

We just got a look at Rough Guides’ tome of a coffee table book Make the Most of Your Time on Earth. In addition to sporting a bit of a foreboding title, Make the Most is bursting at the seams with event and activity suggestions around the world. Looking at the compendium’s European offerings, we were pleased to see, in no particular order, the following trip suggestions: Pembrokeshire hikes; Scottish Highland Games; surfing in Tarifa; mountain walks in Madeira; taking the Lake Mývatn waters; overeating in Bologna; and bunker spotting in Durrës.

You get the picture. Make the Most is glossy and packed with trip suggestions as well as listings-driven “Miscellany” section at the close of each chapter. Just don’t plan to take it with you when you travel. It weighs approximately three tons.

Tuesday. Rainy. Feels like fall. To brighten the mood:

1. EasyJet continues this season’s route expansion extravaganza with today’s announcement of two new routes. From November, the Orange and White will fly between London Luton and Hamburg; beginning in February, they’ll kick off an East Midlands-Palma route. Luton-Hamburg roundtrip fares will start at £33.98. The East Midlands-Palma route will begin at £35.98.

2. DK’s Where to Go When, out shortly, is a bulky tome stuffed with pretty pictures, useful itinerary suggestions, seasonal travel recommendations, and even pithy little destination-calibrated dos and don’ts. Much too big to take along on a trip, Where to Go When is nonetheless awfully useful for a book of the coffee table ilk.

Photo by antausento (Villő)

Visitors to Hungary should consider buying a copy of the novel The Hungarian Girl Trap, written by English ex-pat Ray Dexter, who lives in Miskolc (a still life of which can seen above) in the east of the country.

The title is a reference to the scores of foreign men who are drawn to settle in Hungary by a beautiful Hungarian girlfriend. Dexter’s observations on living and working in his adopted country are always witty and sometimes laugh-aloud funny. Alongside the humor, he makes intelligent reflections on the socio-political quirks of a country that since 1989 has been continually in transition.

The novel also functions as an effective travelogue for those planning to travel beyond Budapest.

Photo by infraredhorsebite

A sibling love affair, a taxidermic incident with the family dog (whose name, of all things, is Sorrow), and a dancing bear. Need we say more? These plot details are just the tip of the iceberg in John Irving’s novel, The Hotel New Hampshire.

The story follows a family from New England as they open their Hotel New Hampshire and endure various travesties. They take the show on the road, moving to Vienna to run a Gasthaus for an old family friend, Freud, a former European refugee who, along with his traveling companion—the dancing bear—originally brought the parents together. Intrigued yet? You haven’t even reached Vienna.

We don’t want to spoil the plot, so we’ll just say that once you arrive in Vienna you can look forward to a hotel floor of prostitutes and a plot by radicals to blow up the Vienna State Opera. It’s a wild ride, and we are willing to bet you won’t want to put it down.

Because Vienna is a fairly placid place, a novel like this one provides an enjoyable and counterintuitive take on the Austrian capital.

Photo by Briggate.com

Geoff Dyer seems to write his way out of his obsessions. Whether it’s jazz, the Battle of the Somme, or John Berger, Dyer is unconcerned with standard exposition. He appears to type until he’s figured out why he can’t help writing on his chosen subject matter. For the reader, the journey is sometimes manic, but always coherent and engaging.

Here are three by Dyer worth stashing in your rucksack.

Paris Trance: A Romance. Luke and Nicole. Alex and Sahra. Paris movie houses, football, Ecstasy-saturated discotheques, and sex. In the only novel on our short list, Dyer manages to craft a languid, Lost Generation-style narrative.

Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D.H. Lawrence. Geoff Dyer is writing a sober, academic paper on D.H. Lawrence. Or is he? In this globetrotting narrative, Dyer captures the prosaic spirit of Lawrence through languorously avoiding him.

Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It. Geoff Dyer invites the reader into his “homes”—all of them. From Asia to Europe, Europe to America, and back and forth a few times, Dyer heads inexorably towards a breakdown at an international techno festival.

Photo by nemo585

Last week we all lost a literary great, Kurt Vonnegut: war hero, anthropologist, and writer of such greats as Breakfast of Champions and Cat’s Cradle. He’s left us a legacy of quotable writing, humor, and thought provoking literary scenes. And so this week we are rereading Slaughterhouse-Five in tribute to Vonnegut.

