It’s a Happy New Year for European Bargain Travel

January is the month for Europe. It’s a time when airlines charge ridiculously low rates to tour operators for the transatlantic crossing, and when hotels take almost anything they can get for their rooms. And yet it’s also a time when most of the Continent enjoys mildly cold weather.

Most of these will require West Coasters to get to New York on their own to catch transatlantic flights, but these prices are still worth that add-on.

Paris: The City of Light is a dream even when it’s chilly, so consider this king of bargains: Between Jan. 4 and the end of March, spend five nights in glittering Paris at the Victoria Hotel, with round-trip air fare from Los Angeles, for $684. This is from French-owned New Frontiers, telephone (800) 677-0720 or (310) 670-7318, Internet https://www.newfrontiers.com.

For a comparable package, competitor France Vacations, tel. (800) 332-5332, offers a superior bargain from the West Coast: $589 through January, rising by $10 in February and $20 in March. The flight is on Continental; the hotel is Jardin de Paris in Montparnasse.

Greece: At $759 for air fare, Athens hotel and an island cruise, this package is not at all ex-Zorba-tant. Homeric Tours, tel. (800) 223-5570, Internet https://www.homerictours.com, specializes in Greece, and this six-nighter, January through March, is for a temperate period that may not be sunbathing weather but is pleasant for touring. Air fare is out of New York; the hotel is the Athens Gate downtown, and the one-day cruise hopscotches the nearby resort islands of Aegina, Paros and Hydra. In addition, daily breakfast is thrown in.

Portugal: Lisbon, one of Europe’s most atmospheric capitals, is on sale in January: six nights for as low as $652, including round-trip transatlantic air fare. With January and February temperatures in the 50s and 60s, Portugal’s capital, with its ancient neighborhoods, castles and monasteries, wonderful seafood and soulful fado (ballad) clubs, makes a muito romantico winter getaway.

Iberia specialist Abreu Tours, tel. (800) 223-1580, Internet https://www.abreu-tours.com, is selling air-inclusive six-nighters at the Hotel Roma in Lisbon, or the Hotel Lido in the nearby seaside resort town of Estoril, for just $652, Jan. 7 through March 15.

Spain: Southern Spain in winter’s a winner; you can’t exactly swim the Mediterranean, but the palaces, mosques, bullrings, cathedrals and fortresses are free of the swarming hordes of summer. They’re also ultra-cheap at the lowest exchange rate in many years, $1 to 155 pesetas at this writing.

Deals abound from companies like long-experienced Petrabax, tel. (800) 634-1188, Internet https://www.petrabax.com, whose offerings from January through March start at $609 (from New York) for air fare and six nights with breakfast in a first-class hotel in Malaga, which makes a good base for exploring legendary Andalusian cities like Granada, Cordoba and Seville.

Croatia: For $967 you get round-trip air fare, 14 nights’ accommodations, two meals a day and some tools for discovering Dubrovnik and surroundings, a gorgeous Adriatic coast getaway that’s safe once more. A UNESCO World Heritage site and once a magnet for tourists from all over Europe, medieval Dubrovnik had its tourism all but wiped out by worries over this year’s conflict in Kosovo.

But Croatia has been at peace for years and wasn’t otherwise affected by Kosovo. Its splendid Dalmatian coast (of which walled Dubrovnik is the crown jewel) is chock-full of colorful offshore islands and picturesque towns. In January and February there’s relatively balmy weather (50-ish, even 60-ish degrees) for self-drive excursions.

The spectacular bargain here, in effect from Jan. 4 to March 21, is a two-week air-and-land package from General Turist, tel. (800) 726- 7474, Internet https://www.generalturist.com. For $967 per person, it includes your round-trip flight from New York, transfers, 14 nights in Dubrovnik’s tourist-class Hotel Kompas (walkable from the old town) and daily breakfast and dinner. That’s among the lowest two-week prices in travel, for air-included, meal-included arrangements.