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Rick Steves: Blog Gone Europe

Hitch an online ride with Rick this spring as he researches guidebooks, films new TV shows — and shares what’s on his mind!

A friend from the Washington state chapter of the United Nations called me six months ago and asked what I could do to help them build understanding between Iran and the USA to help defuse the tension that could be leading to war. I answered, “The only powerful thing would be to produce a TV show on Iran.”

I remember when the bombs first fell on Baghdad, thinking I missed an opportunity to make a travel show to humanize Baghdad and give “collateral damage” a face. I didn’t want to miss an opportunity to do this for Iran. My government would let me go. The Islamic Republic of Iran actually wanted the publicity. I threw together a proposal for a TV show—not political, just travel. The working title: Iran--its people and culture, yesterday and today.

After months of fitful negotiating and applications, we were given visas and the government’s support for our mission—a ten day shoot in Iran: Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, and Persepolis. The permissions were so slow in coming that the project was only a certainty last week when we picked up our visas up in Athens. (I had a film Istanbul contingency plan.) Like someone who’s pregnant wants to tell the world but holds back until everything looks okay, I didn’t announce our plans until we knew for sure it was a go.

In the USA (whose current policy is not to talk with enemies) the only way to communicate with Iran was indirectly via the Pakistan consulate. (The USA has more diplomatic dialogue with North Korea than with Iran.) It was strange going into a relaxed, almost no security Iranian embassy in Greece, walking out with visas and knowing we were on our way.

As prepare to fly to Iran (from Athens via Istanbul, arriving at 3:55 am) it occurs to me that this is a huge, time-consuming, and expensive headache. Pondering my motivation, I kept thinking of those strong-hearted Americans who enlisted in our military in the days after 9/11. What motivated them? Love, revenge, freedom, a deep-seated male trill to kill, patriotism? While the fire in my gut is just as hot and the concern in my heart is just as real, my choice of weapons is different. Like them, I don’t care about my safety, the cost, or the work…I want to do this. I have to do this.

I know almost nothing about Iran—and that’s a lot more than the average American. In a case like US-Iran relations, the foundation of wisdom is to know that we can’t know the truth from news coverage. Just like I had to actually visit the USSR in the 1978 and Nicaragua in 1988, I need to visit Iran in 2008. If war is at stake, I want to know the truth. Because, as I’ve said before, as an American tax payer, I believe that every bullet that flies and every bomb that drops has my name on it.

Preparing for this adventure, I’ve been thinking about the similarities of three countries that are or have been notorious thorns in America’s side: Nicaragua, Cuba, and Iran. In each of them, we supported an American-business-friendly dictator that the poor people in that country ultimately threw out--Samosa, Battista, and the Shah. Then we proceeded to demonize the dictator’s successor and traumatize their people with economic embargos and noisy saber-rattling. In the next ten days, I hope to learn more why Iranians chant “Death to America.”

I travel to Iran with plenty of anxiety and questions. How free will we be? Will the hotel rooms will be bugged? Is there really absolutely no alcohol—even in fancy hotels? Will crowds gather around us and then suddenly turn angry? We have a good Persian/American friend on our crew with family in Iran. We want to be free-spirited but not abuse the trust of the Iranian government and possibly cause his loved ones problems.

I’m nervous—we considered leaving our big camera in Greece and just taking the small one. I made sure all my electrical stuff was charged up. Will the food be as bad as my memory from a 1978 back-packer trip through Iran back in the last days of the shah?

Why is Iran letting us in? They actually want to boost Western tourism. I would think that since Western tourism would bring in unwanted ideas (like those that threatened the USSR causing it not to open up to tourism), Iran would see no point in that. But they want more visitors.

They also believe the Western media has given their society an unfair image. They did lots of research on my work and apparently my politics gave them faith in my motives. They don’t like Fox or CNN but say they’ve had good experiences with PBS crews in the past. (I heard we’ll get the same minder that Ted Kopel got for his Discovery channel shoot.)

I want to show the state of women and this will be very delicate. Cafes that allow crews to show women breaking modesty regulations loose their license. It’s a cash society. Because of the 26 year old American embargo on Iran, Western credit cards don’t work there. No ATMs for foreigners. We sent our friend ahead with $10,000 dollars for expenses we’ll encounter as we work in Iran for ten days.

I am tired after twenty-four relentless days of work (in Portugal--eating, drinking, sightseeing and embracing life there while updating that guidebook; and in Greece--producing two new TV shows). I need to be fresh to be quick-minded on camera for interactions (we hope for lots of this in Iran) and simply to stay healthy. I’ll loose a night’s sleep as we fly in, arriving at about 4am.

Simon (director), Karel (cameraman) and I vowed to be respectful and in a professional mindset. We must do nothing cute, clever, or flip. (For instance, when our visas were printed with the wrong dates, we couldn’t resist calling it a “clerical error.”) Once in Iran, it’s serious business. The tourist board is part of the Department of Guidance. When Moses’ name appears in print it is followed by PBUH: peace be upon him.

Who’s paying for this production? Me. I figure this adventure will cost me roughly what each household in the USA is already paying for Iraq. If I can help avert an extra war—even just a little bit--this is brilliant personal investment—and lots of people will owe me big time. (Do the math: $3,000,000,000,000 divided by 300,000,000 people: cut the zeros = $10,000 per person…that’s about $40,000 per family. Care for another war?)

This will be a journey of discovery for me. We have a very sketchy script to start. It will evolve over the next ten days. Each day, after a long day of shooting, I’ll massage what we’ve shot and learned into the script, print out a new version and come up with a shooting plan for the next day. My hunch…by day ten, we’ll have a fine show.

I’ll try to send a blog report about every two days. I hope you can travel along.

Posted by Rick Steves on May 16, 2008
Comments (9)

Question: Why does Rick hate Greece? Was he beat up by a Greek bully as a child?

Many reacted defensively when I opined that, when it comes to beauty, mainland Greece and Athens don’t compare to many other European countries and cities. If France and Italy are at the top of the cuisine list, someone has to keep Norway company at the bottom. It doesn’t mean I don’t like Norway…or souvlaki. I had a great time in Greece (and I was not beat up by a Greek bully when I was a kid). I am open to Greece’s differences. I celebrate differences in my travels — that’s why I do it so much, really. And my observations about the rusty and ramshackle Greek mainland were just that: observations. If I said everything was sumptuous, “to die for,” magical…well, I wouldn’t be a travel writer. I’m the first one to admit that if I don’t appreciate a place, it’s often because I don’t know it well enough. I look forward to learning more about Greece.

Question: How do Greeks feel about Americans?

I’m sure there are Greeks who don’t like Americans and Greeks who like our president. But in these last two weeks in Greece I never met a Greek who liked our president. And I never met a Greek who didn’t give me a warm welcome as an American.

Question: How can you really know a hotel without staying there and paying for it like everyone else?

You can’t. I didn’t say that I learn all the hidden little warts. My point is, no guidebook writer can stay in all twenty hotels they mention in each big city. It is dishonest to say you can. You do your best to pick up all the little quirks and describe them honestly, whether you slept there for free, paid to sleep there, or didn’t get to sleep there. A charade of "quality research" based on the boast that someone doesn’t accept free rooms is a hollow sham that I just don’t embrace.

Question: Rick complains about Americans having the shortest vacations in the rich world yet doesn’t give his employees paid vacation. What gives there?

Fifteen years ago, when my company was little more than a gang of travel bums, we didn’t have paid vacations. We didn’t have any perks except an excuse to go to Europe and call it work. Today our 80 employees enjoy at least the American standard of paid vacation (admittedly nothing to brag about) and something much more. As an employer who’s never really worked for anyone else, I sometimes don’t empathize with employee needs, but I've also come up with creative alternatives that work really well. For the last several years we have given bonuses across the board equal to about a third of our salaries. Rather than paying people less and forcing them to take paid time off, we pay people more and encourage them to take time off without pay as they need it, while maintaining the option to take less time off and keep the money. We also let people with families work less than full time and keep all the responsibility they would normally have with a full-time position.

Question: When will Rick’s new TV series air?

Our new series will air starting in October on PBS stations across the US. New shows include: Barcelona, Istanbul, Athens and Side Trips, the Peloponnesian Peninsula, Dordogne, Burgundy, the Czech Republic, Copenhagen, the Danish Countryside, Great Swiss Cities, "Little Europe" (Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, and so on), and a surprise destination.

Question: How could an experienced traveler like you be caught off-guard by Greek Easter?

I wasn’t caught off-guard by Greek Easter. It just complicated our filming schedule. I had no flexibility in our production schedule, so we designed an itinerary that had us shooting through the holiday season and around the closures the best we could. This required mixing up two shows in one 12-day stretch — something we try to avoid. When you have a city of 4 million people all going on vacation at the same time, what is normally the cutest nearby island can be suddenly inundated. We knew we’d find most things closed and lots of family action on Easter Sunday, and that we needed to be in the right place to let that not mess up our filming. Therefore we flipped from one show’s destination to the other in order to not be in Olympia, for instance, when the ancient sight was closed. We secured our jet-boat tickets well in advance for the island, and so on. As it turned out, except for a few traffic jams and museum closures, we shot around Good Friday, Easter, and May Day just fine, and the extra pageantry and family action was actually a plus.

Question: Are your tour sales down from last year?

Our 2008 tours are a few percentage points below our best ever sales year (2007). Whether we take 14,000 or 13,000 people to Europe each year is not my concern. (For example, just yesterday I got an email from my staff suggesting we add Morocco to our list of destinations. We all love Morocco and it is less expensive than most of Europe, so it's potentially more affordable for our travelers and more profitable for us. But I suggested that we not do Morocco, explaining that it's not our realm of expertise, and I didn’t want to mess up our focus to sell a few extra tours in challenging times.) The cost of our buses, guides, hotels, and meals are in euros. This is what threatens our business — or at least our profit. Our costs have jumped about 25 percent in the last year — what we charge has not. Look for a big jump in tour costs (ours and everyone else’s) for 2009.

I’m in an exciting travel panic, heading off to a country that may surprise you. I don’t want to tell you anything more than that it’s a cash society where my credit card is no good, where ties are not worn because they symbolize the previous regime, and where urinals are non-existent for religious reasons. I’ll take you there in a couple days…In ša’ Allah.

Posted by Rick Steves on May 14, 2008
Comments (16)

We just finished filming two great shows on Greece. Any careful observer knows I haven’t been that hot on Greece compared to other European destinations. I’m happy to admit, after these last two weeks, I am warming up. And I’m appreciating the uniquely Greek charms (food, people, history, pace of life, love of life) that explain why it is such a popular destination. But let me offer some frank observations (and open myself up to some enthusiastic criticism).

