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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! And don't miss Jackie Steves, blogging this month on her first trip without parents in Europe.

One of my favorite challenges is to spiff up the eating sections in my guidebooks. Because I’m famously simple in my taste among my family and friends, it seems odd that I have this power to recommend or not recommend restaurants in my guidebooks. While I would be hard pressed to judge the yellowity of the butter or the dentition of the pasta or the glimmer of the fish eyes, I manage to find and collect places that seem to please my traveling readers.

Having just completed my work in Edinburgh, York, Bath, and London, I am impressed by the passion couples (gay, straight, professional, or romantic) I find who run my favorite little places. Rather than big, highly advertised formula places, I like quirky little ten-table places that are the creative vision of these entrepreneurial restaurateurs.

Doing my research I rely heavily on the advice of B&B hosts (who have no vested interest in anything other than happy guests). If they’re good, it’s impressive how quickly new little restaurants gain a huge reputation.

In Edinburgh the Wedgwood run by Paul and Lisa (who served me the haggis with pigeon—my favorite haggis ever) is a delight. In Bath, Casanis French Bistro (run by Jill and Laurent) is open only a couple months and is already on everyone’s short list. (It’s fun to see a traveler fall in love with a chef, bring him home and start a winning restaurant.)

Not only new places are fresh. In Bath, at Tilly’s Bistro, Dave and Dawn have been at it for nearly two decades and still scamper up and down their stairs and weave through their tight tables like it was their debut. Enjoying a great cheese and port plate for desert I told Dave this was my idea of a fine desert. It didn’t surprise me that he admitted his deserts suffered a bit because he also was “passionate about cheese and port.”

Going back year after year, I often find the once magic place has ebbed and its talent is turning on taste buds just down the street. In Bath, Café Concerto has long been a favorite. I dropped by Café No. 8 and was blown away—everything that charmed my about Café Concerto at its peak and more. Then, savoring my figs with local blue cheese, I learned Martin who runs No. 8 came from Café Concerto.

I don’t like recommending chains but some are just too fun or right. The pan-Asian noodle slurp-a-thon Wagamama is everywhere now…and just as great as the day its first location took Soho by storm a decade ago. The Italian chain “Ask” seems to nab the best grand old dining hall in many towns and fill it with happy eaters enjoying decent pasta and pizzas at good prices. And how does Starbucks get the best real estate in each city? If I’m in need of a fix, I can intuit where they’ll put a branch.

In each town there seems to be a hot Italian place where as soon as you step in you know its going to be a fun evening (Martini’s in Bath, Il Positano in Edinburgh). There’s something about a gang of happy Italian waiters and cooks that makes you just want to drink red wine and slurp spaghetti.

English office workers make a routine out of getting a top quality sandwich. When going for a budget sandwich lunch, you might as well skip the tired chain and find the deli with the line of local professionals. York Hogroast dishes out great pork sandwiches in York. In Bath, at Chandos Deli, I just lingered on my stool enjoying my wonderful sandwich and glass of tap water while watching all the yuppies swing by for their take away meal. My son Andy reported that during his recent studies in London that each day he’d go to the same winning sandwich place which included free wi-fi and enjoy his meal on a shoestring while checking email.

Chinese buffets (like Jasmine, just outside Monk Bar in York) serve all you can eat meals for $12. That’s fun and cheap. But their take away boxes (fill one up for $7) can feed two and that has to be the best cheap hot meal going.

In general, I found British portions huge. Rather than 2 appetizers, 2 mains, and 2 deserts with wine for $70 each, a couple can order 2 appetizers, split a main, split a desert, and drink tap water--probably fill up fine, enjoy the same atmosphere, and get out for $30 each. Waiters seem to sympathize with the budget traveler these days and accommodate our cost cutting measures with a smile.

Great budget values in any town are the cafes in the market--where you can get baked beans with your breakfast all day long. And many churches have cafes where volunteers from the congregation serve up soup and sandwich for a price that’s not particularly cheap but you know you’re supporting a humble local congregation’s community work with your lunch money.

Good fish and chips joints are rare. In each town there seems to be one that is evangelical about grease and has won the undying allegiance of a passionate local following. One thing these winning chippies seem to have in common--a guy behind the counter who’s as greasy as the fish.

I was quite frustrated to find that many pubs that once served great pub meals are backing off on their pub grub to make more money selling beer. That attracts a younger and noisier crowd and it becomes no place to enjoy a meal. In the Victoria Station area near my favorite London B&Bs, I found my two favorite pubs were overwhelmed by drinkers. Thankfully, I found St. George’s Tavern (on Hugh Street and Belgrave Road) with famous sausages, a commitment to serving good pub meals, and three fine eating zones—scenic sidewalk tables, sloppy pub interior, and classier back room. In London now you’ll pay $25 for a good pub meal with a big glass of beer.

I’m purging my books of stupid things that, for some odd reason are just in all the guidebooks. I just deleted the paragraph about Spotted Dick (which I can’t remember seeing on a menu in the last decade).

So Spotted Dick can rest in peace, here’s what it said: Spotted Dick is a sponge pudding with currants. How did it get its name? Some say it looks like a spotted dog and dogs were called Dick. Another theory suggests that “Dick,” “duff,” and “dog” are all variants of the word “dough.” One thing’s for sure: the stuff isn’t selling very well today, thanks to the name’s connotation. Some are considering renaming it “Spotted Richard.”

Posted by Rick Steves on July 19, 2008
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Eddie the Verger is posted in his red robe with a warm smile at the exit of Westminster Abbey. His responsibility: to sort through those who want to go into the abbey to worship, and those tourists who fold their hands and reverently say, “I’d like a few moments with the Unknown Soldier, please.” (By masquerading as worshippers, sightseers can sidestep the £12 — or $24 — entrance fee to the church.)

Dropping by, I tell him I’m working on the Rick Steves book, and he says, “I’d like a word with that Rick Steves. He implies in his guidebook you can pop in to worship in order to get a free visit to the abbey.”

I tell him who I am and we sort it out. Really charmed by Eddie, I agree that rather than promote the fact that visitors can pop in anytime for free if they claim to be worshippers, I’ll encourage those tourists to actually experience the church the way it was designed to be experienced, by listing the busy daily schedule of worship services (for example, there is a sung evensong six days a week, when anyone is welcome for free).

Then Eddie took me into a place where no tourist goes — the Jerusalem Chamber, where the monks set up shop to actually translate the Bible from ancient Greek into English, creating the King James Version.

Knowing the dangers of getting the word of God into the people’s language, the potentially dire consequences for these reformers, and the importance of these heroic steps back in the 16th century, I got the same goose bumps as when I was in the Wartburg castle and saw the room Martin Luther holed up in while he did essentially the same thing for the German-speaking world.

Eddie deposited me in the abbey, and I visited like any other tourist — enjoying the great new audio tour narrated by Jeremy Irons. Listening to his soothing voice, I enjoyed some private time with great history: the marble effigy of Queen Elizabeth I, made from her death mask in 1603 — considered the most realistic likeness of her; the coronation chair that centuries of kings and queens sat upon right here in the abbey on their big day; the literary greats of England gathered as if conducting a posthumous storytelling session around the tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer (Mr. Canterbury Tales); the poppies lining the tomb of Britain’s Unknown Soldier — with the US Congressional Medal of Honor given to him by General Pershing in 1921 hanging from the neighboring column; the statue of Martin Luther King added as an honorary member of this now heavenly English host; and so much more.

The steep admission fee includes this marvelous one-hour guided walk with the best-designed audio wands I’ve encountered anywhere in Europe. (These things are really getting good.) I started my visit wondering if I should produce my own audio tour for Westminster Abbey. Now that the abbey’s audioguide is included in the admission, I’m off the hook. Instead, I’ll strongly encourage all who visit to take this tour with gusto.

Then I stepped across the street into the basement of the Methodist church for a cheap soup and sandwich, wrapped a Band-Aid around my toe — cushioning the first blister of my trip — and headed out for more of London.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 15, 2008
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I’m having a great time researching my guidebook in England. I really am. But a few things are bugging me. I just need to vent for a minute. I love traveling in England and still marvel at the fun of it — but those coming this year on a budget will need to cut a few corners. From my experience, it's doable, and the essential fun of being in Britain is not determined by how much you're spending. Having said that...now let me vent.

I nearly got into an argument at the Bath tourist information office. I guess I was in a sour mood at how expensive things are, compounded by how greedy Bath, the most delightful (and probably richest) little city in England, has gotten. Tourism is its bread and butter, yet even the tourist office — now privatized — does its best to gouge visitors.

My guidebook listed the tourist office’s free phone number — the one dedicated to booking rooms. (The office gets a fee, plus takes a 10 percent deposit — which they pocket — and B&Bs then need to increase their prices to recoup the TI kickback. You and your host do better if you book direct.) I give that toll-free number to my readers for tourist information.

As I updated my guidebook information, they asked me to change that phone number to their 0906 number. In Britain, "09" in the prefix sends up flares. In each country, you need to watch out for costly phone sex-type prefixes. The Bath tourist office now charges a dollar a minute to ask them for advice on how to spend money in their overpriced town. They no longer give out maps, but sell a lousy little sheet for $2 — no better than the one hotels give out for free. More square footage in the TI is devoted to their retail shop than information. And a far handier map is for sale just steps away for $2.50.

Part of Bath’s desperate greed is because their spa project ran about $50 million over budget, and they’re trying to pay that back. Locals as well as tourists are being hit. A local told me that on the town’s picturesque Pulteney Bridge, which is open only to buses and taxis, the city hall was photographing unknowing tourists as well as sloppy locals and fining each vehicle that crossed $120. For a while, the city was netting $60,000 a day just on Pulteney Bridge infractions. (By the way, anywhere in Europe, tourists driving in city centers can unknowingly cross a no-go line and be hit with a huge fine by mail.)

