LORAN SMITH: Europe has classic sports options

BRIDGE, England – This village offers a relaxed and purposeful respite on a summer trip to Europe which is peak tourist time with extended queues and gathering masses who can’t wait to become up close and personal with destinations from the Sistine Chapel to the Louvre to crossing the English Channel to the land of one’s forebears—continuously linking up with Europe’s countless monuments and cultural attractions.

If the sporting scene has priority on your agenda, you have a couple of months of classic options. The summer is the busiest time of the year for Euro sports. Summertime for many Americans is a time to ready themselves for football. There are two major golf championships — the U. S. Open in June and the PGA in August — and unremitting baseball which are fun and lively interludes and/or pastimes before getting down to serious business — football, a game to which we passionately swoon but, more often than not, baffles most Europeans. They are as quizzical about American football as we are about cricket.

I get up in the morning here in a charming house which once was a hotel (East Bridge House. My room is No. 6) and walk down to the village to buy three or four papers, appreciating that newspapers seem to have flourished since the posting of the Magna Carta. There is page after page of sports presented expertly from writers who know their stuff in The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, national publications with journalistic pedigrees as classic as those of thoroughbreds which run at Ascot. Golf has allowed me to become acquainted with some of the seasoned writers and columnists on this side of the Atlantic. I like how they write and what they have to say.

Londis Grocery at the foot of the village has always made available an American coffee which gratifies the emotions as I later sit on a wooden bench and read the papers, which cost at least 10 U. S. dollars. Well worth it. To enjoy a newspaper in soft sunshine in a village not far from where Sir Thomas Beckett was murdered at the altar of Canterbury Cathedral, reminds one that most any stop in Europe allows for the appreciation of always being within arms-length of history.

For years, I have been coming here where pubs are refreshingly active — like the Red Lion — and people are charming with accents that linger in your consciousness. The laugher, the pints of lager, a dog napping under a dart board and the sense of fraternity make you want to book a later flight home. You start wanting to backtrack as soon as your sojourn takes you to the next stop. In the meantime, the perusal of the sports pages makes your day.

The Euro sports calendar in summer here reminds you that there is something competitive taking place constantly, even when you ignore the fact that kids everywhere are kicking a soccer ball with the same frequency that kids bounce a basketball on the playgrounds in the inner cities of the U. S.

If you include the last fortnight of May, there are at least seven signature events to take up much of the summer in Europe. It all begins with the French Open in late May, one of the four Grand Slam tournaments, which stretches into June. Paris in the spring is electric just like the atmosphere which hovers over Roland Garros, the venue for the championship. Royal Ascot hosts emotionally elevated horse racing the third week in June. Wimbledon holds sway for a fortnight, beginning the first week in July. The Henley Regatta, as much about fashion as competition, finds its way on the calendar in early July. Picnicking with candelabra is not required, but many seek to think so.

The third week in July is the traditional playing of the British Open championship but there is considerable overlap of competitions. The Tour de France, the internationally famous bicycling race, is staged the first three weeks in July. Then there is the running of the bulls at Pamplona the first two weeks of our seventh month.

The Feast of San Fermin at Pamplona, by the way, is the oldest of the aforementioned, dating back to 1592 which makes the running of the bulls three centuries older than the “youngest” of these events, the Tour de France, which began in 1903 — unless you throw in the British Grand Prix, which came about in 1926. Additionally, there are cricket test matches, dart throwing in every pub in the United Kingdom. Fox hunting which is illegal, still takes place in the fall.

Three of the classic competitions (Pamplona is really an exhibition of sorts), Royal Ascot, which began in 1768, Henley, which got underway in 1839 and the British Open, first played in 1860, made the annual sporting calendar before the American Civil War (1861) had its unfortunate beginning.

You could plan a six week trip to Europe and taste the excitement of each event. You might be able to wave at the Queen at Royal Ascot, toast pretty French girls with a robust Bordeaux at Roland Garros, enjoy strawberries and cream at Wimbledon, sip champagne by the Thames at the Henley Regatta, placate your emotions with a single malt at the windswept British Open, run with the Bulls if you are fool enough, and camp out on a mountain in the Pyrenees or the Alps with wine and cheese while the Tour de France passes you by in a rush but leaving you with gratifying fulfillment.

Each attraction has its own unique feature. Unless the wind and rain beat you down at the British Open, the weather is usually favorable and you can sample the best in sports competition, atmosphere, tradition—not to mention food and wine in view of a castle or romantic river.

Daylight begins early and stays late which allows an avid golfer to get in 18 holes after an early dinner if he chooses. The summers are short which means there is not a lot of time to get all the championships concluded, but it manages to come about without a hitch. If you take in the signature sports of Europe in summer, you still have time to hit the museums and historical venues if you want to push yourself.