The Greek countryside has been depopulated in the last few generations. About one out of every three Greeks — roughly four of 12 million — live in Athens now. This leaves the towns feeling gutted of youthful energy. Granted, towns on the islands have that impossible-not-to-love iconic and exotic white-washed beauty. But driving through small towns on the mainland is like catching a tired culture with its pants down.

Sure, there are some cute towns. But, if you’ve been anywhere else in the Mediterranean you have to wonder, where’s the paseo...the passeggiata...where are the people? And I generally wondered what happened to the sublime sense of aesthetics that characterized the Golden Age — so inspirational that the best the ancient Romans could do would be to copy it. I find more classical Greek heritage of aesthetics is apparent in Paris or Florence than on mainland Greece. I don’t think money is an excuse. There seems to be plenty of money.

I asked myself, “Aren’t you being harsh?” But I compared the surface beauty of non-descript work-a-day towns in Germany, France, Ireland, and even Sicily, and I concluded it’s fair to say the Greeks channel their concern for tidiness and beauty to things other than fixing up their towns.

Except for some fine town centers, it’s a makeshift world with barely a hint of building codes or planning requirements. For example, next to the front door of an old church a rope dangled from the bell tower, as if strung up by a grade-schooler. I thought, this must be a temporary fix. With my eyes I followed the rope up to the cornerstone just below the bell and saw the groove worn by generations of pulling that rope. Stepping inside I just cleared electric wires strung across the nave. They were jerry-rigged, just tall enough to clear people’s heads, to light a bare bulb lashed to an old oil lantern that no longer worked and had been collecting dust for years. I find the rinky-dink stuff charming and photogenic. But if I went to church there, I’d fix it.

Driving in Greece is like Italy used to be. Parking is chaotic. Sidewalks and curbs are broken. And when there is an intact sidewalk, it’s been interrupted by a strip of ridges to guide the canes of people who can’t see. A compassionate sentiment...but these are rendered unusable by parked motorbikes, flower pots, and sales racks spilling out from kiosks. I’ve never seen a blind person try to use this sidewalk aid and if they did, it would only be frustrating. The result...smooth sidewalks are a rarity.

Ironically, amidst what I’d call the most littered country in Europe, I found two heroic attempts at hygiene that I’ve encountered nowhere else. Restaurants serve napkins in sanitized plastic wrappers. And I was actually startled in a men’s room when, as I passed a garbage can, its lid opened. It was equipped with a well-meaning motion sensor. But merely entering the space caused it to give me the trash-can body-language equivalent of, “Feed me.”

Athens is hugely improved and filled with the youthful energy I found missing elsewhere. An even-number, odd-number license plate system allows people to drive into town only on alternate days. That, along with a marvelous underground system, have made the city less congested. While it used to turn my hanky black in a day, the air now seems much cleaner. And it’s much more people-friendly with welcoming pedestrian boulevards and squares filled with benches, shade-giving trees, and inviting cafés rather than parked cars.

Forgive my harshness. Grecophiles will be up in arms I’m sure. (I’d welcome comments.) I’ve spent a month out of the last year in Greece and am really enthusiastic about our upcoming book on Athens and side-trips. It was strange to be in a country where travelers had no option for a Rick Steves guidebook. With the help of my Grecophile collaborators, our book will be a winner and I am enthusiastic about heading off ASAP with the first edition of this book (due out in early 2009) to update it and learn more about Greece.

Posted by Rick Steves on May 09, 2008
Comments (34)

My friend Michael Shapiro recently did an (Google-able) article for the Washington Post on a little scandal caused when Lonely Planet author Thomas Kohnstamm admitted he cheated on his guidebook research chores. The media jumped on this to discredit the world’s greatest guidebook publishing company and Michael wanted my take on things. I thought you might enjoy the interview.

Michael: I'm working on a Washington Post story about guidebooks and how they're written. As you may guess, the jumping-off point is LP's Kohnstamm and his recent comments about plagiarism, payment, trading positive coverage for favors, and his claim that he didn't visit some of the places he wrote about.

Rick: It is a trust to write and research a guidebook. The formula is more shoe leather than genius. While LP is not updated as often as I'd like it to be, that is the nature of the book business when you are trying to stay in business. It's not easy to both publish good guidebooks and be profitable. I have always found LP books to be among the best and fear this Kohnstamm thing is a bit of a anomaly.

Michael: Do you visit all the places mentioned in the books? If not, from where do you get the information?

Rick: I visit virtually every place mentioned in all my books. Lately, as our scope has grown, I have research assistants and co-authors helping. On a rare occasion I will list something as an option without visiting it but am careful to give it no opinion or assessment, just explain that it exists (e.g. an embassy, tourist office branch, or Laundromat). In these cases, I get the info from the tourist office or from people who run hotels who rely routinely and happily on that service for their clients. I guess my biggest “cheat” is listing a remote agriturismo someone I trust raved about. But, again, in this case I am careful simply list it with no assessment.

Michael: Washington Post travel editor KC Summers told me you're open about taking freebies — do you feel this can affect your recommendations in any way? Are freebies or discounts inevitable? Do you disclose that you accept some discounts or freebies?

Rick: I take freebies. I know many journalists make a huge point about not taking freebies to avoid corruption (and then proceed to write as shills for the local tourist industry). My job is to sort through all the come-ons and deceptive advertising and bogus sights and activities and distill things down for my American readership, which has the shortest vacation in the rich world, along with a dollar in the tank.

I was in Portugal last week. In six nights in Lisbon, I slept in three different hotels — all for no charge. One was provided by the tourist board — a fancy "design hotel" which I did not like. Staying there affirmed my feeling that "design hotels" are passionate about "function follows form" — bad news for my travel priorities. The two other places have been in my books for years. One is reported (from my reader feedback) dirty. The other has prostitutes loitering on that block. By staying at each place, I'll know them more intimately (the hotels). Ironically (and don’t tell them), a place that gives me a free room is more likely to be down-graded or dropped from my guidebook because by actually sleeping there I'll learn about a noise problem in the wee hours, thin walls, or horrible breakfast that I might not discover with a quick visit. (I believe anyone who claims to actually sleep in all their recommended accommodations has a small book or is lying.)

Many small guesthouses have been in my books for years. I send them a quarter of their business and they would never want to charge me. I believe I am incorruptible when it comes to my listings. I have never hidden that fact that I take free rooms and a free meal now and then. One night last week I popped into three different fado bars to check out the music and ambience. I told them what I was doing, paid for nothing, and had a very productive night assessing where my readers might want to go for their local musical experience next year.

Michael: Beyond his inflammatory comments, Kohnstamm raised larger issues — not enough time to visit all the places listed, incentives to accept freebies that could affect judgment, and so on that he suggests affect many writers and guidebooks. Your thoughts?

Rick: My understanding is that guidebook researchers and writers are generally no longer getting royalties. This demoralizes a hard worker. I believe I’m one of the few travel writers today still getting royalties. That makes my pay based on the quality of my work and the long term loyalty I have to the project. I stick with my publisher and with my readers and with my guidebooks through thick and thin. Consequently, I make good money with the books.

Michael: How many titles do you now sell?

Rick: I have 30 titles on the bookshelves now and sell probably about half a million books a year.

Michael: How many total books per year are sold worldwide?

Rick: I have no idea. But I do know that 12 million Americans travel to Europe each year and I believe that the very best selling guidebook to any European country from the USA (which happens to by my Italy guidebook) sells well under 100,000. In other words, there's plenty of business for all the travel guidebook publishers. The challenge for all of us guidebook writers and publishers is to impress upon the traveling American public that guidebooks are $20 tools for $3,000 experiences and to travel without one is classically pennywise and pound foolish.

Posted by Rick Steves on May 05, 2008
Comments (36)

Today, after 12 days of research in Portugal and 10 days of filming in Greece (we’re nearly finished with two Greek TV shows), my battery ran out.

I told the crew I’d take the afternoon off while they covered more of the script in Athens and sent home a pile of precious tapes via DHL. Lounging on the 10th-floor roof terrace by the pool at 5 p.m., the sun was strong enough to burn.

I went to dinner with a print-out of my son Andy’s travel journal (experiences enjoyed as weekend side-trips from his semester-abroad base in Rome).

The hotel (the epitome of a “front-door” place the tourist board kindly set us up in for our filming) lances my spirit — noisy tour groups, smoking business men, and menus with international food for triple the price you'll find for the equivalent just down the street.

I walked around the corner to a great little dinner spot. Ordering dinner alone without the TV crew (Simon and Karel), I couldn’t share dishes and therefore had less variety. It made me realize how much fun I’ve had with Greek food. The mixed appetizer (meze) approach is great — the three of us order one fish plate and four or five (meze) plates.

We joke how each night the bill comes to almost exactly €45 (about $23 each). The selection, while predictable and routine after 10 dinners, never got old. Tzatziki dip, garlic dip, fava bean dip, or a mix of all three on single serving plate (€4 with fresh bread — often toasted). Fried aubergine (eggplant) or zucchini. Four big grilled peppers on a plate — red or green — stuffed with feta cheese. Always a big Greek salad (€7, one salad feeds three people and the waiters are honest about not up-selling…each night saying, “One is enough”).

While the salad Nicoise so popular in France comes with a variety of recipes and lots of controversy on exactly what makes a proper salad Nicoise, the Greek salads we ate were always the same simple, wonderful, locally grown, fresh ingredients (tomato, green pepper, cucumber, onion, olives, feta cheese) with the perfect olive oil.

And then something from the sea — grilled calamari or sardines or a plate of fried small fish (three inch), very small fish (two inch), or very, very small fish (one inch). One night we took it to an extreme and had taramosalata (fish roe spread) — underwhelming.

The Greek beer, Mythos, comes in a big half liter bottle is good and feels right here. Big lemons beg to be squeezed and just about everything is cooked in or drizzled with olive oil.

Proud Greeks told us that their new prime minister is stopping the practice of Italians buying Greek olive oil to sell as Italian. Until now, the Italians (with their extra virgins) have the marketing edge...but the Greeks are determined to show the world that (regardless of virgins) their olive oil is at least as good.

It seems when our bill hits a certain threshold (or we come back for a second meal) we are given a free little dessert (halvah with shredded coconut tonight).

For price of club sandwich in our boxy skyscraper hotel (€17), I get a plate of very small (two-inch) fish, a huge salad, and a big cold Mythos. It was a delightful evening as I was alone with my son’s journal (24 crisp pages printed in the hotel business center). Andy's writing shows me that a critical part of the mix is generating experiences. He does Europe without business concerns — filling each day with new European friends and college kid adventures and artfully describing it all. I hope to serialize his journal this June on this blog (when I’m back home for a month). Stay tuned.

With three-inch fish, I leave the head and tail (and try not to wonder about the once inky, now dry-black guts). With two-inchers as finger food, and working my way through my son’s journal, there’s nothing left but a line of greasy fingerprints on the fringe of my paper tablecloth.

I walk home a traveler, an eater, and a dad well-satisfied.