Britain is really expensive, and apparently it’s tough for locals, too. Everyone is talking about the recession (they raise prices “because of the recession,” which makes no sense to me), the high cost of oil (they blame the USA), and the housing and mortgage bust (just like ours). Local minimum wage is about six pounds ($12) per hour, which I think has even less buying power than the minimum wage in the USA. Knife violence (four killings just yesterday) and the singer Amy Winehouse (she keeps slapping bouncers and being photographed with “blobs of white stuff in her nose”) seem to dominate the tabloids. Each day this week, wasted Amy has been shown oblivious to the sober world on the cover of the leading papers (the National Enquirer types dominate on the tube).

Part of the high cost of living is the fear everyone has of being sued or burned up in a fire. I can’t walk down a hall without having to open big, heavy fire doors. Whenever I encounter something really inefficient or absurd, locals say, “risk assessment.”

School kids are taking fewer historic field trips. Why? "Risk assessment...it's too legally risky for the schools." Some walking tours don't go if it's raining. Why? "Risk assessment...danger of an umbrella poking someone’s eye out." A male local guide refuses to do a tour if he has only one, female customer. Why? “Risk assessment...she may claim he molested her." Why is the water not really hot in my room? "Risk assessment...we don't want guests to scald themselves." Why can’t I open my window more than four inches? “Risk assessment... a baby fell out of a window once right here in London.” What?! “We have even more lawyers than you do. It’s ruining our country. A burglar can sue me if he’s rifling through my home and he trips on a stray cord.”

As long as you have money, there’s no risk that you won’t have a good time here in England. But bring your pointy umbrella and a lawyer just in case.

(By the way, if you haven't seen it yet, our daughter Jackie is writing a fun blog of her own about her high-school-graduation, no-parents-in-sight trip through Europe.)

Posted by Rick Steves on July 12, 2008
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Shaking off my umbrella, I stepped into my room exhausted after a long day in Bath, England. Blowing my nose, I noticed a spray of red dirt on the Kleenex...and I remembered the snuff.

Paul, who runs the Star Inn — the most characteristic pub in town — keeps a tin of complementary snuff tobacco on a ledge for customers. I tried some, and — while a drunk guy from Wales tried to squeeze by me holding two big pints of the local brew over my head — I asked Paul about it. He said English coal miners have long used it because cigarettes were too dangerous in the mines, and they needed their tobacco fix. Paul wanted me to take the tin. I put it back on the ledge and said I’d enjoy it the next time I stopped by.

Walking home through the English mist, I reviewed my day backwards. I was pleased that even by just researching B&Bs, restaurants, and pubs in one of the most cutesy and touristy towns in Britain, my day was filled with memories.

School’s out and, while I’m heading home, the streets are filled with young kids partying. English girls out clubbing wiggle down the street like the fanciest of fish lures — each shaking their tassels and shimmying in a way sure to catch a big one. As one passed me, eyeing a gaggle of guys smoking outside a pub, I overheard her saying, “No spray, no lay...no cologne, you go home alone.”

The rock star Meat Loaf was playing a big concert in the park, and during his performance, much of Bath rocked with him. While the concert was sold out, I gathered with a hundred freeloaders craning their necks from across the river for a great view of the stage action.

The musical highlight of my day, however, was a worship service at the Bath Abbey. Earlier I had logged onto www.bathabbey.org, and — bam! — the day’s schedule was right there: Sung matins service at 11:00, visitors welcome.

I’ve noticed that any on-the-ball B&B or guesthouse these days provides free Wi-Fi for guests, and more and more travelers are carrying laptops or handheld computers to get online. I need to be better about using the Internet — it’s how today's travelers book and buy things like train tickets while on the road.

The Anglican service was crisp, eloquent, and traditional. I was struck by the strong affirmation of their Catholic heritage, the calls for sobriety, and the stress on repentance (repeated references to how we are such wretched sinners). “Knife violence” (by gangs in the streets), which has replaced fear of terrorism as the main threat to communities in England, was a subject of prayers.

The Anglican worship ritual is carefully shuttled from one generation to the next. That continuity seemed to be underlined by the countless tombs and memorials lining walls and floors — worn smooth and shiny by the feet of centuries of worshippers. With the living and the dead all present together, the congregation seemed to raise their heads in praise as sunlight streamed through windows. (Bath’s particularly bright church is nicknamed “the Lantern of the West” for its open, airy lightness and huge windows.)

Glowing Bath stone columns sprouted honey-colored fan vaulting fingers, and cherubic boys in white robes and ruffs (old-time ruffled collars) filled the nave with song — making it a ship of praise. The church was packed with townsfolk, proper and still. Sitting among them, I was no longer a tourist. The scene felt timeless. I gazed at the same windows for the same inspiration that peasants sitting on these pews centuries ago sought.

The sermon was about Christian servanthood. The pastor’s stern comment about the USA took me by surprise: “If, after 9/11, that great Christian nation, the USA, took its responsibility to be a servant among nations seriously, how different our world would be today.” When he was finished and the offering plate was passed, his gentility also caught me off guard: “If you’re a visitor, please don’t be embarrassed to let the plate pass. It’s a way for our regular members to support our work here at the Bath Abbey.”

After the choir paraded out, the huge central doors — doors I didn’t even realize existed — were opened. Indoors and outdoors mingled, as the congregation spilled out onto the main square.

Bath is an expensive town in an expensive country. A young couple hired to manage an elegant Georgian guesthouse I recommend told me they took the gig just to live in Bath. (“Work-a-day English can’t really afford to live here.”) They have an apartment in the basement, but enter through the grand front door just to marvel at the elegant building they live in and manage.

I started my day joining a gaggle of curious visitors in front of the Abbey, where five of a club of 60 volunteer guides divided up the gang and proceeded to take them on a free town walk. My guide, a retired schoolteacher, explained that in 1930 the town’s mayor — proud of the charms of his historic town — took the first group gathered here on a free town walk...and “the mayor’s honorary corps of volunteers” has been leading free walks daily ever since.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 08, 2008
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After a few months of denial when it comes to the impact of our weak dollar on travel, I have to admit that I'm finding fewer Americans on the road. And at many sights that were notorious for crowds and delays, visitors no longer have to be as concerned about how to get in without a long wait. As I update my guidebooks, I find myself deleting related tricks and warnings (such as recommending booking tickets to Mad Ludwig's castles in advance). Part of the reason is fewer crowds. The other is smarter systems to move the masses through these popular sights.

It's fun to see tourism evolving with our age. When I started traveling, the elegant nighttime "son et lumiere" (sound and light) shows were a huge deal. People would bundle up, pay a steep price, and sit under the stars on folding chairs. They'd watch colored spotlights light up the ruined arches of static, old sights, as a cast of grand and evocative voices thundered the history of that place.

Whether listening to the spirit of King Henry at a château on the Loire, Napoleon at Paris' Les Invalides, great Greeks at the base of the Acropolis, the pharaoh at Giza, or Quetzalcoatl at the pyramids outside Mexico City, we would thrill to the sounds and lights bringing those stones to life. Nearly all those shows are now long gone.

In this fast-paced age, where special effects make "sound and light" shows as exciting as watching paint dry, traditional music shows are endangered as well. It's much tougher than it used to be to find quality Norwegian or Scottish folk shows. Only in Ireland has traditional folk music stayed strong in pubs. And a good evening of slap dancing and yodeling in the Tirol is going the way of the hokey-pokey.

Rather than spanking each other's lederhosen shiny, the people of Reutte, the town I often call home in Austria's Tirol, seem more focused in maintaining their community for their families. As an example of how committed the town is to maintaining its character, real estate there can be sold only to those using it as a primary residence. The people of Reutte saw that many other formerly vibrant Alpine towns made a pile of money, but lost their sense of community, by becoming resorts. These towns allowed wealthy foreigners — who just drop in for a week or two a year — to buy up everything. Now streets of these towns are shuttered up and dead for most of the year, and these towns have forever lost their real vibrancy.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 04, 2008
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Sir Rick, the first knight of Ehrenberg
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The sword of Sir Rick in its museum display case, Reutte, Austria
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Architect Armin and guidebook writer Rick celebrate atop newly excavated and restored castle ruins
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The Ehrenberg castle ensemble once guarded the Tirolians from the Bavarians
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I was in Hohenschwangau. It was "Mad" King Ludwig’s dad’s castle — Ludwig’s boyhood home. The walls were all painted in 1835 by a single artist, giving the place a Tolkien-romance-fantasy feel. Ludwig became king as a boy. And rather than live with the frustrations of a modern constitution and feisty parliament reigning him in, he spent his years lost in romantic literature and operas...chillin' with Wagner as only a gay young king could.

Nymphs lounged on his circa 1835 walls. Stars twinkled from the ceiling over his bed. A telescope was set up in Ludwig’s bedroom, trained on a pinnacle on a distant ridge where he could watch Neuschwanstein, his castle fantasy, as it was being constructed.

On my last visit, I peered through that telescope at Neuschwanstein-- the castle that inspired another boy named Disney. I could relate to this busy boy king. Bound by schoolwork and house rules, and with a stretched-out turtleneck and zits rather than crowns and composer friends, I, too, built a castle.

What I had that Ludwig lacked was a father who imported pianos. They came from Germany, encased in tongue-in-groove pine, sealed in a thick envelope of zinc sheeting. My treehouse was my castle: no parents reining me in, walls decorated with romantic circa 1968 magazines, nails sticking down through the ceiling just long enough to keep out bullies taller than me. With my sliding tongue-in-groove panels, I could see who was coming. With a shiny zinc roof, it was the envy of other little kings. There was no tree house like it.

On my first independent trip to Europe, I was 18. It was just after someone had purchased the vacant lot next to our house, and I had to tear down my tree house (epic bad day). I toured "Mad" King Ludwig’s Neuschwanstein — a medieval castle dream. Then, just over the border in Austria, I found the Ehrenberg ruins--a medieval castle reality.

