The true European off-season begins Nov. 1, extends to mid-December and then resumes from early January to the end of February. It's at those times that the cost of air-and-land packages to all the great European capitals become highly reasonable in price.
The baseline for those off-season products is set by a popular Internet tour operator called Go-Today (www. go-today.com). That price currently is $579 for round-trip air from the East Coast and six nights' accommodations with breakfast daily in London — a price that's only $80 more than was charged in November 2006 (add-ons from other U.S. cities are only slightly more).
Take a look at go-today.com, and all sorts of interesting travel possibilities will occur to you.
Go-today's values are matched by Paul Laifer, who for years has been offering a fall/winter air-and-land package to Prague for only $699: round-trip air on Czech Airlines (from JFK New York only), six nights' hotel with full buffet breakfast daily, round-trip airport-to-hotel transfers and half-day sightseeing, from Nov. 1 to Dec. 10 and from Jan. 2 to March 19 and March 24-31. Considering the distance flown, that's an even better bargain than Go-Today offers, especially because the hotel used is a charming property in the heart of the city, a five-minute walk from Wenceslaus Square. You can reach Paul Laifer Tours at www.laifertours.com or 1-800-346-6314.
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To Rome in the off-season, the package leader is Eurofly (www.euroflyusa.com), the new trans-Atlantic carrier that apparently has commissioned Club ABC (www.clubabc.com; 1-888-868-7722) to operate its promotional program to the Italian capital. Eurofly will charge an unprecedented (in recent years) $599 in January and the first half of February, $659 in November and early December and $699 in late February, for a nonstop round-trip flight between New York and Rome and four nights with breakfast daily at the Hotel Glori in Rome. Though the four-night allocation is disappointing, extra nights can be purchased, which still results in a lower price than is offered by other packagers. Call Club ABC at the phone number listed above.
How about a short Thanksgiving stay in various European capitals? From the amount of attention by trans-Atlantic tour packagers to that holiday, it appears that the eat-turkey-with-the-family tradition is fast dissolving. That's the only explanation for Gate 1's surprisingly broad array of offerings: air-and-land to six European cities, leaving the United States on either Nov. 19, 20 or 21 (Thanksgiving Day is Nov. 22) and spending four hotel nights there (with breakfast included) in London for $499, Paris $569, Rome or Florence $599, Madrid $599 and Budapest $629. Prices are from New York, but Gate 1 will quote only slightly higher rates from dozens of other U.S. cities. Access them at www.gate1travel.com or by calling 1-800-682-3333.