Posted by Rick Steves on May 04, 2008
Comments (13)

I’m back on the idyllic, traffic-free Greek Isle of Hydra. Today is our first light day after a week of TV production. We’re meeting at 10 am. Wishing I could sleep longer, I’m wide awake at 6:45. I picked up some ugly oranges on the way to my hotel last night. The oranges were so unsightly I almost didn’t buy them. On my dresser, they look like Van Gogh’s last meal. Enjoying one, I’m reminded that in Europe, ugly means tasty.

Standing in front of my window, pushing open the shutters, I’m greeted by a cool, almost mountain breeze pouring through my window on this May Day. I stretch while enjoying the view. My legs are strong but my back is stiff.

A clutter of red-tiled roofs has the texture of Triscuits. In fact, they look like a sloppy pile of Triscuits tumbling up the hill away from the harbor. High above, at the horizon, a sun ray slashes from behind a hill, across a ravine, strangely obliterating a hill-capping monastery in a good morning glare.

Seven o’clock brings a chorus of tinny church bells. The clang of bells, which sound like dinner triangles on a cowboy ranch, seems to call the barnyard awake: dogs, roosters, a million baby birds cry for breakfast, and old burros snort...clearing their sinuses. Pigeons coo, sounding like owls or perhaps vice versa. A black cat prances nimbly across a roof.

I trace the route Anne and I took just seven months ago. Intending to take a lazy stroll around the block from this same hotel, we ventured up and up...succumbing to a strangely powerful pull of intrigue. We were drawn higher and higher, up to the top of Hydra town. Descending over a saddle, we followed the concrete flash flood bed through more Triscuit-roofed houses to a pocket-sized harbor of a tiny neighboring village. From there we watched the sun set through cloudy ouzo in tall glasses as a rock at sea, capped by a white church, became silhouetted and busy boats laced together the Aegean world.

It was there, on that same sunset perch the next night, that I decided to come back in Spring of ‘08 to make an Athens TV show. A show focusing only on Athens wouldn’t quite do it for me. But Hydra, just two hours away by jet boat, rounds out Athens as both a great destination and a great TV script.

I lean slowly to the right, hold it...creak slowly to the left, hold it. Then I let my vertebrae tumble like an ancient column in an earthquake, until my head passes my knees. Standing tall as I can, I inhale that waking village ambience knowing that, in a few hours, the sounds of children playing will be added to the audio mix. After this salutation to Hydra, I’m ready for a Greek island day.

Posted by Rick Steves on May 01, 2008
Comments (17)

Proud Greek flags are flying at half mast. I wonder who died and then I remember...Jesus died, it’s Good Friday. We’re busy in Greece making TV shows and I’m tossed two big curves: Orthodox Easter and bad weather. It's cold and wet. There's snow on the mountain tops on the south coast of Greece...not the image I expected.

People can’t understand how we could be working this weekend. “It’s Easter; absolute family time.” I try to explain that I celebrated Easter a month ago. When we film a meal, the restaurant is dotted with dark red hard-boiled eggs. Suddenly everyone is cracking their egg on their neighbors — like splitting a wishbone, only one egg gets cracked and you hope it’s not yours.

Four out of every ten Greeks live in Athens and, heading south on the freeway, it felt like they were all heading out of town the same time we were. TV crews were at the freeway tollbooths catching the pandemonium. Saturday night at 11, everyone’s out for the big Mass and then it’s firecrackers and partying into the wee hours.

Sunday the churches are empty: people sleep till noon, then it's goat-on-a-spit time for the big family lunch. Rather than a big fat Greek wedding, we get a big fat Greek Easter family party. In the villages, it seems no one’s on the streets. Everyone’s inside enjoying traditional folk music and dance — vicariously — by watching the same TV broadcast.

In an extremely remote village on the south coast of the Peloponnese, we find a priest who lets us film the Greek Orthodox worship service. (I wanted to show and explain the differences for people not accustomed to it.) When we asked if we could observe his Mass and film him, he was as giddy as the man at the gate in Oz who said, “That’s a horse of a different color...come on in.”

The priest pulled the rope to ring the bell to call villagers to worship. He kept pulling. No one came. I lit some candles and ran to the bar and coaxed three people into the church, so he wouldn’t be saying Mass in darkness to no one. The priest welcomed our cameraman behind the iconostasis (where the religious heavy lifting goes on). He sang, chanted, swung the incense, and shared with us the glory of his religious tradition...as my three forced worshippers stood by, respectfully crossing themselves vigorously at the right moments. It’ll make a great bit on our show.

Driving out of the village the day after Easter, I thought there’ll be lots of leftover goat sandwiches today.

Posted by Rick Steves on April 28, 2008
Comments (15)

My 12 days in Portugal are over. Except for the Douro Valley and the Algarve, I visited virtually everything in my Portugal guidebook and leave with my enthusiasm for this country rekindled.

I met few Americans (in one day in Athens, where I am today, I saw more of us than in 12 days in Portugal) and found great prices ($5 meals, $60 doubles, $6 tickets to major sights — even with the euro at $1.60).

Side-tripping 45 minutes from Lisbon, I went to plush and lush Sintra. Its Pena Palace, built by a romantic blue-blooded cousin of Mad King Ludwig, sits like a mountain-top Neuschwanstein with an Atlantic view. The elegantly cluttered rooms at the Pena Palace are still set up as they were in 1910 when the king fled — a great example of that Victorian “horror of empty spaces.”

My last day of research was complicated by a walking tour. I intended to check it out by just tagging along for half an hour. It was so good, I stayed the entire 3.5 hours. They called it an intro tour, but after 20 years of visits, I just couldn’t leave. Titled “Lisbon Revelation” and run by a company called Lisbon Walker, there were five in our group. We paid €13 each ($20) and the guide had us enthralled for every minute as we walked and took the trolley through the old town. (That evening I emailed my tour operations director and said, "Let’s get this experience for our Portugal groups!")

George Bush got some ridicule when he looked into Vladimir Putin’s eyes and, “saw his soul.” This is one rare case where I can relate to our president. I need to look into the eyes of the business people I meet and determine whether I can say, “I trust this person” to my traveling readers.

Perhaps I’m easily impressed (or conned), but I looked into many eyes on this trip and saw the souls of many good people: Sergio who rents ocean view “quartos” above his little bakery/café (simple doubles for $50) in Nazare; Carlos whose cataplana is famous in Porto and whom I’d like my readers to simply trust to feed well and charge honestly; and Gabriel who lovingly serves up traditional dishes in his restaurant while employing fado — Portuguese folk — guitarists who look like tired old turtles, and singers who are ringers for how Morticia (of the Addams family) must look today. (Gabriel’s business takes a big hit from cabbies who tell diners he’s out of business because he doesn’t pay commissions.)

In my hotel rounds, I noticed one of the personalized schedules our tour guides post on the wall for tour members. It laid out the plan for the last day of one of our two-week Spain and Portugal tours. The guide (Federico) had written, “Meet at 7:30 in the lobby to go out for dinner and a big surprise.”

I dropped back at 7:30 and doubled the surprise. I love seeing groups full of smiles after two weeks together. And for some reason Federico always leaves me with a huge smile. Their other surprise — heading out for Gabriel’s restaurant to enjoy the Turtles and Morticia.

I wonder if Lisbon and San Francisco are sister cities — they have twin bridges, famously foggy weather, have survived horrific earthquakes, keep trolleys shivering up and down their steep hills past characteristic buildings, and are situated in about the best natural harbors on the west coast of their respective continents.

Portugal has a poignant souvenir of its colonial days (which ended its nearly 50-year dictatorship — the longest in 20th century Europe — in 1974 with its Carnation Revolution). Over a million Portuguese “returnees” fled the colonies they no longer ruled. Life for them was “shrimp, day and night” and suddenly they were without a homeland — it was too dangerous to stay in the newly independent lands they once dominated...but they were too sour and conservative to feel comfortable back in Portugal. Most ended up emigrating to Brazil, England, the US, or France.

(I wonder if many became builders. A French man I befriended said it is the exception when a small construction or remodel job done in France is not done by a Portuguese contractor.)

I leave Portugal with a taste for Bacalhau — cod. My favorite bar munchie is a fried potato/cod croquet called a pastel de bacalhau. Imagine, the national dish of Portugal is cod and it’s never fresh — only salty and imported from Norway. This — a national dish that is imported from far away — must be unique in the world. Like Portugal itself.

Posted by Rick Steves on April 23, 2008
Comments (22)

I still get just a little rush when I settle into the right train. I can’t remember taking a train in the USA, but here, with each journey, I celebrate the ease of not having to drive. And after all these years, train travel still comes with a twinge of risk: Do I have enough time for a cup of coffee? Is my wristwatch in synch with the official station time? Would these locals really point me in the right direction? Am I on the right train?

The European Union has pulled Portugal up to its standards now. The country has plenty of freeways, and Brussels is telling it how hygienic its markets must be. Portugal has taken lots of money from Europe and is now a net giver rather than receiver, as the EU is on to spiffing up the infrastructure of poorer new members in the east.

Yet Portugal is still a humble and relatively isolated place where locals proudly point out, “We now have three places where you can buy foreign newspapers.” Apparently George Clooney’s agent doesn’t care too much for his image here, as he’s all over the country on TV and billboards — selling martinis and coffee like a greedy Joe DiMaggio.

Many things just don’t change in Portugal. Women still squat on the curb at the road into Nazaré. Their hope: to waylay tourists from reserved hotel rooms with signs saying, “Quartos!” — rooms for rent...cheap. (By the way, simple hotels all over Portugal rent decent double rooms for $60. And sleepable dives can be had for $40 per double.)

Service is friendly in the hole-in-the-wall restaurants where menus come with two columns: "half dose" and "full dose" (€4 and €6, respectively). "Full dose" is designed to be split by two...giving traveling couples meals for less than $5 each. When I resisted a special dessert drink, the waiter told me, “Don’t be a camel...have a drink!” With a line like that, how could I refuse?

I’ve noticed all over Europe that monks are famous for their ingenious knack for brewing beer and distilling liquors. And in Portugal, nuns round out the menu with fine sweets (see previous blog entry for “nuns' tummies” and “angel’s breasts”). For a good sampling, I’ve taken to asking for mixta dulce, and waiters are happy to bring a nibble of several of their top sobremesas (desserts).

Young Portuguese people don’t go to church much these days. But the country is remarkably Catholic for the sightseer (for example, my last stop, Nazaré, was named for Nazareth). The main sights of most towns are the musty old churches — those Gothic stone shells slathered in dusty, gold-leaf Baroque altars.

In 1917, three kids encountered the Virgin Mary near the village of Fátima and were asked to return on the 13th of each month for six months. The final apparition was witnessed by thousands of locals. Ever since, Fátima is on the pilgrimage trail — mobbed on the 13th of each month through the spring and summer.

