Foreword: The Land of the Rising Euro

A funny thing happens when Americans talk about Europe.

text by: Adele Cygelman

August 1, 2006

A funny thing happens when Americans talk about Europe. Their eyes glaze over, their mind instantly leaps to a café in (fill in the blank), where they sat for hours watching the world walk by. Romance and cigarette smoke are always in the air. Europe seems to give people the liberty to try things they would never allow themselves to do at home: linger over lunch, take siestas, eat dinner after 9:00.

Even I, a native Londoner, tend to gloss over the bad parts—the interminable rain, kippers for breakfast, rail strikes—and grow misty about the parks, the architecture, the department stores. The entire continent becomes a cozy blur of castles, cobblestone streets and country fairs straight out of the pages of an Agatha Christie/Peter Mayle/Frances Mayes novel. I think much of the romantic idealization of Europe, especially England, comes from watching too much TV. You know—dotty old ladies barreling around the countryside on bicycles, locals bursting into song over pints in the pub. The fiction always threatens to overtake the reality. (Click image to enlarge)

The reality is that, regardless of how entrenched Europe is in the past, it is very efficient at looking and moving forward. One foot may be firmly stuck in the Crusades, but people drive smart cars, have access to communication technologies that outpace those in the U.S., and somehow manage to build new houses without demolishing entire villages. You can have it both ways there.

Of course, all the romantic rhapsodizing cannot ignore the friction. Countries exist cheek-by-jowl amid a babble of languages and customs. There have been countless conflicts over borders, religion and politics in the past, and there will be countless others. While the success of the European Union and the strength of the euro has brought stability to the region’s core, many satellite countries are still struggling.

In this issue we look at both sides: the Europe that exerts a powerful pull for Americans, which for the most part means Britain, France, Spain and Italy; and the less-familiar areas of Croatia, Slovenia, Turkey and Montenegro that offer an enticing value (i.e., land and construction are cheap) for investors. In both, you can find the simple fishing villages, country towns and mountain resorts where people look to build their second homes.

That is ultimately the purpose of Vacation Homes: to straddle both worlds and allow everyone to dream.