Just a mile outside of Reutte, Austria, are the brooding ruins of four castles that once made up the largest fort in Tirol — Ehrenberg. This impressive castle ensemble was built to defend against the Bavarians and to bottle up the strategic “Via Claudia” trade route that cut through the Alps here as it connected Italy and Germany.

One castle crowned its mountain like an ornery barnacle. The others were lost in a thick forest. I hiked up into the misty mountain of meaningless chunks of castle wall pinned down by pixie-stix trees and mossy with sword ferns. It inspired yet confused me. The barnacle castle was below. The ruins were on the bluff above. Like a big, hungry starfish sits on its food, this rotten military fantasy was being eaten by the forest.

A decade ago I met Armin Walch — a Reutte man with a vision. He was born the same year as me and pursued his project like the Indiana Jones of castle archeologists. Today — with European Union funding — he’s cut away the hungry forest, revealed and renovated what he calls the castle ensemble, created an interactive museum, and is open for business as countless children with medieval fantasies can, in turn, leap from rampart to rampart...sword ferns swinging. (See www.ehrenberg.at for details and photos.)

With my 2008 visit, we celebrated. The Reutte hoteliers and tourism folks gathered in the castle like some old-time city council. We ate rustic cheese and smoked game with coarse bread. We swilled wine and clinked pewter mugs.

I was honored for bringing so many visitors to this remote corner of Austria, and gave a magnanimous impromptu speech about the wonders of Americans climbing through history far from home. I knelt before a man in a coat of mail who drew a shiny sword with my name etched upon it and was knighted — Sir Rick, first knight of Ehrenberg. (With uncharacteristic modesty and characteristic insistence on packing light, I requested that my sword stay in the museum as a special exhibit to the former castle-loving boy who brought American tourism to Reutte with his guidebooks.)

On the way back to my hotel, Armin begged me to stop by his house for a drink. Behind his humble old town facade, this dynamic architect hid a sleek, futuristic, and creative pad. It was a royal domain for Armin and his family — two kids cozy on the carpet and a strikingly beautiful wife who Armin bedazzled at the university in Vienna and took to remote Reutte with promises of a princely life and a bitchin’ castle.

With a schnapps from local herbs — unique to Reutte — in hand, we climbed boyishly to his rooftop, where Armin had designed and built a viewing perch. The floodlighting was on. The mountain overlooking his town was crowned by a castle that, in his youth, almost no one knew even existed. With his pretty blond wife suddenly romantic wallpaper, Armin took me to his telescope. We marveled at his castle ensemble.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 02, 2008
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For several years, I’ve marveled at how Berlin has eclipsed Munich in urban energy. I was just in Munich, and now it seems to be comfortable just being itself rather than trying to keep up with Berlin.

After the last couple of years — with the elevation of Joseph Ratzinger (the local archbishop) to the papacy, Pope Benedict’s wildly successful visit, and hosting the World Cup — Munich seems revitalized and on a natural high.

And tourists love Munich. Legions of young expat tour guides are in a brutal battle for the tourist dollar. Here in the beer capital of Europe, tours start late — giving backpackers a chance to sober up. Feisty small walking and biking tour companies train guides who then split off and offer tours for free (and just ask for tips at the end of the gig).

I’ve tuned into bike tours in Europe this year, and I like them more than I thought I would. That’s partly because of competition driving prices down to literally zero. A guy named Lenny offers free tours every day from Munich’s main square — and he’s a fine guide. In general, the guides dumb down their lectures with lots of silly legends, and refer to the beloved Frauenkirche as the “church with the Pamela Anderson domes.” But they are introducing many visitors to a facet of Bavarian culture beyond its famed beer.

My favorite local guide joined me for an evening of restaurant visits. Heading for the Hofbräuhaus, I mentioned I’d love to give it some meaning. He thought that was funny and quoted Freud: “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” We climbed to the beer-stained top floor hall where tour groups gather to pay €20 for an all-you-can-stomach buffet of traditional food and a yodel show. I did find some culture downstairs in the main and noisiest hall. The smoke-stained ceiling, repaired and repainted after WWII bomb damage, was an evocative mesh of 1950s German mod — Bavarian colors, chestnuts, food, drink, and music themes. And a slogan arcing across the ceiling above the oom-pah band read, Durst ist schlimmer als Heimweh (Thirst is worse than homesickness).

Wandering through the legions of happy beer-drinkers in the Hofbräuhaus, it occurred to me that, unlike with wine, more money doesn’t get you a better beer. Beer is truly a people’s drink, and you’ll get the very best here in Munich. Connoisseurs have their favorite brews — and to get it, they don’t pay more...they simply go to the beer hall that serves it.

Beer halls always impress me with their ranks of urinals. Munich had outdoor urinals until the 1972 Olympics and then decided to beautify the town by doing away with them. What about the people’s needs? The new law: Any place serving beer must admit the public (whether customers there or not) to use their toilets.

I struggled for a smooth transition from beer-hall toilets to a new synagogue and failed. Sorry.

Munich’s striking new synagogue is locked tight to the public, but it’s still worth a look for its powerful exterior — its lower stones are travertine, like the famous Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and the upper part represents a tent that held the important religious ware during 40 years of wandering through the desert until Temple of Solomon was built, ending the Exodus. Today (because Germany has agreed to accept religious refugees from the former USSR), the Jewish population of Munich has finally reached pre-Nazi levels — 10,000. And Munich’s Jewish community is understandably enthusiastic about its impressive new center, with a synagogue, school, and museum.

Posted by Rick Steves on June 27, 2008
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Sleeping on the train from Salerno to the Cinque Terre, I couldn’t stop thinking what a great job I’ve got: I was on a natural high after enjoying a wonderful guided tour of the Greek ruins at Paestum (which will be hugely helpful in next year's edition of my Italy guidebook), and I was about to wake up on my favorite stretch of Mediterranean coastline.

One of the joys of running my own company is that I get to choose my research chores each year. This year (along with my TV production work) I get to update the guidebook chapters on all of Portugal (except the Algarve), Naples/Sorrento/Amalfi Coast, Cinque Terre, Munich/Bavaria/Tirol, Paris, Amsterdam/Haarlem, Brussels, Bruges, Edinburgh, York, Bath, and London.

While the Cinque Terre is a huge favorite for my staff, no one wants to update the Cinque Terre guidebook chapter because the people here are so aggressive about staying in, getting in, or getting back in to the book. Every two years I grab the assignment, and it’s about my favorite four days of the season.

And with each visit, I meet with the director of the Cinque Terre National Park, a man nicknamed “the Pharaoh” for his grandiose vision and heavy-handed effectiveness. When I refer to him in passing by his nickname to people of the region, they do a double-take as if they never expected to hear this insider's term uttered by a foreign tourist.

After hiking to the top of Riomaggiore, I sat in the Pharaoh’s grandiose office. It’s littered with plans for park development, awards, and tourist promotion gadgets. He surveys me and I survey him, as we each matter to the other’s work. I explain to him that the region would enjoy more overnight visits (to the profit of struggling local seniors and the benefit of euro-stretching visitors) if the chaotic apartments-for-rent business were coordinated by village clearinghouses. He tells me of a school in the village of Corniglia that’s being renovated to house a big new hostel for 2009. I compliment the wonderful manager of the Manarola hostel. I complain of the ridiculous fines train conductors levy on innocent tourists who board a Cinque Terre train not knowing to sign their park transit passes first.

The Pharaoh takes me out onto his big balcony, and with a sweep of his hand, we survey his domain. Seeing a tourist lugging a backpack across the way, I shame him into promising that next year the park will provide a place for day-trippers to check bags for a more comfortable visit.

A big question for the region is the future of the Cinque Terre’s quirky nude Guvano Beach. The Pharaoh, like many locals, considers Guvano an embarrassment for the region. He said the park has the legal right of first refusal for the purchase of any land that goes up for sale, and they hope to buy the beach and end the nudity in 2009. Hiking the trail from Riomaggiore to the next town, I’m nagged by the difficulty I have believing that my son could have hiked the entire trail from town #1 to town #5 in just over an hour and a half (as he claims, and I recount in my book). With several hikers I meet making the case that this would need to be done at a steady run without any other hikers congesting the trail, I decide to take out the reference. But Andy insists it's true.

With this visit, I reinstate my sentimental first-ever recommended pension in the region — Pension Sorriso. I stayed here on my first visit in the mid-1970s. It was one of the very few places to sleep back before tourism hit the region. I’ll never forget the place, run by a family of huge people who seemed to spin and fill the kitchen like gears spin and fill an old-fashioned wristwatch. Dinners were a beggar's banquet of fresh fish and cheap white wine.

For 15 years, Pension Sorriso was the home of our tours in the Cinque Terre. Then, after a too-honest write-up in my guidebook, Sr. Sorriso’s wife decided to hate me. She hated me with a fiery venom like no one else in Europe hated me. In my favorite little magic wonderland in Europe, their place was a 20-meter stretch of lane I dreaded passing. We took our tour business elsewhere, and she demanded to have her hotel’s listing deleted from my guidebook.

Only after Sr. Sorriso died did I learn that for 20 years I was calling him Sorriso, when that word (which means “smile”) was simply the name of his hotel. For two decades I greeted him with a name that only I called him...and he just smiled.

Now their children — who are so cool they remind me of Sonny and Cher — run the hotel. I drop in (making sure I won't encounter their mom) and we click. We share some old stories, make some agreements for how they’d welcome my readers, and bam — I list 19 more good budget rooms in my book ($125 to $155 per double with breakfast, www.pensionesorriso.com).

That night I enjoy Miky’s, my favorite Cinque Terre restaurant in Monterosso, and the town doctor drops by to meet me. He’s beloved for happily hopping on his one-speed bike — with a virtual doctor’s clinic in his bag — and making house calls. He suggests I make a warning to tourists that freak waves kill. (In 2007, an American woman was swept from the top of a rocky breakwater to her death by one such wave.) I normally resist filling my guidebooks with motherly advice: be careful on the breakwater; don’t be on the trails after dark; don’t trust strangers; and so on. But this tip goes in.