On my visit, the vast esplanade leading to the basilica and site of the mystical appearance was quiet, as a few solitary pilgrims shuffled on their knees slowly down the long, smooth approach. Staring at a forest of candles dripping into a fiery trench that funnels all the melted wax into a bin to be resurrected as new candles was evocative in this spiritual setting.

Huge letters spelling “Queen of the Holy Rosary of Fátima Pray for Us” in Latin ring the ceiling of the basilica. John Paul II loved Fátima and visited it three times. (After the attempted assassination of JPII, the Vatican revealed that this event was predicted by Our Lady of Fátima in 1917.)

Wandering around modern Fátima and its commercial zone, I’m impressed by how it mirrors my image of a medieval pilgrim gathering place: oodles of picnic benches, endless parking, and desolate toilets for the masses. Just beyond the church, thirty uniform stalls lining a horseshoe-shaped mall await the 13th. Even without any business, old ladies still man their booths, surrounded by trinkets for pilgrims — including gaudy wax body parts and rosaries that will be blessed after Mass and taken home to remember Our Lady of Fátima.

Posted by Rick Steves on April 18, 2008
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“Day after day, the roads were messing up my itinerary. I’d arrive in town hours before I thought I would.”

Driving from Lisbon to Évora, I remembered this joke I used to tell in my lectures, which has since faded out of use. It saddened me to think of the many fine jokes (I liked them, anyway) that I’ve used to spice my talks over the years that have become lost...nudged aside by new material and insights being packed into talks that must not grow longer.

Anyway, I remember a time when there were absolutely no freeways in Portugal. Now, even my Michelin map is missing new freeways. Ninety minutes after pulling out of Lisbon, I was in a different world — humble but proud Évora, capital of the Alentejo region.

Évora — while a Tombstone kind of town with barely a building over three stories high — is crowned by the granite Corinthian columns of a stately yet ruined Roman temple. And three times as old as that, just outside of town, stand 92 stones erected by locals to make a Stonehenge-type celestial calendar. Évora sits on lots of history.

Alentejo is a vast and arid land — the bleak interior of Portugal, where cork seems to be the dominant industry. The rolling hills are covered with cork trees. With their bark peeled away, they remind me of St. Bartolomeo...and seem to suffer in silence.

The people of Alentejo are uniformly short, look at tourists suspiciously, and are the butt of jokes in this corner of Europe. There was a man here who nearly succeeded in teaching his burro to live without eating. He was so excited. Then his burro died. Libanio, my Évora guide, circled the words “arid” and “suspiciously” in my guidebook and did his best to turn my chapter into a promo for Alentejo. Actually, in April, it is a lush countryside. But I’ll stand by "suspicious."

Libanio said it was the mark of a people’s character to laugh at themselves. He asked me, “How can you tell a worker is done for the day in Alentejo?” I didn’t know. He said, “When he takes his hands out of his pockets.” My guide continued more philosophically: “In your land, time is money. Here in Alentejo, time is time. We take things slow and enjoy ourselves.”

While this corner of Portugal is humble, there’s a distinct pride. Every country has its Appalachia, Ozarks, or Newfoundland. I’m impressed when a region that others are inclined to insult has a strong local pride. I often wonder if it's honest pride, or just making the best of the cards they're dealt.

For Alentejanos, quality and authenticity require the respect of tradition. The finest restaurants simply do not ornament a standard rustic dish. They love their sweets so much that they seem to know the history of each tart.

Many pastries are called “convent sweets.” Portugal once had access to more sugar than any other European country. Even so, sugar was so expensive that only the aristocracy could afford to enjoy it routinely. Historically, many daughters of aristocrats who were unable to marry into suitably noble families ended up in high-class convents. Life there was comfortable, yet carefully controlled. Rather than sex, they could covet and treat themselves with sweets. Over time, the convents became famous as keepers of wondrous secret recipes for exquisite pastries generally made from sugar and egg yolks (which were leftovers from whites used to starch their habits). Barrigas de Freiras (Nuns’ Tummies) and Papos de Ango (Angel’s Breasts) are two such fancies. In Évora, I, too, treated myself to lots of sweets.

Doing my research rounds, I was happy to find a romantic little restaurant that offered live Fado music three nights a week. I really wanted to recommend it as Évora’s only late-night action worth a tourist’s lost sleep. Esperanza, the woman who ran the place, explained that she liked the diners to be finished by 10 p.m. so the musicians could perform without waiters wandering around. I was impressed by her commitment to the art.

For my last stop of a very long day, I snuck in between songs and sat in the back of Esperanza’s place, hoping to be wowed by the ambience. During some applause, I snuck back out and headed home, happy to affirm my hunch that this experience merited a spot in my new edition.

When I was half a block away, Esperanza ran out the door and charged after me. I thought she was angry that I left without paying a cover charge, or the door made too much noise, or I had insulted the musicians. Like a guilty little boy, I nearly ducked down an alley and ran away. Then I decided to turn back and “face the music.”

She apologized for not welcoming me and begged me to come back for a glass of port and to meet the musicians. The rest of the evening was a plush experience, and next year travelers with my book will help Esperanza — whose name means "hope" — keep the art of Fado singing alive in Évora. Sweet!

Posted by Rick Steves on April 13, 2008
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I’m two days in Lisbon, and I can hardly stop to write up all I’m learning.

I’m staying in a hotel the tourist board put me up in. Every time I accept the tourist board's offer of a free room, they seem to be pushing a “design hotel” — where function follows form. Everything is clever yet impractical. The outdoor sign is knee level and tiny — I walked past the place several times. The lobby is vast, but there’s nowhere to sit. The room’s very chic, but no drawers, no hooks, no rack for towels, and not even a bar for the roll of TP. Coffee cups are V-shaped...to cool my drink ASAP. The tub comes with far-out lighting...but sits in the center of the room. Give me an old-fashioned hotel with a boring garbage can and knobs on the closet doors.

Still, I slept very well on my jet lag night. (Like I mess things up by anxiously re-clicking my mouse when things don’t happen fast enough on my laptop, I popped an extra quarter-tablet of Ambien at 4:00 a.m. after an earlier one didn’t seem to knock me out...and I slept until noon. I had to research on a tear to make up for the lost morning.)

The big question that everyone in the states seems to be asking is: How’s life over here, when Americans are spending what a guy on the plane called “the Bush peso”? Well, prices are actually pretty good (in Portugal, anyway). Here are a few examples of prices I’ve personally encountered on my first two days (with rough dollar estimates):

Getting in from the airport to my hotel by city bus — €1.50 ($2.25)

Glass of good red wine in a very characteristic pub — €1 ($1.50)

Dinner of fish, potatoes, and salad with a glass of wine — €10 ($15)

Cover for a great evening of live Fado music — €7 ($10.50)

Most expensive sight admission in town — €5 ($7.50)

Buying a new cell phone (unlocked for use anywhere in Europe, and including €10/$15 of calling time) — €40 ($60)

Ferry ride across Tagus River to leave town for a salty waterfront dinner — €1 ($1.50)

Typical taxi rides around town — €4 ($6)

Lisbon is well into its European Union upgrade. Cobbles no longer have the grit of life ground between them. Once-characteristic fish stalls are off the streets and into “more hygienic” covered shops. Widows no longer wear black. The old fishermen’s families in the characteristic Alfama (one of the places that charmed me into becoming a travel writer back in the ‘70s) are now replaced by immigrant laborers.

The traditional fisherman widow’s blues, or Fado, is still filling characteristic bars. Fado is like a musical oyster — sexy and full of the sea. While most tour groups go to big, stuffy, venerable venues, I like the amateur bars where old-timers croon and diners pay only for their sardines and green wine.

I went to the Clube de Fado, where a well-established Fado star provides a springboard to Fado stardom for a new generation of Fadistas (Fado singers).

A diminutive Norah Jones look-alike wailed soulfully, while the man next to me said, “In Portugal, the women are like sardines — the smaller, the better.”

Posted by Rick Steves on April 09, 2008
Comments (16)

I have had the wildest week.

Last weekend, I performed with the Seattle Men’s Chorus (the biggest gay men’s chorus in the country) at McCaw Hall, the Seattle opera house. We did a fun musical extravaganza about Europe and the value of travel.

Early this week, I was featured in a New York Times editorial by Tim Egan (to see it, Google "Rick Steves Egan"...but skip it if you're tired of my drug-policy stance).

My little sister’s in town from Rhode Island. It’s extremely rare that all five in my family are in the same place at the same time. We’re remembering my 95-year-old Grandmother Erna, who passed away a couple of months ago. (She came over on a WWI-era boat to homestead in Edmonton, Alberta — living what to me is the classic emigrant’s life and leaving a huge and happy American family.)

My friend David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, was just interviewed on Bill Moyer’s show (airing tonight on PBS). David said that after he suggested Bill have me on to talk the value of travel, my favorite TV journalist said he’d be interested.

My daughter Jackie has been accepted to four great universities (Claremont, Notre Dame, Grinnell, and Whitman) and will hit the road with Anne next week for an in-person look to make the tough decision smartly.

Tomorrow, we are teaching an all-day travel festival that will inundate our little town with travelers.

And the day after tomorrow, I fly to Portugal, kicking off a two-month trip. I’ll be in Portugal for two weeks (researching our guidebook), in Greece and Turkey for three weeks (making TV), and researching in Italy (Amalfi Coast and Cinque Terre — I took the good assignments this year), Germany, and Paris. I’ll fly home for Jackie’s graduation in June.

There you have it. A cheap “what’s up with Rick” entry before hopefully blogging some fun travel experiences in the coming weeks.

Next stop: Lisbon!

Posted by Rick Steves on April 04, 2008
Comments (24)

With the poor health of our dollar, more and more people are asking, “Which places are less expensive?” My first reaction is to remind people: “If your travel dreams are taking you to Ireland, and things are cheaper for Americans in Portugal, your best value is still Ireland — it’s just essential that you travel smart.” Clearly, a good traveler can enjoy a better experience in an expensive country (such as Ireland) for less money than a sloppy traveler bumbling around in a cheaper country (such as Portugal).

Having said that, it is still worth considering the relative cost of traveling in various European countries. It does vary substantially, and we’ve worked hard on this chart to help travelers compare apples to apples.

When we embarked upon the project, I was sure it was a great idea. But in actually trying to put this together, we realized that it's tough to truly compare apples to apples. I know hotel values in Paris are much better than in London...but the figures don’t bear that out. Anyway, here’s what we came up with. (Your suggestions on making this more helpful are welcome.)

