ALL THE BEST IN BELGIUM AND LUXEMBOURG.
Sydney Clark '12. NewYork: Dodd, Mead if Co., 1956. 268 pp. $4.00.
Sydney Clark is called with simple justice the "dean" of modern travel writers. For almost thirty years he has been offering to the prospective traveler a long series of books that tell him in most readable fashion where to go, what to do, what is most worth seeing on his intended journey. Sometimes they are books of broad coverage like All the Best inEurope and All the Best in the Mediterranean. Sometimes they give intensive consideration to a single country or region, as in All the Bestin Cuba or in All the Best in Mexico (or Hawaii). In one book or another he has planned in detail the tourists' journey to every part of the free world, except Australia and the Orient.
His latest book, All the Best in Belgium andLuxembourg, is one of the intensive sort: a big travel book covering only a small area. It was well worth the doing, for nowhere in the world is there more to offer the traveler in limited space than in Belgium and in Luxembourg History, art, architecture, scenery of the most varied sort, all are concentrated there in an amazing way.
Are you interested mostly in people? What could be more interesting than the way the very different Flemings and Walloons have learned to live and work together, and to be a united nation, despite their differences in language and cultural traditions? French-speaking Brussels and Flemish-speaking Antwerp are only half an hour apart.
Are you an enthusiast about good food and drink? The best Burgundy wine is exported to Belgium, not America. The best restaurants of Brussels are as good as the best Paris can offer, and excellent medium-priced restaurants abound.
Do you want to emphasize fun rather than history, or art however glorious? There's swimming on the beaches, beautiful motor journeys,' trout fishing in the brooks of the Ardennes forest - casinos and night clubs for after-dark fun, too.
The reviewer had the privilege of spending ten days in Belgium and Luxembourg last summer. Checking our experiences against Mr. Clark's book, our few critical comments are of a trivial sort. Suppose he doesn't mention that lovely little hotel overlooking the Grande Place in Bruges? It couldn't take the tourists if he did. Suppose we didn't think the food quite up to the setting and the view at a Brussels restaurant he recommends? The restaurant is still a very fine one. Comparative ratings of hotels and restaurants are matters of honest difference of opinion.
But for every point of minor question or disagreement, Mr. Clark calls attention to a great many points and places of interest that we wish we had seen. I was particularly pleased at the extended coverage of Luxembourg, a lovely spot indeed, and one that the U.S. tourist too often misses: romantic castles, marvellous drives through hills and forests and smiling countryside, with the most "contented cows" we ever saw, and a remarkably picturesque capital city. "Land of peace and plenty" was our own name for Luxembourg.
As regards both Belgium and Luxembourg, Mr. Clark's book makes us want to go back again, and to stay longer next time.