After one of the best dinners of my trip and a quick blitz of the nightspots in Monterosso, I stroll back along the harborfront promenade to my hotel. There's one soul still out. It's Miky, the owner/chef of Miky’s. Still wearing his little white chef’s hat, he's enjoying a cigarette and sipping a White Russian. Both of us are capping an exhausting yet gratifying day of work.

Posted by Rick Steves on June 25, 2008
Comments (21)

Girls flirt with passing motorcyclists in Naples' Spaccanapoli District.
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Garbage takes up valuable parking real estate.
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All my life, Naples has been the symbol of chaos, stress, and culture shock for European travel. I remember my first visit (as a wide-eyed 18-year-old). Gene and I stepped off the train into the same vast Piazza Garibaldi that 35 years later still strikes everyone who visits as a big paved hellhole. On that first visit, a man in a white surgeon's gown approached me and said, “Please...we need blood for a dying baby.” Gene and I made a U-turn, stepped back into the station, and made a beeline for Greece.

Now I’m flying here from Iran (after a quick change in Paris). And, coming from Tehran, Naples is a model of order and sanity.

But coming from anywhere else in Europe, Naples remains uniquely thrilling. One of my favorite sightseeing experiences anywhere in Italy is simply wandering the streets of Naples. I spent an hour and probably a hundred photos just observing the teens on motorcycles in the vertical neighborhoods of the Spaccanapoli district.

Every few steps, a couple of James Dean-cool guys lean against lampposts while three or four girls straddling the same motorbike would cruise by as if playing Neapolitan Idol.

Everyone who knew I was going to Naples seemed to be obsessed with the garbage strike. Minibus-sized mountains of garbage were parked on the curb every couple blocks. It’s easy to make a big newspaper stink about it, but locals seemed to just hold their noses and know that someday this little piece of Naples chaos, too, would be dealt with. I smelled nothing.

In the spirit of finding cheap eats near major sights for my guidebook readers, I walked behind the Archaeological Museum in Naples and met exuberant Pasquale — owner of the tiny Salumeria Pasquale Carrino. Rather than do the cheapskate “how much?” question, I just let fun-loving and flamboyant Pasquale make me his best sandwich. He turned making a sandwich into a show, and I watched, enthralled.

Demonstrating the freshness of his rolls as if squeezing the Charmin, laying a careful pavement of salami, bringing over the fluffy mozzarella ball as if it were a kidney transplant, slicing a tomato with rapid-fire machine precision, and then lovingly pitting the olives by hand and then hanging them like little green paintings on a tasty wall, he finished it all off with a celebratory drizzle of the best oil. Five euros (less than $8) and a smile later, I had my cheap lunch. Saying goodbye to Pasquale, I tried to explain to him that he’d be giving this sandwich show to lots of American visitors next year, and stepped outside to look for a suitable bench upon which to enjoy my lunch.

(Salumeria Pasquale Carrino is 100 yards from the Archeological Museum--as you leave take two rights and a left to Via Salvator Rosa 10, tel. 081-564-0889, closed Sun.)

Posted by Rick Steves on June 22, 2008
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For some reason, planes leave Iran for the West in the wee hours. My departure was at 3 a.m. My crew caught a flight two hours earlier. My guide went home. I was groggy and all alone. While eager to leave, I was savoring every last impression before flying exactly the opposite route the Ayatollah flew as he returned home to toss out the shah.

Walking down the jetway to my Air France plane at Tehran’s Ayatollah Khomeini Airport, I saw busty French flight attendants — hair flowing freely — at the plane’s door. It was as if they were pulling people symbolically back into the Western world. As though the plane were a lifeboat, people entered with a sigh of relief. Women pulled off their scarves...and suddenly we were all free to be what to us was so "normal."

For ten days, I was out of my comfort zone in a land where people live under a theocracy — a land that found different truths to be god-given and self-evident. I tasted not a drop of alcohol (Islam is dry). I never encountered a urinal (Islamic men squat). Women were not to show the shape of their body or their hair (they were beautiful nevertheless). And people took photos of me, as if I were the cultural spectacle.

On my first day back in Europe, I noticed hair, necklines, and tight pants like never before. I sipped wine as if it were heaven-sent. And, standing before that first urinal, I was thankful to be a Westerner.

Paris seemed designed to accentuate the cultural differences. When I saw a provocatively dressed woman — tattooed breast barely covered by a black-lingerie top — I kind of missed the thrill of a little extra hair on the forehead of a chador-clad woman. University students sat at outdoor cafés, men and women mingling indiscriminately, discussing whatever hot-button issue interested them. Out of Iran and back in the West, I felt an energy and a volume and an efficiency that is cranked up. People — not on the valium of a revolution of values — are free to be "evil."

Of course, I would never choose to live according to the Islamic Revolution. But I gained a respect for people who are living what they call a ‘values revolution” — a respect that I could only understand by actually traveling there. And I overcame a fear that plagues many who’ve yet to visit Iran.

What do I conclude from this experience? If I were to make any judgment on their theocracy, it would be to point out the irony of a society that is aggressively theocratic, yet actually seems less spiritual than a neighboring, secular Muslim nation — Turkey, where five times a day it’s hard to walk down the sidewalk because mosques are overflowing with people praying.

All the “death to America” and "death to Israel" posters Westerners fixate on are impossible to defend. But I will say they seemed very incongruous with the people I met. It made me wonder if the penchant for Iranians to declare “death” to so many things is not so different from Westerners who exclaim “damn those French” or “damn those cowboys” or “damn this traffic jam.” Even though this actually means “die and then burn in hell”...of course we don’t mean it literally.

There's a lot of debate between our two nations about who's right and who's wrong. Many who comment on this blog seem to know. Some issues (such as the wrongness of denying the holocaust) seem clear-cut. But, as I leave Iran, I'm not convinced that everything is so straightforward. Politicians come and go...but people are here to stay. I leave thankful that I don’t live in Iran. Yet I believe the vast majority of Iranians — regardless of what they think of their current government — would choose to live nowhere else.

After this experience, I’m reminded of the fundamental value as well as the simple fun of travel. When we travel — whether to a land our president has declared part of an “Axis of Evil,” or just to a place where people yodel when they’re happy or fight bulls to impress the girls or can’t serve breakfast until today’s croissants arrive — we enrich our lives and better understand our place on this planet. It’s my hope that with people-to-people connections, we can overcome our fear and mistrust of each other, and, at a minimum, learn to co-exist peacefully. And that gives me and my partners here at ETBD meaning in our work. Thanks for traveling with me via this blog through Iran. I hope you enjoyed the journey.

Posted by Rick Steves on June 20, 2008
Comments (66)

In Iran, every city has a martyrs’ cemetery.
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The tombs of the unknown soldiers give mothers whose sons were never found a place to grieve.
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How has the loss of this boy’s father shaped his world view?
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Could be anywhere: A mother and her son.
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One of the most powerful experiences of our Iranian trip was a visit to a martyrs’ cemetery. War cemeteries always seem to come with a healthy dose of God — as if dying for God and country makes a soldier’s death more meaningful than just dying for country. That is certainly true at Iran’s many martyr cemeteries. While there are no solid figures, most estimates are that there were over a million casualties in the Iran-Iraq War. Each Iranian city has a vast martyrs' cemetery.

Iran considers anyone who dies defending the country a martyr and a hero. At the Esfahan cemetery, tombs seemed to go on forever, and each one had a portrait of the martyr and flew a green-and-red Iranian flag. A steady wind blew on the day of our visit, which added a stirring quality to the scene. And the place was bustling with people — all mourning their lost loved ones as if it happened a year ago rather than twenty. The cemetery had a quiet dignity, and — while I felt a bit awkward at first (being part of an American crew with a big TV camera rolling) — people either ignored us or made us feel welcome here.

We met two families sharing a dinner on one tomb. (One of the fathers insisted we join them for a little food.) They met each other twenty years ago while visiting their sons — who were buried side by side. They became friends, their surviving children married, and they come regularly to share a meal on the tombs of their sons.

A few yards away, a long row of white tombs stretched into the distance, with only one figure interrupting the visual rhythm the receding tombs created. It was a mother cloaked in black sitting on her son’s tomb — a pyramid of maternal sorrow — praying.

Nearby was a different area — marble slabs without upright stones, flags, or photos. This zone had the greatest concentration of mothers. My friend explained these slabs marked bodies of unidentified heroes. Mothers whose sons were never found came here to mourn.

I left the cemetery sorting through a jumble of thoughts:

My visit to the cemetery drove home a feeling that had been percolating throughout my trip. There are many things that Americans justifiably find outrageous about the Iranian government — from denying the Holocaust and making threats against Israel; to oppressing women and gay people; to asserting their right to join the world nuclear club.

And yet, no matter how strongly we want to see our beliefs and values prevail in Iran, we need to understand the 70 million people who live here. What if the saber-rattling coming out of Washington (and the campaign trail) doesn't coerce this country into compliance? In the past, other powerful nations have underestimated Iran's willingness to be pulverized in a war...and both Iran and their enemies have paid the price.

In the coming months and years, I believe smart and determined diplomacy can keep the Iranians — and us — from having to build giant new cemeteries for the next generation's war dead. That doesn't mean "giving in" to Iran...it means war is a failure and we need to find an alternative. If this all sounds too idealistic, or even naive...try coming to Iran and meeting these people face-to-face.

Posted by Rick Steves on June 17, 2008
Comments (39)

Our shooting is finished, our crew is home, and now we set about to editing all the footage into a one-hour TV special. Without telling you all the details of our show, here are some excerpts from the script that (especially if you can imagine the gorgeous footage we captured to illustrate these words) I hope will give you that Iranian sense of place:

[1 OC (on camera)] Hi, I’m Rick Steves — in what just might be the most surprising and fascinating land I’ve ever visited. We’re in Iran — here to learn, to understand, and to make some friends. Thanks for joining us.

