Dear Time-Reader

Vacations have begun in the Paris office and before we have assembled again, around the end of October, members of this staff will have been relaxing at points east, west, north and south of the French capital, in half a dozen European countries, and on two continents.

This bit of holiday intelligence from TIME-LIFE International's Paris office, plus the summer skimpiness of our own staff here at home, has led me to inquire where the members of our overseas staff are spending, or planning to spend, their vacations. Here, for the benefit of all of you who might like to go abroad but cannot, for one reason or another, are some of their replies:

Food seems to be the determinant for London office vacationists, several of whom, like Bureau Chief John Osborne, have already fled to the lusher larders of Switzerland or Ireland. Others will follow, including homesick Correspondent Eric Gibbs, who writes: "A log cabin, a Minnesota lake fringed with evergreens, blue sky, a hot sun, lots of sizzling bacon and fresh (not dried) eggs--those are the main elements of the holiday I'm planning. Reason: they're in short supply here. Transportation should be easy. I leave London in the afternoon, am due to reach Minnesota next evening. Then it's just a matter of eating, drinking, lying out in the sun and listening to the grass grow."

Although the Mediterranean ("bluer than ever this year") drew its quota from the Paris office, Correspondent William Chapman chose to seclude himself in a rented room and terrace of an 11th Century tower on a river near Tours. Bureau Chief Charles Wertenbaker, en route to the Basque coast ("my favorite place in the world"), tarried in Spain for his favorite spectator sport, bullfighting, and was so moved that he turned out a report of what he saw for TIME (July 21).

In the Far East, vacation-planning was more difficult. The Tokyo staff has to face the fact that resort hotels have been taken over by U.S. occupation forces and Japanese inns are impossibly crowded. "In view of these obstacles," the bureau advised, "I think you will be safe in saying that the Tokyo staff will spend its vacation catching up on sleep."

High vacation costs and lack of transport and resorts are plaguing our staffs in warring China. Nevertheless, Fred Gruin reports from Nanking that he has the name of a veteran missionary in Kuling, China's cool summer capital, who may be able to find a cottage for him there, and Shanghai Bureau Chief William Gray has his eye on a small hotel on an island off Wusih in Lake Tai Hu, northwest of Shanghai. "Wusih," says Gray, "is a sort of Chinese Venice, where you travel mostly by motor houseboat, a top-heavy but pleasant craft with attendants who serve tea and Chinese chow at thoughtful intervals."

Those of our Berlin bureau who can are spending their vacations outside of Germany at almost any place where "we don't have to see ruins every time we walk down the street." Moscow Bureau Chief John Walker is visiting his family, temporarily in Vienna awaiting some solution to the Moscow housing shortage. Correspondent William Krehm announces from Lima, Peru, that, pending the arrival and installation of the "Chicago" (Peruvian for an indispensable bathroom fixture), he will have to stay home.

As for the Cairo bureau, one member has planned an expedition up the Nile in his 15-ft. sloop, another is looking forward to a honeymoon in the Lebanese mountains. Gamal Kodsi has postponed his vacation until winter in the hope of accompanying Egypt's Olympic team to the 1948 Olympic Games in London. Researcher Violet Price, who has scheduled a cruise among the Balearic Islands in a 55-ton ketch, adds this idyllic note: "If times were right and we could choose the ideal vacation for this part of the world, the vote would go for a lazy cruise through the Aegean Islands and perhaps a walking trip through the Peloponnesos. Sound nice?"

Cordially,

James A. Linen

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