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If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium

Charlie Cartwright, an amorous English tour guide, takes groups of Americans on whirlwind nine-countries-in-18-days sightseeing tours of Europe. Having overslept with his newest conquest, he is late meeting tour #225, finding a resentful group eager to start.

Samantha Perkins, one of those tourists, is on vacation to contemplate whether to marry her fiancé, George. In London, Charlie begins a campaign to charm and seduce the gorgeous Samantha, who considers him frivolous and conniving, reluctant to become just another conquest. Despite verbal sparring, they become mutually attracted, and the confirmed bachelor Charlie proposes marriage. Samantha ultimately decides to settle for neither the unexciting George, who turns up unexpectedly, nor the charismatic Charlie, who is unsuitable husband material.

Fred and Edna Ferguson take their daughter Shelly on the trip to separate her from an undesirable boyfriend with whom she is getting sexually involved. In Amsterdam, Shelly meets an activist American college student who follows her around different tour locations, where they sneak off on his motorcycle to spend time together sightseeing through counterculture eyes.

Also in Amsterdam, Irma Blakely disappears on a Japanese tour bus she mistakenly boards when separated from her group. Multiple attempts must be made before the two tours overlap to restore her to her husband, Harve. Although Harve pines for Irma during the whole trip and must be coaxed into joining the group at a nightclub, when Irma finally reappears in Rome, she finds him onstage dancing with burlesque dancers and mistakenly believes he has been partying in her absence. Irma declares they will go to Japan next year, since she has made many friends on her improvised tour.

In Belgium, Jack Harmon revisits the World War II site where he fought in Bastogne. As he tells tall tales to a fellow tourist, Freda Gooding, of a German retreat, he literally crosses path with a German veteran who is acting out a contradictory tale of Allied retreat to his wife. In Rome, eager to see Gina, a woman he met during the war, again, Jack's fantasies are shattered when he finds that, while still attractive, she is now a grandmother with a family. In consolation, he turns to Freda Gooding, a widow, and begins to get to know her.

Often getting slapped, Bert Greenfield sneaks pictures of breasts, thighs, and other intimate angles of voluptuous women, pretending that he is "scoring" with them, and sending made-up stories to his buddies. Desperate, he pays a pretty girl to pose with him in an embrace; she returns his money out of pity and kisses his cheek before departing.

In Italy, John Marino takes time from the tour to meet his relatives, who receive him warmly but alarm him when they want to fix him up with Francesca, a plump, plain cousin, who he jumps through a bathroom window into a canal to avoid. The next day he is handed a pile of messages from “a cousin” and spends the rest of his time avoiding her. As he is leaving Venice, John finds that he has been dodging a different―beautiful―cousin he laments not getting to know; Bert laments not getting her photo for his collection.

Throughout the tour, Fred complains to Edna that the tour is an ordeal and he is eager to get home. His one objective is to have a custom pair of Italian shoes made, for which he goes through an arduous process to make the non-English-speaking shoemaker understand his specifications. After Fred leaves, the shoemaker selects a pair of ready-made shoes from a catalogue, completely mistaking the specifications, that he will mail to the U.S. to fulfill the "special order". Despite having complained throughout the whole tour, Fred declares they will go on a tour of Scandinavia next year.

Throughout the tour, kleptomaniac Harry Dix steals "souvenirs" such as towels, ashtrays, Bibles, bells, lifesavers, telephones, and paintings from each location, which he stows into a commodious suitcase. At the airport on departure, his suitcase is so heavy that it collapses, spilling all his pilfered objects, which he leaves behind.

Starting tour #226, Charlie gives an introductory speech evoking unexpected adventure, reflecting his new romantic, less cynical, outlook, as the new group of tourists rotate seats and get to know each other.