[3 OC] Like most Americans, I know almost nothing about Iran. For me, this is a journey of discovery. What’s my hope? To enjoy a rich and fascinating culture, to get to know a nation that’s a leader in its corner of the world (and has been for 2,500 years), and to better understand the 70 million people who call this place home.

[9 with POVs from car, motorcycle taxi, pedestrian crossing] Traffic is notorious here. Drivers may seem crazy, but I was impressed by their expertise at keeping things moving. Many major streets actually intersect without the help of traffic lights. It’s different...but it works. Helmet laws are ignored. To get somewhere in a hurry, motorcycle taxis are a blessing. But wear your helmet. I’d rather leave a little paint on passing buses than a piece of scalp. Pedestrian fend for themselves. Crossing the street is dangerous. Locals say it’s like “going to Chechnya.”

[10 general chaos cut-aways] Just wandering the teeming streets here is fascinating and endlessly entertaining. And having survived Chechnya, I’m ready to celebrate with a refreshing local treat.

[11] This isn’t just any ice cream sandwich — it’s got rose water, saffron, and pistachios...a Persian specialty.

[14, face montage] Of Iran’s 70 million people, about two-thirds are under 30. People are mostly Persian. While there are minorities, we’ll focus on Persian population. The local ethnicity reflects the turmoil of its 2,500-year history. Local blood comes with Greek, Arab, Turkish, Mongol, Kurdish, and Azerbaijani influence. These are not Arabs, and they don’t speak Arabic. They are Persians and they speak Farsi. This is an important issue with the people of Iran — don’t call them Arabs. Each face seems to both tell a story and beam with warmth...especially when they see a film crew from the USA. We found that the easiest way to get a smile was to tell people where we’re from.

[16 OC] Another communication challenge: people here need to keep track of different calendars: Persian and Muslim (for local affairs), and Western (for dealing with the outside world). What’s the year? It depends: After Muhammad — about 1,390 years ago, or after Christ — two thousand and some years ago.

[23] Walking the streets of any city here, it's clear that Iran is ruled by a theocracy. They may have a president, but the top cleric, a man called “the supreme leader,” has the ultimate authority. His picture — not the president’s — is everywhere. Religious offering boxes are on every street corner. The days when the shah’s men boasted Iranian mini-skirts were shorter than those in Paris are long gone.

[24] While the Islamic Republic of Iran is a theocracy rather than a democracy, I was surprised at the general mellowness of the atmosphere compared to other Muslim countries. I barely heard a call to prayer. Skylines aren’t broken by minarets. And — except for women’s dress codes and the lack of American products and businesses (because of the US embargo on Iran) — life on the streets here is much the same as in secular cities elsewhere.

[41 Isfahan] Isfahan, with 1.6 million, is a showcase of ancient Persian splendor. One of finest cities in Islam and famous for its dazzling blue-tiled domes and romantic bridges, the city is also just plain enjoyable. I’m not surprised that in Iran, this is the number one honeymoon destination. Isfahan is the cultural heart of Iran. School groups come from all over the country to appreciate their roots. Iranians come to connect with their heritage and celebrate it.

[43] The Chehel Sotoun Palace is a vivid reminder that Isfahan was the capital of Persia 400 years ago. With its reflecting pool, fine gardens, and portico of twenty delicate wooden columns, this gives you a sense of Persia’s 16th- and 17th-century Golden Age.

[44] Stepping inside, you are struck by the elegance and grace of Persia at its zenith. Tender dancers, flowing hair, dashing moustaches, and sumptuous riches, it comes across in these fine paintings.

[45] Frescoes in its grand hall tell how the shah maintained, defended, and expanded his empire. Here the shah and his troops quell a revolt against his rule by the Uzbekis. Then, defending his empire, the shah battles the Ottoman Turks — with their frightening new artillery — and manages to stop their eastward juggernaut. Waging what I would imagine was very high-powered diplomacy, the shah threw extravagant banquets in this very palace. Here Turkmans, of today’s Turkmenistan, were treated to wine, women, and song — with traditional Persian instruments. The dancing girls that worked up a thirst...and a refreshing watermelon. And in this banquet, the shah of Persia welcomed the emperor of India with a similar lavish banquet…and then, a century later, the shah invaded India anyway.

[53 cemetery] Whatever the root causes — faith or nationalism — the Sunni and Shiite Muslims share a bloody past. And the killing continues. Like cities throughout Iran, Isfahan has a cemetery dedicated to the 400,000 martyrs — as anyone who dies in a religious or national war is called — of the Iran/Iraq War. All the portraits and all the dates are from 1980 to 1989. Over two decades later, the cemetery is still very much alive with mourning loved ones. While the United States lives with the scars of Vietnam, the same generation of Iranians live with the scars of their war with Iraq — a war in which they, with one quarter our population, suffered six times the deaths.

[54] We meet two families sharing a meal at a grave site. They each lost a son in the war. They met here at the cemetery nearly twenty years ago and became friends. Their surviving children married. And they’ve shared memorial meals together here at the tombs ever since.

[88] Traveling through Iran teaches many things. This ancient land is a complex center of many civilizations through the ages. All along the way we met people: warm hospitality, spontaneous, gregarious, and curious. While they generally didn’t like our government, they seemed inclined to genuinely like Americans. Just like my country, there’s a dominant ethnic group and a dominant religion, with plenty of ethnic and religious diversity at the same time. And just like my country, there’s a not-always-graceful synthesis of influences: modern and traditional, liberal and conservative, secular and religious. Like in my hometown, people of great faith are threatened by people of no faith or a different faith. And, as with my neighbors, in the interest of being close to God, people of great faith treasure their time-honored rituals as a defense against the onslaught of modern materialistic society that threatens the moral fabric of their society.

[89 OC] I came to Iran a little nervous. I leave struck more by what we have in common than by our differences. I’ve overcome my fear by getting to know the Iranian people. Granted, there’s no easy solution to the problems confronting our two nations. But surely getting to know this culture is a step in the right direction. I’m Rick Steves. Happy travels...and as they say here, “May peace be upon us.”

Posted by Rick Steves on June 13, 2008
Comments (17)

My reach is longest as two narcissists burn under the Persepolis sun. And wait, what’s that camera in the background?
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Whenever we filmed a place of commercial or religious importance a plain clothes security guard would appear. Seyed would earn his pay by explaining who we were and what we were doing. It wasn’t always easy as different branches of the Iranian government don’t work entirely in sync (perhaps like different branches of American intelligence).
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Seyed was expected to follow that big camera wherever it went. Zipping through the chaotic traffic to show the “point of view” of Rick on a motorcycle taxi? Hang on tight and follow that bike.
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Our government guide, Seyed, documents our shoot on his tiny camera.
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Here is a short email back-and-forth I had with our Iranian government guide, which I thought might be of blog interest. Seyed must be the top Iranian government guide (he accompanied Ted Koppel on his recent Iranian shoot). He was with us from start to finish. I wish you could hear his voice (as I can) in his writing:

To: Rick Steves Subject: Thanks from Tehran Iran, Seyed is sending you his best wishes

Dear Rick, I hope you and your family are well. I am following your web blog and I enjoy your comments and also the comments of your fans. I am so glad you had the interest in Iran and writing and caring about my country, Iran.

I am going to take my group to Italy next month so I meant to ask some of your advice if possible please. Unfortunately we do not get much American tourists at the moment, but I hope after your video about Iran comes out, then more American people will decide to come to Iran so that I myself will have more jobs and also all my colleagues will have jobs and Iranian people, not Iranian government, will enjoy the benefit of it.

I hope that people who comment on your web blog get and understand the reality that I as a tour guide have never misled you or misinformed you. As you saw, I have been honest and loyal to you and have answered all your questions according to my knowledge and plus that as I have said before I am not a government guide. But if you insist on calling me your government guide then go ahead please, no problem, call me as you wish.

I hope that some day I can come over to America and give some speeches in some universities and tell American public more facts and reality about Iran, so that we can have more understanding from each other.

My best wishes for you and your family and Simon and Karel and Abdi. It really was a great honor for me to be able to work with you and learn from you. As you said when you were in Iran, we have our differences, but it does not mean we have to change each other, but we can have respect for one another. Thanks for your friendship.

Yours,

Seyed

Seyed Rahim BATHAEI

Hi Seyed,

Thanks for the kind email. I have been so inspired by my learning experience with you in Iran. I am glad you are following the blog. It is interesting...so many the comments! People have strong feelings. I am thankful for your help and I agree you never misled us. In fact, you were the one who opened so many doors. I hope we can stay in communication. Would it be okay with you if I put your email on my blog?

Rick

Dear Rick,

Thanks for your so kind and so fast e mail. I think you are a superman and I am jealous of you how hard you work and how you take your job seriously and I think that is why you are a successful businessman and producer. That is something I like about Americans, the hard work. I did not tell you that once some years ago I tried to start a small business, but later I became bankrupt because I could not work hard enough and my mind was not a business wise mind so I failed. But I learnt some good lessons from you this time.

About putting my email in the blog, as you know my answer always is yes, as you saw I like publicity. I am so open for socializing with people and talking to people and even getting criticized and listen to criticism. It is OK to show my pictures and video and name and email and everything. As a mater of fact, some of my American tourists who have come to Iran and I have been their tour guide had seen your blog and noticed my picture there and they emailed me about it.

Even I know some of the commenters in the blog. And as we talked about my big wish is to become a commentator in the US TV morning shows and talking about politics. Of course I only mentioned I want to be in Hollywood which was a joke, but in fact I like to talk on TV shows, which I am working toward by appearing in documentaries, thanks to your video too, I will be one step closer.

I hope some day you start your tours to Iran and I can be the tour leader for your groups to Iran. My best wishes for you and your family.

