Connecting with Europe
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| If you're lonely or in need of contact with a local person, take out a map and look lost. |
By Rick Steves
My goal is to help you plan your trip better, make smarter choices, and save you precious time and money finding rooms, sightseeing, and getting around Europe. But the thing that will have the biggest impact on the success of your trip isn't really a travel tip. It's you!
Travel is intensified living, and as such it's guaranteed to bring out the best — and worst — in each of us. Fly to Europe with demands, preconceptions and unrealistic expectations, and you'll wish you'd stayed home. Approach every travel day with openness, curiosity and a positive attitude, and Europe will happily bounce those same qualities right back into your lap.
The Thoughtful American
The thoughtful American celebrates the similarities and differences in cultures. You:
- seek out European styles of living. You are genuinely interested in the people and cultures you visit.
- want to learn by trying things. You forget your discomfort if you're the only one in a group who feels it.
- accept and try to understand differences. Paying for your Italian coffee at one counter and then picking it up at another may seem inefficient, until you realize it's more sanitary: The person handling the food handles no money.
- are observant and sensitive. If 60 people are eating quietly with hushed conversation in a Belgian restaurant, you know it's not the place to yuk it up.
- maintain humility and don't flash signs of affluence, especially in poorer countries. You don't joke about the local money or overtip. Your bucks don't talk.
- are positive and optimistic in the extreme. You discipline yourself to focus on the good points of each country. You don't dwell on problems or compare things to "back home."
- make an effort to bridge that flimsy language barrier. Rudimentary communication in any language is fun and simple with a few basic words. On the train to Budapest, you might think that a debate with a Hungarian over the merits of a common European currency would be frustrating with a 20-word vocabulary, but you'll surprise yourself at how well you communicate by just breaking the ice and trying. Don't worry about making mistakes — communicate!
I've been accepted as an American friend throughout Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and North Africa. I've been hugged by Bulgarian workers on a Balkan mountaintop; discussed the Olympics over dinner in the home of a Greek family; explained to a young, frustrated Irishman that California girls take their pants off one leg at a time, just like the rest of us; and hiked through the Alps with a Swiss schoolteacher, learning German and teaching English.
Go as a guest; act like one, and you'll be treated like one. In travel, too, you reap what you sow.
Making the Most of Your Trip
Accept that today's Europe is changing. Among the palaces, quaint folk dancers, and museums, you'll find a living civilization grasping for the future while we romantic tourists grope for its past. This presents us with a sometimes painful dose of truth.
Today's Europe is a complex, mixed bag of tricks. It can rudely slap you in the face if you aren't prepared to accept it with open eyes and an open mind. Europe is getting crowded, tense, seedy, polluted, industrialized, hamburgerized, and far from the everything-in-its-place, fairy-tale land it may have once been.
If you're not mentally braced for some shocks, local trends can tinge your travels. Hans Christian Andersen's statue has four-letter words scrawled across its base. Amsterdam's sex shops and McDonald's share the same streetlamp. In Paris, armies of Sudanese salesmen bait tourists with ivory bracelets and crocodile purses. Many a Mediterranean hotel keeper would consider himself a disgrace to his sex if he didn't follow a single woman to her room. Drunk punks do their best to repulse you as you climb to St. Patrick's grave in Ireland, and Greek ferryboats dump mountains of trash into their dying Aegean Sea. A 12-year-old boy in Denmark smokes a cigarette like he was born with it in his mouth, and in a Munich beer hall, an old drunk spits Sieg heils all over you. The Barcelona shoeshine man will triple-charge you, and people everywhere eat strange and wondrous things. They eat next to nothing for breakfast, mud for coffee, mussels in Brussels, and snails in Paris, and dinner's at 10 p.m. in Spain. Beer is room-temperature here and flat there, coffee isn't served with dinner, and ice cubes are only a dream. Roman cars stay in their lanes like rocks in an avalanche, and beer maids with huge pretzels pull mustard packets from their cleavage.
Contemporary Europe is alive and in motion. Today's problems will fill tomorrow's museums. Feel privileged to walk the vibrant streets of Europe as a sponge — not as a judge. Be open-minded. Absorb, accept, and learn.
Don't be a creative worrier. Some travelers tend to sit at home before their trip — all alone, just thinking of reasons to be stressed. Travel problems are always there; you just notice them when they're yours. Every year there are air-controller strikes, train wrecks, terrorist attacks, new problems, and deciduous problems sprouting new leaves.
Travel is ad-libbing while incurring and conquering surprise challenges. Make an art out of taking the unexpected in stride. Relax — you're on the other side of the world playing games in a continental backyard. Be a good sport, enjoy the uncertainty, and frolic in the pits.
Many of my readers' richest travel experiences were the result of seemingly terrible mishaps: the lost passport in Slovenia, having to find a doctor in Ireland, the blowout in Portugal, or the moped accident on Corfu.
