For a week or so in early January, French bakeries sell a flaky pastry with a charm hidden inside. When the tasty dessert is divided and devoured, the one who finds the charm has the right to parade kinglike in a gold crown. Oh, I know that there are fewer sensations more divine than taking in the sweep of rainbow-colored tulips that adorn Amsterdam in spring, or strolling London's Hyde Park on a sultry summer evening. After countless visits to Germany, France and other European countries in winter, however, I can tell you that the off-season offers charms of its own. The biggest is the dramatic break in prices.
Hotels also offer discounted prices.
Most of the stores in Europe feature off-season sales, too. Particularly in fashion-conscious places like Paris and Florence, January is when boutique owners, eager to stock their shelves with spring clothes, unload scarves, sweaters and coats at drastically reduced rates. The crowds of tourists, which swell to capacity all summer from Stockholm to Sicily, dwindle to a manageable level in the off-season. Attractions that seemed impossibly overbooked in June or July are suddenly accessible. May. Once a friend and I showed up on a whim in February, however, and were swept right to a table with the whole of the City of Light at our feet.