Yours,

Seyed

Posted by Rick Steves on June 11, 2008
Comments (19)

The woman in the bookstore gave me a free book.
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Martyrs walking heroically into the sunset of death for god and country.
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In the university there’s a lounge for boys...and one for girls.
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After traveling through Iran, my notebook is filled with quirky observations. Reading the comments readers share on my blog is also thought-provoking. The whole experience makes me want to hug people and scream at the same time. It’s intensely human.

One moment, I’m stirred by propaganda murals encouraging young men to walk into the blazing sunset of martyrdom. The next, a woman in a bookstore serves me cookies and offers me the book I admired for free.

My friends are worried about my safety, and even progressive people have adopted the post-9/11 phrase “be safe.” (Hearing that makes me want to do something dangerous.) Safety is the least of my concerns in Iran. The only danger I could imagine during my visit would be something explosive falling from an American airplane high above.

And I learn that after the JFK assassination, there was a popular song here that was a standard among grade-school children. They sang, “Oh, God, what would the world be like if Kennedy were brought back to life?”

I marvel at some example of inefficiency in this society...and then see an old man with a beautifully carved walking stick ingeniously designed with a small flashlight in its handle to light the way home through his poorly lit village late at night.

In our TV filming, I was excited to visit the University of Tehran in hopes of showing highly educated and liberated women and an environment of freedom. Conformity on any university campus (in the USA or Iran) saddens me. You conform once you are parenting or paying off a house or climbing the corporate ladder, but university is where you run free...barefoot through the grass of life, leaping over silly limits just because you can. I assumed I’d find a free spirit at the biggest university in Iran. But the University of Tehran made BYU look like Berkeley. There was a strictly enforced dress code, no non-conformist posters, top-down direction for ways to play, segregated classrooms and cantinas...and students toeing the line.

Hoping to film some interaction with students, I asked for a student union center (the lively place where students come together on Western campuses), but there was none. Each faculty had a cantina where kids could hang out, with a sales counter separating two sections — one for boys and one for girls. In the USA, I see university professors as a bastion of freedom (understandably threatening to people who are against freedom). In Tehran, I found a situation where the theocracy was clearly shaping the curriculum, faculty, and the tenor of the campus. It was the saddest and most disheartening experience of my Iranian visit. I only visited one campus, but I was told it was the biggest and most prestigious in the country.

While the traffic is crazy, it is not noisy. Because of a history of motorcycle bandits and assassinations, only small (and therefore quieter) motorcycles are allowed. While traffic is enough to make you scream, people are incredibly good-humored on the road. I never heard angry horns honking. Once, while stalled in Tehran traffic, people in the neighboring car saw me sitting patiently in the back of our van: a foreigner stuck in their traffic. They rolled down their window and handed my driver a bouquet of flowers with instructions to give it to the visitor. When the traffic jam broke up, we moved on — with a bouquet from strangers in my lap.

Posted by Rick Steves on June 09, 2008
Comments (68)

Our trip through Iran has given us a glimpse of a paradoxical world where the murals are mean, yet the people are friendly. Here is a little slideshow of some of the people, places and moments that have delighted me on this trip, strictly from a traveler's point of view.

View Slideshow >>

Posted by Rick Steves on June 04, 2008
Comments (193)

Persepolis is pharaoh-like in its scale. Emperor’s tombs are cut into the neighboring mountains.
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2500 years ago, subjects of the empire (from 28 nations) would pass through the Nations' Gate bearing gifts for the "King of Kings."
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The tarmac laid for an aristocratic “tent city,” set up by the Shah to celebrate 2500 years of Persian empire, still survives — reminding visitors where their revolution came.
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Locals — quick to smile for the camera of a new American friend — visit Persepolis to connect with and celebrate their impressive cultural roots.
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With the sun low and the colors warm, Simon, Karel, and Rick are enjoying a great day of filming. I would say this is your PBS pledge dollars at work … but this shoot’s on me.
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Under a blistering sun, the rocks share the cool of the night.
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Europeans enjoying the greatest sight between the Holy Land and India.
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While the tourist women may have looked gawky in their scarves, I looked worse under my “script sun hat.”
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The sightseeing highlight of our ten days in Iran was the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis, what I’d consider the greatest ancient sight between the Holy Land and India. Arriving there in the middle of a vast and arid plain was thrilling. This was a rare place that actually exceeded my high expectations. My main regret in traveling through Iran on my first visit (back in 1978) was not trekking south to Persepolis. Now I’ve experienced it.

I wanted to include Persepolis in our TV special because it’s a powerful reminder that the soul of Iran is Persia, and that predates the introduction of Islam by a thousand years. Persepolis merited 450 words out of our 5400 word Iran script. Here’s my take on Persepolis as told in a bit of the rough script (hence the sequence numbers) from our upcoming TV special, which will air in early 2009. As I reread this, I can see some of the most stunning high-definition video we’ve ever shot:

[78] A 40-mile drive from Shiraz takes us to Persepolis, the dazzling capital of the Persian Empire back when it reached from Greece to India. For nearly two hundred years, from 518 BC to 333 BC, this was the home of the “King of Kings.” It was built by Darius and his son Xerxes the Great around 500 BC.

[79] It’s a big complex of palaces of the greatest kings of the day. They were so strong, no fortifications were needed. Still, 10,000 guards were permanently posted here.

[80] This is the “Nations’ Gate,” where dignitaries from the 28 nations subjugated by Persia passed in “we’re not worthy”-style to pay their taxes and humble respect to the "King of Kings," as the emperor was called.

[81] Cuneiform inscriptions from 500 BC say the same thing in three languages. Roughly: the king is empowered by god. Submit totally to him for the good of Persia. All nations can live in peace if you are compliant.

[82] The palace of Xerxes, called the Columned Palace because it once had 72 columns, each with the uniquely Persian capital, had a precious roof of Lebanese cedar carried here all the way from the Mediterranean. Xerxes the Great defeated the Greeks and burned and pillaged Athens in 480 BC.

[83 reliefs] Beautiful carved reliefs survive throughout the ruins of Persepolis. Supplicants gracefully climb the same steps we do, bringing offerings to the king. Lions were a symbol of power. They represented the king and even the power of the seasons. In this reoccurring scene, a lion kills a bull, symbolizing spring killing winter and bringing new life. Today, Iranians still celebrate their new year on March 21, the first day of spring.

[84] The figure on the eagle’s wing, that Zoroastrian symbol, is a reminder that the king’s power came from Ahuramazda — the Zoroastrian god.

[85 Rick On Camera] Imagine this place at its zenith: the grand ceremonial headquarters of the Persian Empire. Coming here you have high expectations. Being here, they are exceeded. Iranians visit with a great sense of pride. For an American, it would be like having Monticello, Cape Canaveral, and Mount Rushmore all rolled into one magnificent sight.

[86] Grand royal tombs, the scale of Egyptian pharaohs — or Mount Rushmore — are cut into the adjacent mountainside. The awe-inspiring tombs of Darius and Xerxes come with huge carved reliefs featuring ferocious lions: even in death, they’re reminding us of their great power.

[87] But no empire lasts forever. In 333 BC Persepolis was sacked and burned by Alexander the Great, the Macedonian Greek who turned the tide against Persia. Ending Persian dominance, he spread his Greek culture all the way to India. Persepolis has been a ruin ever since.

We arrived after a long day of driving — just in time for that “magic hour” before the sun set. The light was glorious, the stones glowed rosy, and all the visitors seemed to be enjoying a special “sightseeing high.” Iranians were savoring this reminder that their nation was a huge and mighty empire 2500 years ago.

The temperature (as it does in the desert when the sun goes down) dropped dramatically. I pressed my body against the massive stone walls to feel the warmth stored in the stones. (The next morning, under a blistering sun, I hugged the same wall to catch the cool of the night that it still shared.)

I was impressed that the approach to this awe-inspiring site was marred by a vast and ugly tarmac with 1970s-era light poles. This is left from the Shah’s party celebrating the 2500 year anniversary of the Persian Empire — designed to remind the world that he ruled Persia as a modern-day Xerxes or Darius. The Shah flew in dignitaries from all over the world, along with dinner from the finest restaurants in Europe. Iranian historians consider this arrogant display of imperial wealth and Western decadence the beginning of the end for the Shah. Within about a year, he was gone and Khomeini was in. I think it’s left here so visiting locals can remember who their revolution overthrew.

I saw more Western tourists visiting Persepolis than at any other single sight in the country. They were from all over Europe and Australia — all with local guides, most with the Lonely Planet guidebook to Iran, and everyone marveling at how Iran has great tourism potential. (After the elegant way local women wear their scarves, I can’t help but notice how gawky many tourist women are in their scarves.)

Persepolis has the majesty of Giza or Luxor in Egypt. And I was most struck, not by the international tourists, but by the local people who travel here to connect with their Persian heritage. Wandering the sight, you feel the omnipotence of the Persian Empire and get a strong appreciation for the enduring strength of this culture and its people.

Posted by Rick Steves on June 01, 2008
Comments (43)

After prayer service at the mosque, a proud dad grabs a photo of his children with his cell phone.
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Thirty years later, the former American embassy is still lined with political posters struggling to provide Iranians with an enemy.
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Being an American makes you the most popular kid in the village.
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Iranians see a world dominated by the USA and are told not to like it.
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“Death to Traffic!”
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I’m working in Iran, part of the “axis of evil” (as defined by my president) in a land whose own president leads chants of “Death to America.” This has me thinking about bombast and history.

Of course the word “axis” conjures up images of the alliance of Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito that our fathers and grandfathers fought in WWII. Many locals in each country believe that each president maintains his power only by his ability to stir the simplistic side of his electorate with such bombast.

Bombast hogs the headlines, skewing understanding between the mainstream in each country. If the typical American knows anything about the Iranian president, Ahmadinejad (whose name I cannot pronounce), it’s his recent comments about gays and the Holocaust (which, I would imagine, was designed to shore up his political base). The buzz lately in Iran about the American election is what McCain (who famously rewrote the lyrics of the Beach Boys classic song, "Barbara Ann," to become “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran”) or Hillary (who recently said she would annihilate Iran if it attacked Israel) would do if elected president.