Expect problems, tackle them creatively. You'll miss a museum or two and maybe blow your budget for the week. But you'll make some local friends and stack up some memories. And this is the essence of travel that you'll enjoy long after the journal is shelved and your trip is stored neatly in the photo album of your mind.
KISS: "Keep it simple, stupid!" Don't complicate your trip. Simplify! Travelers get stressed and cluttered over the silliest things, which, in their niggling ways, can suffocate a happy holiday: registering your camera with customs before leaving home, standing in a long line at the post office on a sunny day in the Alps, worrying about the correct answers to meaningless bureaucratic forms, making a long-distance hotel reservation in a strange language and then trying to settle on what's served for breakfast, having a picnic in pants that make you worry about grass stains, and sending away for Swedish hotel vouchers. Time–shares, frequent-flyer incentives...concerns like these are outlawed in my travels.
People can complicate their trips with video cameras, special tickets for free entry to all the sights they won't see in England, inflatable hangers, immersion heaters, instant coffee, 65 Handi-Wipes, and a special calculator that figures the value of the euro to the third decimal. They ask for a toilet in 17 words or more, steal artificial sweeteners and plastic silverware off the plane, and take notes on facts that don't matter. Travel more like Gandhi — with simple clothes, open eyes, and an uncluttered mind.
Ask questions. If you are too proud to ask questions, your trip will be dignified but dull. Many tourists are actually afraid or too timid to ask questions. The meek may inherit the earth, but they make lousy travelers. Local sources are a wealth of information. People are happy to help a traveler. Hurdle the language barrier. Use a paper and pencil, charades, or whatever it takes to be understood. Don't be afraid to butcher the language.
Ask questions — or be lost. If you are lost, take out a map and look lost. You'll get help. If you're lonely or in need of contact with a local person, take out a map and look lost. Perceive friendliness and you'll find it.
Be militantly humble — Attila had a lousy trip. All summer long I'm pushing for a bargain, often for groups. It's the hottest, toughest time of year. Tourists and locals clash. Many tourists leave soured.
When I catch a Spanish merchant shortchanging me, I correct the bill and smile, "Adiós." When a French hotel owner blows up at me for no legitimate reason, I wait, smile, and try again. I usually see the irate ranter come to his senses, forget the problem, and work things out.
"Turn the other cheek" applies perfectly to those riding Europe's magic carousel. If you fight the slaps, the ride is over. The militantly humble and hopelessly optimistic can spin forever.
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| Take in a service at a local church — it's an unbeatable peek into a European community. |
Becoming a Temporary European
Most travelers tramp through Europe like they're visiting the cultural zoo. "Ooo, that guy in lederhosen yodeled! Excuse me, could you do that again in the sunshine with my wife next to you so I can take a snapshot?" This is fun. It's a part of travel. But a camera bouncing on your belly tells locals you're hunting cultural peacocks. When I'm in Europe, I'm the best German or Spaniard or Italian I can be. While I never drink tea at home, after a long day of sightseeing in England, "a spot of tea" really does feel right. I drink wine in France and beer in Germany. In Italy, I eat small breakfasts. Find ways to really be there. For ideas on connecting, consider these:
Go to church. Many regular churchgoers never even consider a European worship service. But any church would welcome a traveling American. And an hour in a small-town church provides an unbeatable peek into the local community, especially if you join them for coffee and cookies afterwards. I'll never forget going to a small church on the south coast of Portugal one Easter. A tourist stood at the door videotaping the "colorful natives" (including me) shaking hands with the priest after the service. You can experience St. Peter's by taking photographs...or taking a seat at Mass.
Root for your team. For many Europeans, the top religion is soccer. Getting caught up in a sporting event is going local. Whether enjoying soccer in small-town Italy, or hurling in Ireland, you'll be surrounded by a stadium crammed with devout locals.
Play where the locals play. A city's popular fairgrounds and parks are filled with local families, lovers, and old-timers enjoying a cheap afternoon or evening out. European communities provide their heavily taxed citizens with wonderful athletic facilities. Check out a public swimming pool, called a "leisure center" in Britain. While tourists outnumber locals five to one at the world-famous Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen's other amusement park, Bakken, is enjoyed purely by Danes. Disneyland Paris is great. But Paris' Parc Astérix is more French.
Experiment. Some cafés in the Netherlands (those with plants in the windows or Rastafarian colors on the wall) have menus that look like the inventory of a drug bust back in the United States. Marijuana is less controversial in Holland than tobacco (which was recently banned in public spaces). For a casual toke of local life without the risk that comes with smoking in the United States, drop into one of these cafés and roll a joint.