The semi-autobiographical novel recounts Vonnegut’s own days as a prisoner of war in World War II, when he witnessed the massive bombing of Dresden that burned and debilitated the entire city. The bombing killed—according to some estimates—up to 135,000 people in a matter of hours. In true Vonnegut fashion, the novel is a work of stylistic genius, brilliant comedic relief, and thought-provoking richness.

We’ll say no more. We will, however, note that several years ago, on a trip to the (now beautifully restored) Dresden, we took a bus out to Schlachthofring, the circle of slaughterhouses in which Vonnegut was imprisoned during his time in Dresden. Though our guidebook listed this desolate place as an attraction, we found nothing but abandoned buildings, with not even so much as a plaque. Moral of the story: go to Dresden for the beauty of the city, and then read the book for all the rest.

Thank you, Mr. Vonnegut, for making everything a little more beautiful.

We know, the name is not thrilling. We groaned inwardly at the prospect of another war book with gruesome battle scenes and unrequited love for the poor wounded soldier, a la Hemingway. But who knew we’d be taken to a German spa town?

It turns out, The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford, is war “John Irving style” (read: love wars, war of the mind, and just plain screwed up people). To sum it up, it’s a tale of love, friendship, adultery, and people losing their minds. Just what we look for in a novel!

John Dowell, a cuckolded husband, looks back after his wife’s death and tries to piece together the love quadrangle he unwittingly lived for nine years. Add a myriad of plot twists, Dowell’s unreliable memory, and comical perspective, and you have yourself a page-turner.

First published in 1915 and set in the angst-ridden pre-World War I years, the novel is a fascinating glimpse into the history and culture of a Europe not so long ago. The plot, mostly set in the German spa town of Nauheim, is ripe with the British struggles of proper Victorian manners, day trips to historic Prussian castles, and the anxieties of a Europe on the brink of disaster. Author Ford Madox Ford doesn’t leave us wanting for anything, except maybe more novels.

Photograph by i.langsdson1

April is just around the corner. We’re thinking of the world’s best April Fool’s joke, warmer weather, and student riots. Ok, we know that riots don’t quite fit with Easter egg pastels, matzo ball soup, and cherry blossoms, but we just read Love in the Days of Rage by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a chronicle of the student riots that took place in Paris in the spring of 1968.

Always the poet, Ferlinghetti presents the riots, and the political ideas they incite, through the romance of poetry and lovers. The book focuses on Annie (an American painter) and her lover Julian (a Portuguese banker and anarchist) as they experience their love affair in the midst of political chaos. The affair takes the foreground, but it inevitably encompasses their political present, making the novel at once tender and thought-provoking, two things we love and don’t often find together.

Still not sold? Even if you don’t love a political uprisings or a love stories, you will love the writing itself. Ferlinghetti’s poetic style translates to a lyric prose that begs to be read aloud. It’s as though he created a watercolor painting in words, and it embodies all that we think of spring, and of Paris itself.

Besides, who doesn’t love a good student riot?

photograph courtesy of minicloud

When it’s gross and rainy we dream of the sun. More precisely, we dream of stifling, heat-heavy days in Pamplona during the fiesta of San Fermin. Yes, that’s right. On cold, rainy days we fantasize about long lazy summer afternoons spent camped at a café sipping coffee or cognac, awaiting the wild magic of the nights to come.

We’re determined to have our fantasy, too. We’re going to Spain, and we’re taking our boy Ernest with us. Or, rather, he’s taking us. If snow or rain is keeping you indoors too—for that matter, even if it isn’t—grab a copy of The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway and join us in another time and place.

We love this book for its vivid portrait of Pamplona and its famous festival, but more so for its carousing, its culture, and, of course, its good old-fashioned bar fights. While not the most lighthearted book you’ll ever read, it has a little something for everyone: romance, history, parties. It’s all there, and it’s set in the summer. In Spain. What more could you ask, really?

So on dreary late winter days, grab your coffee—or cognac, we won’t judge—and your book, and migrate to a café in sunny Spain for a fiesta.