And as I explore and experience this country, I can’t avoid the hateful images and slogans. Like our children start each school day pledging “allegiance to one nation under God,” Iranian kids chant hateful slogans against the Great Satan and its 51st state, Israel. Rather than marketing products to consume, billboards sell a political/military/religious ideology. They glorify heroes who died as martyrs, taunt the US, show the stars and stripes of Old Glory made of Stars of David and falling bombs, and so on.

I try to make sense of the fearmongering and billboard hate, which mixes with huge smiles and welcomes. People greet me with a smile. Invariably, they ask where I’m from. I often say, “You tell me.” They guess and guess, running through 9–10 countries before giving up. Finally I say "America" and they are momentarily shocked, thinking, “I thought Americans hate us. Why would one be here like this?” Their smile leaves their face. Then a bigger smile comes back as they say “Welcome!” or “I love America.”

In a hundred such interactions in ten days in Iran, never once has my saying "I am an American" resulted in anything less than a smile or a kind of “Ohhh, you are rich and strong,” or “People and people together no problem, but I don’t like your president.” It’s clear to me that Iranians like our president as much as Americans like Iran's.

It’s ironic that in most countries these days, Americans find they’re better off keeping a low profile. But here, in a country I’m told hates me, my nationality has been a real plus — absolutely everywhere I've gone. By the way, our government guide has not stopped me from going anywhere or talking to anyone. We haven't been able to film just anywhere, but I've been free to roam about on my own without him and have fun connecting with locals. And I have absolutely never traveled to a place where I had such an easy and enjoyable time connecting with people. Young, educated people speak English. Locals were as confused about and fascinated by me as I was about them.

I think that, from an Iranian perspective, Iran is to Hezbollah as the US was to the Contras. (Supporters of Israel and the Sandinistas would find both Hezbollah and the Contras evil.) Everyone here understands that the Iranian president is more extreme than their supreme leader, Khamenei (the Ayatollah Khomeini’s successor). However, the supreme leader is more powerful than the president. All over town, you see posters and quotes from Khamenei...never the president.

The Iranian president has a kind of Hugo Chavez notoriety around the West for his wild ideas: “Death to Israel,” and “The Holocaust didn’t happen,” and “We have no homosexuals” and so on. He is an ideologue. His ideas make sense to him as does his bombast. He believes that since Germany killed the Jews, Germany should now house them. He doesn’t see the rationale of displacing Palestinians to provide Israel a homeland because of Germany’s genocide against the Jews.

In our hotel last night, I saw a short news documentary on Al Jazeera. Even without understanding the language, the images spoke powerfully. They showed the towering American-funded wall being built today in Palestine concrete block by concrete block...literally blocking the sunshine from Palestinian communities and making them look and feel like corralled animals. Anyone watching this with an empathy for Palestinians (i.e. the entire Muslim world — a billion people) would be charged with angry emotions.

While the Iranian president solidifies his political base by saying “Death to Israel,” his unwavering policy is that when Palestine accepts the existence of Israel, Iran will too.

We stop at the former US Embassy, which hosted the 444-day-long hostage crisis still so profound in the minds of many Americans. (For many who are angry with me for visiting our “arch enemy,” that 30-year-old media circus remains the defining event in their mindset toward Iran. It seems that because of this national humiliation, they consider it unpatriotic for a citizen like me to come here as an ambassador of understanding and goodwill.)

Our guide is almost proud to let us walk the long wall of anti-American murals. He encourages us to film it, making sure we know when the light is best for the camera.

As a gang of revolutionary students captured the world’s attention by insulting the US, this was a great moment for Iran. But that was 30 years ago — and today, most Iranians weren’t even born yet, and they seem happy to let the murals fade in the sun.

As we were struggling to drive away in a horribly congested street, our guide made a telling aside. He declared, “Death to traffic.” Then he said, “Because we can do nothing about this traffic, we can all say ‘Death to Traffic’.” Did he mean kill all those drivers that were in our way? Does Iran really mean death to the US and Israel? Or is it a mix of international road rage, fear, frustration — and the seductive clarity of a catchy slogan? This quirky cultural trait might be worth looking into and trying to understand.

All I’ve got to say is, “Death to hatred and militarism based on misunderstanding, fear and national pride.”

(By the way, I was in Iran for ten days earlier this month and have so many ideas to report on that my entries are lasting longer than my trip. While I will continue reporting my Iranian experiences for a few more days, I am no longer there. From Iran, I flew to Italy to continue my research trip, which will be followed by Germany and Paris before flying home in mid-June. Thanks for traveling with me via this blog. — Rick)

Posted by Rick Steves on May 29, 2008
Comments (123)

As everyone bowed in prayer, they revealed security soldiers and a Death to Israel poster.
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Isfahan’s great Imam mosque is both a tourist attraction and a vibrant place of worship.
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After the service, the cleric was eager to talk with us.
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We were in Iran for one Friday, the Muslim Sabbath, and made a point to go to a prayer service.

Filming in a mosque filled with thousands of worshippers required permission. Going behind the scenes at the mosque to explain our needs with administrators there, it hit me that this Islamic Revolution was the equivalent of a communist takeover. (It seemed power was maintained by placing partisans in key positions.) But the ideology they were protecting was not economic (as in the days of the USSR), but religious.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (who, like the artist formerly known as Prince, has a name I cannot pronounce) has inspired a fashion trend in Iran — simple dark suit, white shirt, no tie, light black beard. To get permission to film, we entered a mosque administration office where all the men we encountered dressed the part and looked like the president.

To video the service — which was already well under way — we were escorted in front of 5,000 people praying. I felt self-conscious, a tall blond American tip-toeing gingerly over the little stones men place their heads on when they bend down to pray. As my brain wandered (just like it sometimes does at home when listening to a sermon), I felt all those worshippers were looking at me rather than listening to their cleric speaking. Planting our tripod in the corner, we observed and filmed.

I closed my eyes and let the smell of socks remind me of mosques I’d visited in other Muslim countries. I pulled out my little Mecca compass, the only souvenir I’ve purchased so far. Sure enough, everyone was facing exactly the right way. Watching all the worshippers bow and stand, and chant in unison, at first seemed menacing to me. Then I caught the eye of a worshipper having a tough time focusing. He winked. Another man’s cell phone rang. He answered in a frustrated whisper as if saying, “Dang, I should have turned that thing off.” The mosaics above — Turkish blue and darker Persian blue — added a harmony and calmness to the atmosphere (just as our guide had explained earlier).

I realized that the Muslims I’d seen worshipping on TV may have been edited by film teams with an agenda to make the fervent worship of non-Christians look threatening. I made a point to see it as if it were my own church just north of Seattle.

What was intimidating was the need for soldiers to stand guard, standing like statues in their desert-colored fatigues. When the congregation stood, you didn’t notice them, but when all bowed, the soldiers remained standing, a reminder that the world was dangerous...especially in mosques. I asked our guide what a brightly painted mural above the worshippers said. He answered, “Death to Israel.” (The topic of my next entry.)

Except for the troubling injection of politics, I was struck by the similarities of this worship service: the too-long sermon, the “passing of the peace” (when everyone greets the people around them), the convivial atmosphere just after when people line up to shake the hands of the cleric, and the fellowship as everyone hangs out in the courtyard. On our way out, I shook the hand of the young cleric — short, slight build, trim Islamic Revolution—style beard with a tight white turban, big teeth and a playful smile.

In the courtyard, a man hit the branches of a mulberry tree with a pole as kids scrambled for the treasured little berries. The cleric with the big smile engaged me in a conversation—we joked about separation of mosque and state, and how it might help if his president went to my town for a prayer service and my president came here. Esfahan TV was televising the prayer service. Their crew saw us here and wanted an interview. It was exciting to be on local TV. They asked why we were here, how I saw people, why did I figure there was a US-Iran problem (I pointed to the “Death to Israel” poster for starters). They fixated on how I’d spin my footage and if it would actually be aired. Throughout our trip, we found people assuming we were collecting images to be edited in a negative way to show Iran as scary.

Leaving the mosque, we considered the clips we just shot and pondered how they could be cut and edited to appear either menacing or heartwarming — depending on our agenda. We considered how what we had just shot could be edited with guerillas leaping over barbed wire and so on to be frightening, and how our film crew would instead focus on the men with warm, cute faces praying with their sons at their sides, and the children outside scrambling for mulberries.

It occurred to me that the segregation of the sexes — men in the center and women behind a giant hanging carpet at the side — contributes to the edginess of it (and the fear and anger many Western Christians feel toward Islam). Then I considered how male-led Christian services could also be edited to look threatening. At important Roman Catholic Masses you’ll see a dozen priests — all male — in robes before a bowing audience. The leader of a billion Catholics is chosen by a secretive, ritual-filled all-male gathering of guys in strange hats and robes with chanting and flinging of incense. It could be filled with majesty or menace...depending on what you want to show and what you want to see.

When we visited this huge mosque the day before, all I had seen was a lifeless shell with fine tiles for tourists to photograph. An old man stood in the center of the floor and demonstrated the haunting echoes created by the perfect construction. Old carpets were rolled up and strewn about like dusty cars in a haphazard parking lot. Today the carpets were rolled out, cozy, and lined with worshippers. By the time we left, they were rolled up and strewn about again.

After the prayer service, we set up to film me across the vast square from the mosque. My lines were memorized and I was ready to go. Then, suddenly, the cleric with the beaming smile came toward us with a platter of desserts — the local ice cream specialty — like frozen shredded wheat sprinkled with coconut. I felt like Rafsanjani had just interrupted my work to serve us ice cream.

Enjoying his treat, we continued our conversation. He said Khomeini had charisma and if he walked into a room even me, a non-Muslim, would feel it. His successor, today’s supreme leader of Iran (whose power trumps the president’s) has much less of an impact on the people. Shiite Muslims might miss Khomeini like Catholics miss John Paul II.