Take a stroll. Across southern Europe, communities have a paseo, or stroll, in the early evening. Stroll along. Join a Volksmarch in Bavaria to spend a day on the trails with people singing "I love to go a-wandering" in its original language. Remember, hostels are the American target, while mountain huts and "nature's friends huts" across Europe are filled mostly with local hikers. Most hiking centers have alpine clubs that welcome foreigners and offer organized hikes.
Get off the tourist track. Choose destinations busy with local holiday-goers but not on the international tourist map. Campgrounds are filled with Europeans in the mood to toss a Frisbee with a new American friend (bring a nylon "Whoosh" Frisbee). Be accessible. Accept invitations. Assume you're interesting and do Europeans a favor by finding ways to connect.
Challenge a local to the national pastime. In Greece or Turkey, drop into a local teahouse or taverna and challenge a local to a game of backgammon. You're instantly a part (even a star) of the local café or bar scene. Normally the gang will gather around, and what starts out as a simple game becomes a fun duel of international significance.
Contact the local version of your club. If you're a member of a service club, bridge club, professional association, or international organization, make a point to connect with your foreign mates.
Search out residential neighborhoods. Ride a city bus or subway into the suburbs. Wander through a neighborhood to see how the locals live when they're not wearing lederhosen and yodeling. Visit a supermarket. Make friends at the launderette.
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| Kids love to explain things (like this anti-war display), and they can be lots more fun to chat with than grown-ups. |
Drop by a school or university. Mill around a university and check out the announcement boards. Eat at the school cafeteria. Ask at the English-language department if there's a student learning English whom you could hire to be your private guide. Be alert and even a little bit snoopy. If you stumble onto a grade-school talent show — sit down and watch it.
Truly become a local. The ultimate way of becoming a temporary local is to actually become one — by moving to Europe.
Join in. When you visit the town market in the morning, you're just another hungry local, picking up your daily produce. You can snap photos of the pilgrims at Lourdes — or volunteer to help wheel the chairs of those who've come in hope of a cure. Traveling through the wine country of France during harvest time, you can be a tourist taking photos — or you can pitch in and become a local grape picker. Get more than a photo op. Get dirty. That night at the festival, it's just grape pickers dancing — and you're one of them.
If you're hunting cultural peacocks, remember they spread their tails best for people...not cameras. When you take Europe out of your viewfinder, you're more likely to find it in your lap.
Make yourself an extrovert, even if you're not!
Be a catalyst for adventure and excitement. Meet people. Make things happen or often they won't. The American casual-and-friendly social style is charming to Europeans who are raised to respect social formalities. While our "slap-on-the-back" friendliness can be overplayed and obnoxious, it can also be a great asset for the American interested in meeting Europeans. Consider that cultural trait a plus. Enjoy it. Take advantage of it.
I'm not naturally a wild-and-crazy kind of guy. But when I'm shy and quiet, things don't happen, and that's a bad rut to travel in. It's not easy, but this special awareness can really pay off. Let me describe the same evening twice — first with the mild-and-lazy me, and then with the wild-and-crazy me.
The traffic held me up, so by the time I got to that great historical building I've always wanted to see, it was six minutes before closing. No one was allowed to enter. Disappointed, I walked to a restaurant and couldn't make heads or tails out of the menu. I recognized "steak-frites" and settled for a meat patty and French fries. On the way home I looked into a colorful local pub but it seemed kind of exclusive, so I walked on. A couple waved at me from their balcony, but I didn't know what to say, so I ignored them. I returned to my room and did some laundry.
That's not a night to be proud of. A better traveler's journal entry would read like this:
I got to the museum only six minutes before closing. The guard said no one could go in now, but I begged, joked, and pleaded with him. I had traveled all the way to see this place, and I would be leaving early in the morning. I assured him that I'd be out by six o'clock, and he gave me a glorious six minutes in that building. You can do a lot with a Botticelli in six minutes when that's all you've got. Across the street at a restaurant that the same guard recommended, I couldn't make heads or tails out of the menu. Inviting myself into the kitchen, I met the cooks and got a firsthand look at "what's cookin'." Now I could order an exciting local dish and know just what I was getting. Delizioso! On the way home, I passed a local pub, and, while it seemed dark and uninviting, I stepped in and was met by the only guy in the place who spoke any English. He proudly befriended me and told me, in very broken English, of his salty past and his six kids, while treating me to his favorite local brew. As I headed home, a couple waved at me from their balcony, and I waved back, saying "Buon giorno!" I knew it didn't mean "Good evening," but they understood. They invited me up to their apartment. We joked around — not understanding a lot of what we were saying to each other — and they invited me to their summer cottage tomorrow. What a lucky break! There's no better way to learn about this country than to spend an afternoon with a local family. And to think that I could be back in my room doing the laundry.
Pledge every morning to do something entirely different today. Meet people and create adventure — or bring home a boring journal.
Updated for 2009. For lots more tips, check out our best-selling Europe Through the Back Door travel skills guidebook.