 

 double room at budget hotel / B&B double room at mid-range tour hotel double room at splurge hotel cheapest sleepable hostel bunk typical main dish at dinner for a mid-range eatery cost of a Big Mac one ride on subway or local bus one-hour train ride to a nearby town entrance fee at a top museum
Rome $135 $200 $300 $30 $15 $4 $1.50 $11 $18
Paris $125 $195 $290 $33 $25 $4 $2.10 $19 $15
London, Dublin $120 $225 $330 $40 $20 $4 $2-4 $40 $20*
Amsterdam $110 $165 $250 $30 $22 $4.50 $2.40 $20 $14
Munich $95 $125 $200 $20 $15 $5 $3.30 $23 $10
Madrid, Lisbon $80 $130 $200 $25 $16 $3.50 $1.25 $5 $8
Copenhagen, Oslo $130 $180 $300 $35 $25 $6 $4 $22 $16
Zürich $120 $180 $250 $40 $28 $5 $2.40 $23 $8
Vienna $100 $150 $230 $25 $15 $4 $2.55 $20 $15
Prague $125 $180 $250 $20 $15 $2.50 $1 $6 $12
Budapest, Kraków, Dubrovnik $90 $120 $240 $20 $15 $2.50 $1.50 $6 $10
Athens $95 $140 $220 $30 $15 $4 $1.20 $5 $10
Seattle $100 $150 $250 $25 $15 $3.50 $1.75 $10 $15

*Many top museums are free in London.

Fine Print: All prices here are extremely approximate, based on the most recent edition of Rick Steves guidebooks to the areas (and assume the exchange rate €1 = $1.50). All hotel rates are for a double room with private bathroom, during peak season (typically June-Sept), and include breakfast. Train prices are for one-way, second-class tickets on regional (non-express) trains, and do not include reservations or supplements. For simplicity, some similarly priced cities (such as Copenhagen and Oslo) have been combined.

Posted by Rick Steves on April 01, 2008
Comments (19)

Thanks for the feedback...

We are just now sending out our researchers to every corner of Europe as we update our series of guidebooks. My assignment: Portugal — where, for 10 days, I’ll visit these cities with a long list of places to check and feedback to run down. We used to get feedback by mail. Now it comes to us by email. My staff collects and distills it. This pile of suggestions from our readers (we focus our energy mostly on the negative ones) is what I’ll pack along with my little bag as I fly away in a few days...ready to make our Rick Steves' Portugal guidebook better than ever. (Remember that all of this feedback is unverified — take it with a grain of salt...just like I do.)

Portugal Feedback, distilled March 2008

General

Car Rental: Include info about CDW when renting cars in Portugal. Had CDW coverage with credit card, so didn't purchase from the rental company. But when we got to Portugal, they didn't honor that since our agreement is with credit card, not the car rental company. We had to buy the additional CDW (approx. 100 Euros), so our rental was 33% more expensive than planned. The lady at the counter said that if we'd booked our car through the rental company's Portuguese website instead of the international site, we'd have been told this.
Money: Get cash before entering Portugal. Many people couldn't use Mastercard/debit card in Portugal. Readers had bankers insist that it would work because it had the Mastercard logo on it, called their bank confirming there were no holds and that everything was okay, they had plenty of money and the bank knew they were traveling. Had trouble for hotel payments, ATMS, at restaurants. NOTE FROM A READER: The Portuguese banking system is still primitive by international standards. MultiBanco is a Portuguese bank association. Most merchants, especially outside the main tourist areas, only take MultiBanco credit cards, but many merchants are not even aware that they are not the same thing as Mastercard, etc. When you go to a specific MultiBanco ATM it only connects to the international ATM networks associated with the owning bank. So the Mastercard symbol means that you can probably get a cash advance out of the machine, but can't get money from your personal bank account. To get money from your U.S. bank account, look at the other symbols on the back of your ATM card to find the associated ATM networks. Almost all machines will accept either Star or Cirrus.
Food: Had a few excellent meals, but food in general was disappointing. Many restaurants in the book are closed/opening times incorrect, add more translations of soups.
Language: No one says Adeau; use Ciao for goodbye.

Lisbon

Lisbon General
Viuva Lamega tile shop: moved from Chiado; store in the NE part of Baixa--Largo do Intendente, 25 1100-285 Lisboa Tel: 218 852 408. Belem: Map needs adjusted--suggests that the Alges train stop is right next to the tower of Belem, while almost a mile apart (map suggests it is drawn to scale, which is misleading).
Several readers disappointed with city--dirty and overrun with drugs and prostitution. Getting through the airport was an absolute nightmare; it was totally chaotic and the immigration agents had no control over the unruly crowd. My 52-year-old mother was literally shoved to the ground and similar incidents happened about every 15 minutes. It took us over two hours just to get our passport stamped so that we could leave the country.
Parking: very expensive (used an underground car park in Restauradores and didn't move the car 3 days while in Lisbon--cost €130, almost $200).
Took the train from Lisbon to Lagos from the Entrecampos station--easier and faster to get to from my hotel by bus and/or metro than Oriente.
No longer Amex office (p. 46).
No "free guided tour" for Sao Jorge (p. 59) (Oct 2007).
Trolley fares: reader confused as to who and when you pay fare. In one place we say pay the driver, then lower down we say pay the conductor. Are these the same guy? Also, reader shook down on the #15 to Belem by 4 uniformed men who took their passports and then fined them ¬210.60 in cash on the spot for not having already paid the fare. The readers say they really were intending to pay but didn't see anyone to pay on board. Is the procedure different for newer buses? Were the uniformed guys legit? If so, we should add a warning about how not to run afoul of them. If not, we should warning about scam.

Lisbon Sights
Barrio Alto overlook view from a terrace near the Gloria funicular was fenced off for renovations.
LisboaCard is not necessary if you have a student card--then most museums are 1/2 off/free).
Cristo Rei: In Cacilhas across the Tagus from Lisbon, bus 101 doesn't operate every 20 minutes--sometimes there is a 40-minute gap, so allow plenty of time. Also, the Carris transit cards don't work, so get a ticket at Cacilhas before taking the bus.
Lisbon fado museum (near Santa Apolonia) is really wonderful and a great intro to fado.
Directions in 2007 book for getting to the Gulbenkian Museum are terrible--provide street names and distances rather than "walk downhill".
Bus is so easy but never mentioned. Also, include name of sight in Portuguese, not just English.
Lisbon walking tour: called Lisbon, city of Spies. José, a super friendly/charming, awesome price, good English, gave a fab 2.5 hour tour.
Your recommended guide had to cancel but set us up with Rita Mateus, 011-351-966, who was great.

Lisbon Sleeping
Pensao Santa Cruz: Oswald was VERY kind BUT it is truly for the BUDGET conscious.
Hotel Lisboa Tejo: Our room was extremely spacious and clean--but street on the west side of the building was full of young and very busy prostitutes--pretty social in the later hours of the evening and the noise made it difficult to sleep.
Pensao Residencial 13 da Sorte, Lisbon on page 99 of 2007 book no longer open mid-Nov 2007. A sign referred guests to another location in the city.

Lisbon Eating
A Baiuca in the Alfama: once it fills up (about 8 PM), the earliest space available is 11 pm, so get there before 8 and make reservations. Reader rec: Restaurante Maria da Fonte, Largo Chafariz de Dentro (Alfama), Rua de S. Pedro, 5-A for a nice fado experience Thu-Sun. Three singers and two guitarists in this tiny resaurant with no more than twelve tables. It was a thoroughly enjoyable show and the food was not bad at all.
Reader rec: Bonjardin has the most flavorful roasted chicken, french fries & sangria, setting is great fun, outdoor seating in a lively area.
Fix map on Barrio Alto to reflect both fado places with the same name - Canto de Camoes. Only the overpriced one is included on the map--so missed the more authentic place. Describe better the location of the jijinga (sp?) bar since it's hard to find when it's closed.

Fatima

If you take the train from Lisbon to Fatima, you'll be stuck with a big taxi fare. Upset people in the train station were pooling their money.

Sintra

Queluz-Belas--good stop on Sintra train line, easy, 20-min walk from station to Queluz Palace--no crowds, made seeing Tile Museum redundant.
Reader rec: Sidecar Touring Co: 8 1/2 hr-guided tour in a motorcycle with sidebar for 112 euros (20% off with the Lisboa card) for two people, owner, Joao de Lemos Soares, door to door service, 14 bikes in great condition, drivers go through all sorts of training, never felt in danger, www. sidecartouring@netcabo.pt.
Pena Palace: Sun morning discounts apply to the gardens--not the palace itself. There are Sunday morning discounts for the Moorish castle, though--so reverse book rec. so people visit Moorish Castle first and then Pena PalaceT. Cost is 10 euros combo ticket for Pena Palace/Moorish Castle. Sunday day trip to Sintra from Lisbon not cheap (with 3.20 euros round-trip by train and the 4.00 euros 434 Scotturb bus).
Inside Lisbon gave great daytrip to Sintra/ Cascais, guide Edgar fantastic, much better than the walking tour guides with the same company, http://insidelisbon.com/EN/en_passeios_sintra.htm. Reader rec: Hotel Alif, http://www.hotelalif.pt/.
Cabo da Roca: TI that sells certificates closes at 18:30 or 19:00, and the bus from Cabo da Roca stops running at a certain time...about 19:45 or so. I just barely made the last bus.

Evora

Restaurante Cervejaria 1/4 Para As 9 (quarter to nine) has wonderful arroz de tamaboril - rice and seafood stew. Owner rec: www.monteserralheira.com, monteserralheira@mail.telepac.pt, Lucia van der Feltz. Batata Quente Restaurante has closed (now a pizzeria there). Alentejo area section incomplete: really interesting places, wineries, cheesemaking places, great place to visit. Portuguese people said that about three years ago people from North America stopped visiting and they have no idea why.

Nazare & Nearby

Some places recommended in Nazare are now closed.
Locate Nazaré Amada rooms on the map and try to get a specific address on Rua Adrião Batalha, tel. 262-552-206, mobile 962-579-371). Percebes available only in the spring/summer, so I was told. The beach dancers are on their break until about late March or so. Reader rec: Quinta Princesa do Pinhal, 3 KM north of Nazare, this beautiful B&B, 9 bedrooms, a swimming pool and fresh fruit from Leonhilde's orchard, fluent in English, www.princesadopinhal.com. In the summer, almost as touristy as the Algarve--can't believe there's a chapter on this place.
Julia Pereira rooms: Asking for ocean view means you face plaza, which has very noisy bar, very loud music until 4 am and then people come out yelling, talking, whistling. You also couldn't see the ocean because of the distance to the water and the large stage. Alcobaca: National Wine Museum (p. 187) permanently closed. (10/07)

Coimbra

Felt book overrated this destination.
Had very bad time driving into the city, and chose badly from suggested activities.
Driving to Coimbra from Spain was difficult-not clearly marked.

Porto

Cover Porto better--wonderful, but not if you try to drive in it. The Port lodges in Vila Nova de Gaia are worth a visit.
Solar do Vino do Porto just showcases of lots of bottles of Port, unfriendly, unhelpful guy there, four of us were the only visitors there on a Saturday afternoon.
Guimaraes: great side trip from Porto.
Add more detailed directions from Porto to the Douro Valley--info gap between Armarante and Mesao Frio; hard to find N-101 just east of Armarante near Maladena.

Douro Valley

Many readers said include more on Duoro Valley-- highlight of trip yet book coverage seemed an afterthought.
Pousada Solar da Rede: For the expense and stiffness of service, the quality of the food was not worth the splurge.
Reader rec: D.O.C., a delightful riverside restaurant in the Douro Valley, is located between Regua and Pinhao (closer to Regua). Roy, the owner, walked us through everything he served, providing commentary in broken English on preparation, ingredients and anything else he wanted to talk about. He worked hard to ensure that we savored the meal at his new restaurant. It was a memorable dining experience, a definite worthwhile splurge. Tel: 254-858-123. Email: doc@arisdouro.com.
Reader rec: Casa de Vilarinho de S. Romao, lovely restored 16th-century quinta between Pinhao and Sabrosa (drivers only). Six lovely rooms, private baths, swimming pool, outstanding view, vineyards, great breakfasts, relaxing porch, owned by helpful Christine Olzafabel von Zeller, must wind up/down gorgeous mountains on narrow roads with hairpin turns, but the surrounding villages worth it, just 2.5-hour drive to Santiago de Compostela.
Reader rec: Casa do Visconde de Chanceleiros outside Pinhao, Eu 120/day, breakfast included; dinner Eu 30, www.chanceleiros.com, owners (Ursula Bocking and her husband) are very knowledgeable, friendly, and fluent in English. The staff are local, have been with them for years, and the food is local, traditional, and wonderful. Pinhao had tiles), river boat tour, and walk by the river. Peso da Regua: Duoro Museum closed while the new museum is being built (7/07).
Santuario de Panoias near Vila Real, pre-Roman/Roman site of worship and animal sacrifice is a National Monument, connected to the Instituto Portugues do Patrimonio Arquitectonico. 7 km from Vila Real, through Mateus via EN322 toward Sabrosa. Brief film with audioguide in English and guide info around the various rocks, still marked with inscriptions and basins used in various sacrificial ceremonie; friendly bar across street.

Posted by Rick Steves on March 31, 2008
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I was recently asked to recount my "start as a travel guidebook writer." Perhaps you'll find this obscure history interesting. (If not...I'll be in Portugal in a week...which will enliven this blog with fresh from the field observations.)

I wrote my first book in the mid-1970s — accidentally — over years of giving my Budget Travel Skills talk at the University of Washington's Experimental College. The book matured and its structure tightened with the class. When a relative suggested I write a book, my first thought was, "You're crazy." Then I realized it was already there. I just needed to transcribe it from my mind onto paper.

In 1979 a little battle was waging in my mind: Should I build a log cabin or write a travel book? I had the wooded lot in the Cascades, had picked the spot for the cabin, and took a log-cabin building class. I even had a line on the trailer I'd live in while constructing the cabin. When the reality of peeling logs and aging them set in, the competing big project, writing the book, won out.

I wrote Europe Through the Back Door by simply writing out my lectures. The book came out almost effortlessly. My girlfriend typed it, my UW roommate sketched the illustrations from my favorite photographs and my dad's friend, who was in advertising, helped me design the cover. Corrections were typed, carefully cut out and glue-sticked onto the pages. And one winter day in late 1979, I drove the precious 180 pages of that first edition an hour north of Seattle to Snohomish Publishing with a check for $2,400. A few weeks later I drove home with two thousand books in the back of my station wagon.

I was so green, I forgot to put on an ISBN. The cover was so simple, people in the media thought the finished product was a pre-publication edition. But it sold. In 1981 I invested in typesetting for the second edition. (I remember rationalizing the substantial expense because typeset copy took up ten percent fewer pages than the same typewritten copy.) In 1982 the book looked less like the Beatles' White Album when I put a sketch of "the" back door (an old door in Rothenburg) on the cover.

In those first years, Ira Spring (of Mountaineers Books) and I went to computer classes — we were so in love with Spellbinder and our clunky Eagle computers. Cliff Cameron (of Signpost Books) would join me for brown bag lunches to explore ways to distribute books. I still remember my first customers: Cliff, who'd stick a box in his trunk before visiting bookstores up and down the Oregon coast; Leroy Soper, then the trade book buyer at the University of Washington Bookstore, who purchased several boxes (that was my first big break — one year they even had them on their Christmas table); George Bradt of Boston's Globe Corner Bookstore, who gave me my first out-of-state order. And then, the big break: Vito Perillo, of Pacific Pipeline, agreed to distribute it. He seemed to really enjoy giving self-publishers a boost. I'd meet Vito late at night in Seattle, where —as if passing drugs in the wee hours — I'd shuttle a couple of boxes from my trunk into his.

In 1984, for the fourth edition of Europe Through the Back Door, I landed a publisher. I was at a little book festival sponsored by the Edmonds Library in Edmonds' Milltown shopping mall. I remember meeting Lensey Namioka, author of the marvelous Japan: A Traveler's Companion, which I had used to get the most out of a trip there — and I didn't even know she was local. And across the aisle from me and my pile of books was Carl Franz and his pile of books — a whole pile of his (now classic) The People's Guide to Mexico.

Carl had wanted to meet me and I had wanted to meet Carl. When we finally met, we clicked, finding that we were both motivated by a love of travel and wanting to turn people on to that. I explained to him my frustrations of being self-published, and my fear that a publisher would take the fun out of the work. He sold me on his publisher, John Muir Publications (of How to Keep Your Volkswagon Alive fame). Back then, JMP was a hippie publishing house with a handful of books in their catalog and an interest in expanding their line of travel books. Turns out we were a perfect fit.

Steve Cary came to JMP and replaced the munchies with a serious appetite for book sales. I distinctly remember the American Booksellers' Convention in San Francisco when, walking down the street to the convention center, Steve and JMP boss Ken Luboff put their arms around my shoulders and said, "Rick, if you want to make it as a travel writer, you need to give us more titles to sell." (At that time, in the late 1980s, I had four or five titles.)

I got the message and have since then added about one book a year. Today, I have over 30 guidebooks in print (20 which are updated annually). JMP is no longer, but their wonderful spirit survives at Avalon Travel Publishing, my current publisher (who purchased JMP). I now have a well-traveled staff of 70 employed at the home office in Edmonds. The books are selling better than ever. And I'm one hard-working, and very happy, travel writer.

Posted by Rick Steves on March 27, 2008
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I enjoy the emails people circulate, but rarely add to that cyberspace clutter by forwarding them along. But this exciting news needs to be shared:

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English."

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c." Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favor of "k." This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f." This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the fourth yer, people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v."

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

Posted by Rick Steves on March 26, 2008
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I love to journal while on the road. I'm writing a short essay on the value of journaling. This is my first draft. I'd enjoy any suggestions on how to make this shorter, yet more effective in inspiring travelers to put pen to paper in a journal:

Travel can make you a poet. Travel can be spiritual. By venturing far from home and looking back, you can better understand home. Traveling challenges truths you assumed were self-evident and God-given. It rearranges your cultural furniture. By traveling, you learn about yourself.

But without capturing your thoughts on paper, the lessons of travel are like shooting stars you just missed...and butterflies you thought you saw.

Your journey is a facet of your broader life. Journaling thoughtfully relates your travel experiences to your life in general. It brings meaning to eurekas that might otherwise have eluded you. Collecting intimate details on the road and then distilling them into your travel journal sharpens your ability to observe and builds a souvenir you'll cherish for a lifetime.

Enjoy the physical act of putting pen to paper in order to capture then organize the thoughts and experiences that wash ashore with each day of your trip.

If your life is a canvas, travels bring new color. And journaling is like a painter standing back every once in a while to both understand and enjoy the art as it unfolds.

The discipline of journaling as you go is critical. Capturing feelings and intimate details is like enjoying a good espresso — it's only right when still hot and steamy.

My wish for you: happy travels and — with the help of your journal — both meaningful experiences and vivid memories.

Posted by Rick Steves on March 23, 2008
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I'm just back from a trip to Washington, D.C. and it was an eye-opener. The main purpose of my visit was to accept the Wittenberg Award from the Luther Institute for service to the public and my church. It was a great honor, and the event gave me a chance to give my "Travel as a Political Act" talk to an audience in a city that lives and breathes politics.

Sitting in that packed church, a travel writer from Seattle, listening to music chosen and sung in my honor (Robert Louis Stevenson's "Songs of Travel") and listening to church and seminary leaders talk about my work was a little intimidating. But having the opportunity to give my talk to this crowd inspired me as much as anyone. The reception was a festival, and it turned out to be a great and energizing way to kick off an intense and very political couple of days.

While I was in D.C., I worked with the citizens' action group Bread for the World to lobby members of Congress to follow through on America's commitment to the Millennium Development Goals (to join other nations in giving one percent of their budgets to developmental aid), and to encourage our nation's decision-makers to see that people need development aid beyond military aid.

In a week when Colombia was given $5 billion in military aid to fight its drug war (as one Congressman put it, "That sells American helicopters"), Bread for the World lobbyists and I were busy buttonholing congressional members and staffers to advocate for the needs of hungry people around the world and to ask for $5 billion in developmental aid.

The schedule was brutal, and in my pint-sized escort, Rachel, I met my match when it comes to walking fast down long, long corridors.

I was fortunate to have in-person visits with Senator Patty Murray (who has since voted in favor of the Biden-Luger Amendment to keep our developmental aid strong, for which all BFTW members and I are thankful), Congressman Norm Dicks, Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson, and the staffs of Mark Kirk, John Carter and Tom Latham.

BFTW knew who was Lutheran, who was a fan of my guidebooks, and who had been on recent trips and wanted to meet me. They were unabashed about using these excuses to get into those offices and sit down to lobby for the needs of the hungry and homeless.

My own congressional Representative, Jay Inslee, and Representative Rick Larsen of Washington's 2nd district, sponsored an event in the Rayburn House Office Building attended by 60 church leaders, Congressional staffers and others. I spoke for half an hour, followed by a spirited question-and-answer period and messages from three members of Congress.

I was also invited to be the featured speaker at a German Marshall Fund luncheon, where 40 people with a passion is transatlantic cooperation gathered to hear my take on the value of the US overcoming its isolation and working more constructively with its international friends on poverty, peace and justice issues.

During my many conversations, I picked up on some interesting phrases that are trendy in D.C. these days:

"Soft Power" — The idea that the US can wield its influence and accomplish its goals more effectively by helping people with constructive developmental aid, rather than threatening with military force and rewarding with military aid.

"The Brand of America" — The notion that the goal of the US being liked and respected is that people worldwide will be inclined to buy our products...and the realization across the political spectrum that this "brand" has taken a pretty big beating in the past decade.

"Quietism" — The sense among progressive Christians who, while frustrated by our government's priorities, feel (unlike some conservative Christians) that it's inappropriate to incorporate their religious values in political discourse.

I returned home impressed with the constant grind of people advocating for their financial needs in the Capitol. The math is depressingly simple: Any interest (no matter how noble) that is not forcefully lobbied for will simply be pushed aside by others that are. If a Congressman gives money to Interest A at the expense of Interest B, it's not because he doesn't like B...it's just that he gave in to A's demands, and the money had to come from somewhere. That's how good and caring members of Congress appropriate funds in ways that hurt hungry and desperate people.

I left Washington D.C. with a deeper appreciation than ever for the dogged work done by Bread for the World. And, frankly, exhausted after two days of playing hardball for soft power.

Posted by Rick Steves on March 21, 2008
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A magazine recently asked me a few questions to get an American’s take on France. I thought my responses might be blog-worthy:

Tell me about your first visit to France.
My first memories were as a 14-year-old schoolboy: gazing up at the Arc de Triomphe, thinking it looks old but isn't; discovering the wonders of a crêpe with sugar and butter; venturing into a subway system for the first time, then emerging to turn the corner and see the Eiffel Tower...and thinking, "I love to travel."

What aspect of the French culture do you like the most?
The way smart people do things differently than we do, with no apologies. The way proud people are not bullied by American ethnocentrism. I was raised thinking cheese is orange and the shape of the bread. I am humbled to find people evangelical about fine cheese. I am inspired by French people who find their niche in life (whether it be doctor, lawyer, baker, or tour guide) and fill it with pride and panache.

How good is your French?
My French is terrible. I quit French in high school when I couldn’t remember the many variations of the sound “uhn” in French. I am tone-deaf to French (unlike Italian or German, which I find much easier).

What is your favourite French museum?
France is filled with great museums. These few come to mind: The Marc Chagall Museum (actually designed by the artist) in Nice; Unterlinden Museum (with the Isenheim Altarpiece) in Colmar; and Paris' newly renovated Orangerie (with Monet’s Water Lilies and much more) are all great. The Jacquemart-André Museum in Paris offers an intimate peek into the domestic world of 19th-century aristocratic France. The Caen Memorial Museum is great for WWII.

What or where, in your opinion, is France’s best-kept secret?
I can be in Lyon and enjoy an elegant French urban scene with no hint of crass tourism.

Many Americans choose to visit Paris. Where can you recommend that is off the beaten track?
See Paris as a collection of villages. Find a village street and — as a temporary local — shop, taste, and browse your way down it with all the Parisians. Some of my favorite moments in Paris (and I can’t vouch for the safety) have come when walking around late at night. Jardin du Palais Royal, Place des Vosges, Ile St. Louis, Ile de la Cité...delightful just before bedtime.

Tell me about a memorable meal you’ve had in France?
(Given the state of our dollar, I’ll use a humble meal.) I was munching a baguette with Emmentaler cheese and sipping my box of juice on a bench in front of the floodlit Chartres cathedral. The bum on the next bench leaned over. We both acknowledged how life is good, and this Gothic church — glowing against a starry night sky — was gorgeous. And he reached his hand out with a plastic bottle to offer me a sip of red wine.

Posted by Rick Steves on March 18, 2008
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To me, consumer travel shows are carnivals of crass materialism. Walking the halls, I wonder how many of the participants really believe in what they’re selling. Sure, there’s good information hiding — but it’s a challenge for a visitor to sort through the advertising to find it. Slaloming past human Statues of Liberty and boy-toy human peacocks marathon-dancing to steel drum bands, I considered the various slogans tourist boards and travel companies posted to lure potential travelers to their booths.

Puerto Rico — No passport required. (Why would a traveler want one of those?)

Rock N Roll Fantasy Camp. (Imagine lunching with Elvis look-alikes on your next vacation.)

Jamaica — Once you go...you know. (You do?)

Eldertreks — Exotic adventures for travelers 50 and over. (I made it...old enough for a tour company with “elder” in its name.)

Nevis — Everything you’ve heard is true. (Can “nothing” be true? I learned it’s an island in the Caribbean...apparently a nice one.)

Bimini Bay — A paradise beyond imagination. (They underestimate me.)

Israel — Who knew? (Is there something I should know?)

Fiji Me. (Kalamazoo you.)

LOT Polish Airlines — You’re under our wing. (How does it smell?)

Air Ambulance Card — We bring you home. (No thanks.)

At the Saxony tourism booth, at first I saw no sign or slogan, just two men in black suits.

Still, each year we ship our best tour salespeople and tons of brochures to these shows (in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York)...getting the word out to people who come by the booth to say, “You’re taller than you look on TV. I love your TV show and we never miss your radio podcast. Oh, I didn’t know you did tours.” I fly home thinking, “I guess travel shows are worth the effort.”

Posted by Rick Steves on March 14, 2008
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I’ve always wanted to go to a football ("soccer" to Americans) game in Europe. But it takes the better part of a day, and my research and filming schedule has never allowed it. Last Sunday, my son Andy and I finally got to see a game...courtesy of Stefano (who runs Hotel Oceania). It was Rome against Florence.

Converging on the stadium, Stefano parked on a curb (tipping a couple of thugs to watch — or maybe just not vandalize — the car). I find Rome’s stadium evocative: surrounded by Mussolini-era statues (each a stern and glorious fascist hero), and mosaics still heralding “il Duce” and showing the fascisti ("bundle of sticks" — so much stronger than a single, easy-to-break one).

They're cracking down on football fan violence all over Europe, and real progress is being made at taming the stands. Stefano said this particular game was considered high-risk for violence, so a single purchaser could only buy three tickets, and they wouldn’t sell seats together (something he’d never encountered). In order to lower the provocative police presence at stadiums, legions of security “stewards” are posted everywhere. You must show ID to buy a ticket, each ticket has your name on it, and you must show ID proving the ticket is yours to get in.

As it turned out, it was a tame game. But the spirit in the stadium is almost comically mean-spirited. At American college football games, when a player is down on the field, silence falls over the stands as players get down on one knee and pray. In Italy, when someone’s injured, they chant, Devi Morire! — “You must die! You must die!” Then, when the injured player is carried off, they sing, “You’re coming back, you’re coming back...in B division.” Why? Injuries are routinely faked.

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The area beyond the goal is filled with the cheap seats designed for the most avid fans — they stand and sing the entire time, waving huge flags and tossing firecrackers that sound like a cannon firing. Every so often, the loudspeaker reviews the various financial, criminal, and team penalties that come with violent actions and racist and outlawed slogans.

Stewards surrounded the small contingent of Florence fans like a riot squad. After the game, they stayed in their seats while the Rome fans departed. Then the Florentines were escorted safely to their awaiting buses to return home (in this case, sad after a 1-0 loss).

Posted by Rick Steves on March 10, 2008
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For a year now, I’ve been injecting politics into my travel blog. It’s what I do. This blog is my selfish delight: to sort through impressions I pick up on the road in search of real meaning...and then share them with others. I find writing for this blog curiously enjoyable.

If you want chat about fun in the sun, duty-free shopping, and frequent-flier miles, and you’re still looking here...I have to wonder why. There are piles of other, much better travel blogs for you.

Peter referred to me “starting problems” with comments about the Marine, and so on. What problems? I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. In fact, I hope everyone does not. (If I want easy compliments, I just call my mom. Here, I crave smart people to disagree with me and explain — without insults — why.)

I float these observations in the hope that others can share related travel-inspired responses. We are just finding that a few people waging one-on-one debates on tangential issues takes away the focus of this blog.

I like Jimmy’s comment about the spirited debates in the British House of Parliament as being fun as well as pointed. That’s what I’d love to foster here.

If my travel experience causes me to think my Dad is needlessly afraid of Muslims, and then I teach my child to finish table grace bobbing his cute little arms up and down while saying “Allah, Allah, Allah” — I can’t think of a more appropriate story to share on this blog.

If that offends you, and you insist on coming back for more...the beatings will continue until morale improves.

Posted by Rick Steves on March 08, 2008
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Thanks to everyone who's been posting insightful comments to my blog. I always enjoy hearing from this great bunch of "Road Scholars." But we've noticed that a few people are beginning to dominate the conversation, which makes other readers uncomfortable.

It's important to me that this blog remain fun, upbeat, and open to all travelers. Before you post a comment, please review our Posting Guidelines. Please stay focused on the blog's topic, and refrain from conversing back and forth with another individual (that's what email is for). Please don't post more than two comments to a single blog. If you feel you must do so, first ask yourself: Am I really adding something new to the discussion of Rick's topic? (Simply responding to other posters doesn't count...and contributes to the negative tone we're trying to avoid.)

As always, we reserve the right to delete comments that we feel are inappropriate — especially if it singles out another individual's comments, or if it's a back-and-forth chain between two or three readers. Again, I'd like to hear other travelers' take on issues I raise in my entry.

Thanks for everyone's participation, and for your help making this blog continue to be a fun resource for travelers!

Posted by Rick Steves on March 07, 2008
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The big sightseeing news in Rome: A new elevator zips people to the very top of the Victor Emanuel monument (€7, best view in town); the Forum is no longer free (entrance is now included with the Colosseum ticket); and the Vatican Museum finally has consistently long opening hours. (I wish I could credit my earlier blog entry, where I wondered if it was "un-Christ-like” for the pope to keep all those religious and art pilgrims waiting in interminable lines by limiting the Vatican Museum hours. But the wonderful new policies are thanks to the arrival of Antonio Paolucci, the new Vatican Museum director who earned hero status after sorting out the chaos of museum policies in Florence.)

Again I learn that for years, I’ve been screwing up my Italian. When sleepy, I’ve been saying, “Io sono stanco,” which means "I’m physically tired." To be sleepy tired — as in, ready for bed — I need to say, “Io ho sonno.”

A new wine-appreciation trick: Order tap water rather than bottled water at restaurants, and invest the savings in a better glass of wine. These days, while wines of Tuscany and the north (Brunello, Barolo, Amarone, and so on) are more famous and expensive, the wines of the south are rivaling them in quality and a much better value (look for Montepulciano d’Abruzzo and wines from Pulia, such as Pier delle Vigne).

Another change for the intermediate eater: osteria used to mean a humble, rustic, good-value eatery. Now an osteria is likely to be trendy and pricey. The new word to look for to find good value: enoteca. These wine bars serve great yet reasonably priced wine by the glass and pride themselves on simple menus featuring quality local and seasonal ingredients, well-cooked and economical.

Picnic-shopping, I bought 100 grams of prosciutto. At the cashier, after a generous triple wrapping of wax paper, it weighed 130 grams — you buy paper for the price of meat.

Always interested in new ways to connect with locals, I enjoyed a tip from an American woman I met in Rome: “When I see anyone with a dog, I make eye contact and put my hand out as if to pet an animal. This earns me a fun encounter and conversation with a local each time...along with a chance to pet a local dog."

Posted by Rick Steves on March 05, 2008
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Flying between London and Rome last week, I made friends with a couple of Japanese girls also flying home after a trip to London, Paris, and Rome.

They seemed as lost culturally in Europe as I was in Japan — clueless about the history, architecture, and cultural traditions, barely able to get past one-word communication (yummy, cold, expensive, beautiful, difficult are the Japanese words I remember, and the English words I hear from them)...but having a great adventure nevertheless.

I’ve always observed with a special wonder Japanese travelers snapping photos as if snaring memories of their trip. The clichéd image of Japanese tourists is taking photos — generally of each other — at famous places in Europe. On the flight I did something I’ve always wanted to do: I asked them to let me see all the photographs on their camera.

Along with all the “I was there” photos, I found some fun cultural memories: In Rome — cats (a cliché they’d heard of), no interiors (perhaps they didn’t want to pay or didn’t need to see), and focaccia (a favorite food). In Paris — chocolate (I remember Almond Roca was the most exciting thing an American could bring a friend in Tokyo), the Eiffel Tower bursting with lights (I called it “Tokyo Tower” to get an easy stretch of giggles), and McDonalds (pronounced mah-koo doh-nal-doze in Japanese...would you like a “big-oo mahk-oo”?). The London shots included a series of theatre marquees (they loved the plays) and making peace signs in front of Big Ben. (I wonder why young, female Japanese tourists always make a peace sign when they pose.)

The final shot in their collection was the crazy, curious American tourist they made friends with on the plane ride home who wanted to see all their photos. I knew they would want to take my photo.

Remembering how hungry I was for understanding and connecting with a local person in my Japanese travels, I can empathize with Japanese travelers treasuring making contact with a "local" like me (regardless of how fleeting or seemingly insignificant that contact might be). Now I, too, am a memory in a camera, somewhere in Japan.

Posted by Rick Steves on March 03, 2008
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I just spent a great week in Rome. Our son, Andy, is there for a semester abroad, and Anne, Jackie, and I dropped in for a peek at his experience. Andy and his schoolmates — most in their third year at Notre Dame — are becoming citizens of the world. As twenty-year-olds would, they have a different focus than older travelers. But even so, their lives are being enriched.

With Andy and his mates, I enjoyed seeing Rome through a different lens. I learned Italian clubs welcome the American kids with hip-hop. Then, well into the wee hours, when they’re ready for the tourists to head home, they switch over to techno. Several of the students came for a semester and (apparently undeterred by the techno) decided to spend the rest of their school days here. Rather than spring break in Fort Lauderdale, they head for Sharm El Sheikh — I never imagined all that MTV hormone activity on the Red Sea in Egypt!

The kids muscle three days of travel fun out of each weekend, hopping a plane (Andy just landed a $30 round-trip ticket to Sofia, Bulgaria) or sleeping on a train for someplace new.

It’s fun for me to see the budget traveler and tour organizer showing itself in my son. Last month, he led a gang of six friends to Gimmelwald, borrowing ski gear from our friend Olle and sleeping on his floor (and working to keep the one higher-maintenance kid happy). As soon as school’s out, Andy and his gang have their sights set on hiring a small boat with a captain for a low-budget Aegean cruise. He explained to me how eight kids sharing the rental cost is no more expensive than settling into a cheap hotel in Athens.

These are mostly Midwestern kids whose worlds — because they’ve traveled — are suddenly broader. They are insisting on fresh garlic for their bruschetta, marveling at how Italians are cynical and fatalistic about their politics (bringing back Berlusconi), and drinking tap water to afford a better wine. The boys celebrate, as if winning the lottery (at first I wrote “landing a prizewinning tuna,” but that seems a little crass), when they come home with the phone number of an Italian girl.

Andy says the rigor of the class load here is light. But as a dad — paying the tuition — I’m thrilled with the education he’s getting (and a bit envious that I never had a study-abroad experience in my college days).

Posted by Rick Steves on February 29, 2008
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My friend Claudia (a favorite local Roman guide among our tour groups) is spending a month in Seattle. She’s enjoying an extensive — and romantic — private tour with one of our ace American guides. They came over to our house for dinner, and I enjoyed quizzing her on culture shock an Italian might experience in the USA.

Claudia’s thoughts reminded me that a good guide is a keen observer of cultures. While she enjoys America immensely, she does have a few challenges here. Here’s a review of Claudia’s comments (the best I can recall them) as she settled into American cultural soil this month:

“In America, the cityscape leaves me feeling isolated. Buildings of steel and cement have no stories to tell. When alone in a city with a long history (such as Rome), your imagination keeps you company.”

“We Italians relate to urban space. American cities seem to be grid after grid...without public squares. Piazzas are fundamental to Italian life. At the piazza, you can imagine life in the past. Yes, with piazzas filled with people, I feel connected...not lonely. Sure, you have lots of people — but they are always going someplace.” (Her boyfriend replied, “Yes, in America, people work.”)

Claudia is loving the food here. Her favorites include the BLT sandwich and “chili soup.” While we lack people-filled piazzas, Claudia is charmed by our breakfast culture and that we “meet for breakfast.” You would never see families “going out for breakfast” in Italy. And she had never encountered a waffle.

After eating Italian in Seattle, it seems clear to Claudia that the typical American notion of “Italian food” is heavily influenced by peasant village Sicilian food (tomato sauce, big meatballs, and spumoni ice cream). It was the poor people who left Italy in droves for America, and they took with them not Italy’s high cuisine, but their peasant cuisine.

After plenty of eating out in Seattle, Claudia and her boyfriend developed a game. She claims that the average number of ingredients in an American restaurant salad or pasta is 8 or 10, while in Italy the average salad or pasta has only 4 or 5 ingredients. And she can’t understand our heavily flavored dressings. “If your lettuce and tomato are good, why cover it up with a heavy dressing? We use only oil and vinegar.” When I tried to defend the fancy dishes as complex, she said, “Perhaps 'jumbled' is a better word.”

Claudia’s favorite souvenir so far: a five-pound block of cheddar cheese from Costco. A favorite experience: going to a bingo parlor and learning to use a dauber. A big surprise: Going to an American football game and finding that they stop play to make time for TV commercials. “That would be unthinkable in Europe.” Politically these days, Italy is cynical and fatalistic. (They are preparing to see Silvio Berlusconi — an openly corrupt right-winger who makes GWB seem meek and mild — return to power.) Just waiting in line to get into an Obama rally, Claudia felt America was a country awakening. Seeing families together at a political rally astounded her, as she’d never see that in Italy. Claudia’s father cannot understand the appeal of a guy he calls “Alabama” — a man with charisma and vision, but little experience.

To Claudia, her father is emblematic of Italy’s political doldrums: “In Italy, there’s no renewal. We have the same old faces, over and over again. So it doesn’t surprise me that Berlusconi is back.”

Posted by Rick Steves on February 26, 2008
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A few quick answers to questions and comments on my last posting (the Copenhagen script):

Yes, I find Danes to be extremely happy. I think part of it is their commitment to social security. While people don’t get too far ahead, no one seems stressed out about covering their basic needs. And, for the Danes, small really is beautiful.

We need to be careful not to show too much skin, but PBS is not the only shy network. While cable stations don’t use “public airwaves,” the big commercial networks and PBS do. Since their use is granted by the government, the current Christian Right-driven prudishness has resulted in an FCC that is deaf to any reason. Therefore, TV producers like me need to deal with a law that makes any station that shows a "secretory gland" liable for a $225,000 fine. In plain terms, according to the current law, because a nipple, penis, anus, and vagina all secrete things, they are dirty. I can say those words, but I cannot show those things. (Forgive my testiness here, but I have a real problem with fig leafs in the 21st century. Porn is porn and tastelessness has no place on the public airwaves. But there's nothing pornographic about great art or Danes enjoying the sun.)

Do I write out what my local guides will say? No. But I have a sense of the points I’d like them to cover (assuming they agree with them) and I rough those ideas out in the script. My challenge is to get them to be concise (necessary for TV) without stilting their generally wonderful delivery. My producer gets upset with me when I coach them. But I need them to address certain key points. That’s the challenge. Bottom line: A local voice gives the show a wonderful extra element, and many things are better said by locals than by me.

How long did it take to write the first two sentences? That boring kick-off for the show is just a placeholder for what we call the “tease.” I need to introduce myself and the show, but work really hard to find something really goofy and surprising in the open (like in a mud bath, tossing a caber, marching with a military band, or riding in a horse cart with a dozen Turkish kids). That makes a good tease.

The other day, I was autographing my guidebooks at a store (my first time doing this at a "big box" store). As usual, customers lined up with the guidebook and a post-it note saying who they want the autograph personalized to. It was a great crowd--lots of enthusiasm. Right off the bat, two customers threw me for a loop: One had a sticky note that said, "to Doreen and Jane." I signed the book "to Doreen and Jane," and she showed me a second book and said, "That book was for only Doreen. This one's for Jane." The next customer handed me a book with a sticky note that said, "To Dad and Jerry." I wrote on the book, "Happy travels! To Dad and Jerry. Rick Steves." The lady looked at the book and said, "No. Dad's name is Thomas." After that, communication improved.

Posted by Rick Steves on February 24, 2008
Comments (35)

As I've explained in recent blog entries, I'm working on a script for an upcoming TV show on Copenhagen. Now I’ve established a structure and fleshed out a good seven-page script. Dedicating an entire show to one great city without any side-trips lets me cover it thoroughly enough, and still have a script that’s not too long. Simon, my producer, hates a too-long script because the show has “no time to breathe,” and we invariably end up shooting things that never make it into the program.

Notice a few special considerations for TV shows: how difficult-to-cover material (ideas with nothing visual to illustrate it) is indicated by "OC" (on camera); how the voice of a telegenic young local guide is worked in; how fun hands-on and tongue-on bits are interspersed with all the history and architecture (more lively, playful, and tasty bits are still needed); how nouns are frontloaded in the descriptions so you know what you’re looking at as soon as possible (that’s important in TV writing); how I worked in my bit of Lutheran Reformation history; and how we’ll get a healthy dose of Scandinavian skin (assuming we have a hot day and everyone’s out in the park and at the harbor).

Note also that I've included some social policies (traffic-free boulevards, loaner bikes, squatter community with ethics and responsibility, government program to employ the hard-to-employ) in the hopes that our society can be inspired by theirs. And imagine the fun challenge to sort through all the admissions, lighting considerations, and weather problems...and still manage to cover this script in five or six days.

With the national tourist board's help (they seem ready to open any doors for us), a few good solid days of sunshine, and the help of my friend and local guide Christian, this will be a great show.

Here’s our rough script. (Your comments are welcome.) It works now, but you’d be amazed how