Posted by Rick Steves on May 27, 2008
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For many Iranians what Americans would call “family values” trumps democracy and freedom. They choose a “Revolution of Values.”
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Imagine a society where all the women are nuns...and all the problems like Maria.
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As I settled into the plane flying us between two Iranian towns, the pilot announced, “In the name of God the compassionate and merciful, we welcome you to this flight. Now fasten your seatbelts.”

The Islamic Revolution is a “revolution of values.” People here tell me they support it because they want to raise their children without cheap sex, disrespectful clothing, drug abuse and materialism, believing it erodes character and threatens their traditional values. To conservative Iranians, America stands for all of the above. The people I've met here don’t want their culture to be like America's. It threatens them as parents. It seems to me they willingly trade democracy and political freedom for a society free of Western values (or lack thereof), that it's more important to have a place to raise their children that fits their religious values. I believe they would even endure a shock-and-awe–style American bombing for this — something tough for our leaders to get their heads around.

(Of course, there’s plenty of drug addiction, materialism and casual sex in Iran, but the sex and drugs are pretty well hidden, and the forces in power are fighting these vices the best they can.)

Sometimes you don’t see an excess in your own world until you find a different world without that excess. Traveling in Iran, it’s clear to me that in the US, our religion is freedom...and materialism. Just about everywhere we look, we are inundated by advertising encouraging us to consume. Airports are paid to drone ads on loud TVs. Magazines are beefy with slick ads. Sports stars wear corporate logos. Our media are driven by corporate marketing. In Iran the religion is Islam. And — at the expense of the economy — billboards, Muzak, TV programming, and young peoples’ education preaches the teaching of great Shiite holy men.

Still, I am impressed by how unreligious this famously religious place is. Unlike other Muslim cities I've visited, such as Istanbul and Cairo, there are almost no minarets breaking the skyline, and there's no call to prayer. I've barely heard a call to prayer since we arrived.

In this theocracy, the women must stay covered. Trying to grasp this in Christian terms, I imagined living in a society where every woman is forced to be a nun. Seeing spunky young Muslim women chafing at their modesty requirements, I kept humming, “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” Pondering the time Pat Robertson ran for president — and had millions of supporters — I wondered what our own country would look like if he had won and dominated Congress. Many people would have been ecstatic, and many would have been oppressed. It seems to me that’s the state of Iran today under Ahmadinejad.

I asked my guide if, in Iran, you must be religious. He said, “In Iran you can be whatever religion you like, as long as it is not offensive to Islam.” Christian? “Sure.” Jewish? “Sure.” Bahá'i? “No, we believe Mohammad — who came in the seventh century — was the last prophet, and the Bahá'i prophet (Bahá'u'lláh) came in the 19th century. The Bahá'i faith is offensive to Islam. Except for that, we have religious freedom.”

I asked, “But what if you want to get somewhere in the military or government?” My guide answered, “Then you better be a Muslim.” I added, “A practicing Shiite Muslim?” He said, “Yes.”

Posted by Rick Steves on May 23, 2008
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I was greeted by smiles. When I explained where I was from, the smiles got bigger. Hooking fingers seemed to be human nature—we can be friends and can get along.
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Cars merge through major intersections without traffic lights as if that’s the norm. And, surprisingly…it works.
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10,000 rials is worth a dollar. While Washington made it on our one dollar bill, Khomeini made it on every denomination here.
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Women are covered yet beautiful. In a land where there is no cleavage, a wisp of hair can be ravishing.
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Locals find me quite interesting. Routinely I’ve looked up from my note-taking and seen people gathered, curious, and wanting to talk.
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After a few days in Iran, I can’t help but think how tourism could boom here if they just opened it up. There are a few Western tourists (Germans, French, Brits, Dutch) but they all seem to be either on a tour, with a private guide, or visiting relatives. Control gets tighter and looser depending on the political climate, but basically American tourists can visit only with a guided tour. I meet no one just exploring on their own.

Tourists are so rare and sights are so few and obvious that you bump into the same people day after day. Browsing through picture books and calendars showing the same 15 or 20 images of the top sights in Iran, I’m impressed by how we've managed to see, or are scheduled to see, most of them. The Lonely Planet guidebook dominates – it seems every Westerner here has one. It’s good.

Our guide makes sure we’re eating in comfortable (i.e. high-end) restaurants (generally in hotels). They say tap water is no problem, but I’m sticking with the bottled kind. I wasn’t wild about the food on my first trip. It’s much better now...but still ranks about with Norwegian cuisine in terms of excitement value.

Driving is hair-raising. For several days now we’ve been zipped smoothly around by Majid, our driver. To illustrate how clueless I am here, for three days I’ve been calling him "Najaf." And whenever a bit of filming goes well and we triumphantly return to the car, I give him an enthusiastic thumbs up. Finally today he and our guide explained that I’ve been confusing his name with a city in Iraq...and that giving someone a thumbs up in Iran is like giving them the finger.

Majid drives our eight-seater bus like a motor scooter, weaving in and out of traffic that flows down the street and between lanes like rocks in an avalanche. At major intersections there are no lights – everyone just shuffles through. It works differently here than it would at home – people are great drivers here, and, somehow, it works. I think I’ll actually drive more aggressively when I get home. Adding to the chaotic traffic mix are the pedestrians, doing their best to navigate a wild landscape. Locals say when you set out to cross a big street, “you go to Chechnya.” I’m told that Iran loses 30,000 people on the roads (in cars and on foot) a year.

The money is complicated. There are about 10,000 rial in a dollar. (If you exchange $100 dollars you are literally a millionaire here.) Ten rial is called a tuman, and some prices are listed in rial, others in tuman...a tourist rip-off just waiting to happen. (I had a shirt laundered at the hotel for "20,000." Was that in rial, i.e. $2? Or was the list in tuman, which would mean the service cost $20? It was hard to tell.) There are no coins and no state-issued large bills. Local banks print large bills to help local commerce. To tell a counterfeit, you rub the number with your finger – if it's the real deal, the warmth makes the numbers disappear just momentarily.

Women are required to cover their hair with a scarf. Local women are expert at wearing them to show just enough hair to grab the eye. In a land where showing cleavage is essentially against the law, a tuft of hair above the forehead becomes the exciting place a man’s eye tends to seek out. Tourist women are also required to wear scarves. After appreciating the art of local women being provocative with their hair and scarves, the tourists' efforts seem quite clumsy.

There are no urinals anywhere. I did an extensive search: at the airport, fancy hotels, the university, the fanciest coffee shops. No urinals in Iran. I was told that Muslims believe you don't get rid of all your urine when you urinate standing up. For religious reasons, they squat.

Neckties are rarely seen, as they're considered the mark of a Shah supporter.

Restaurants use Kleenex rather than napkins; there’s a box of Kleenex on every dining table. There is absolutely no booze or beer in public. While I keep ordering a yogurt drink (similar to Turkish ayran), our guide and driver enjoyed “malt beverages” – non-alcoholic beer that comes in beer bottles or cans.

Many times, while I’ve been sitting in the shade quietly reading or writing while the crew got the shots they needed, people have come up to me and curiously asked where I'm from and what we're doing. I chatted with one young man who didn’t look as if he was particularly in compliance with the revolution. After we said goodbye, he thought about our conversation, returned and said, “One present from you to me please. You must read Koran. Is good. No politics.” The Islamic Revolutionist government has been in power for 30 years now; this man's generation knows nothing else. But then, why should an evangelical Muslim be any more surprising/menacing/annoying than an evangelical Christian?

Posted by Rick Steves on May 21, 2008
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American journalist mugs with Revolutionary Guard.
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Tehran, a mile-high metropolis of 14 million people.
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Cameraman Karel gets photographed for his press pass.
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Our welcome included building-sized anti-US murals showing American flags with Stars of David and dropping bombs painting the stripes.
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I was hesitant to tell anyone about this trip until it was actually happening. One day into this experience, we are definitely here. Revolutionary Guards who can be coaxed to smile, four-lane highways intersecting with no traffic lights, "Death to America" posters, and big warm welcoming smiles...Iran is a fascinating and complex paradox.

Tehran is a mile-high metropolis of 14 million people. With one day of filming down, I'm in a fancy hotel on the 14th floor, enjoying a view of a vast city at twilight, lights twinkling right up a snow-capped mountain. I'm munching the best pistachios I've ever tasted (and I am a pistachio connoisseur) from an elegant woven tray and nursing a tall glass of pomegranate juice. I cruise the channels on my TV — CNN, BBC, and lots of mood-setting programming — perfect for praying... One channel shows the sun setting on Mecca, with its kaaba (the big black box focus of pilgrim worship), in real time. In an urban jungle like Tehran, life can be so good — if you have money.

Our local guide (who doesn’t want to be called a “government minder”) is a big help and very good. Today we dropped by the foreign press office to get our press badges. There a beautiful and properly covered woman took mug shots for our badges and carefully confirmed the pronunciation of our names in order to transliterate them into Farsi.

Filming is complicated on the streets of Tehran because there is no single authority in charge — many arms of government overlap and make rules that conflict with each other. Permissions to film somewhere are limited to a specific time window. If we have permission to film a certain building, it doesn’t mean we can film it from the balcony of a teahouse that we don’t have permission to film in, or from any angle that shows a bank — as those are not to be filmed. When we film a shop window, a security guard is on us immediately. Our guide/minder is kept busy asserting himself when someone representing some different branch of government puts up a road block. He makes it all possible. People here like to say, “Iranian democracy: You are given lots of options...and then we make your choice for you.”

We can talk to whomever we like — but it reminds me of my early trips to the USSR, when only those with nothing to lose would risk talking openly to us (at least when our “guide” was present). So many who've commented on the blog have assumed I am not troubled by the lack of freedom here. Civil liberties for women, religious minorities, and anyone who chooses not to embrace this self-described “revolution of values” are, to me the mark of a modern, free, and, I believe, sustainable democracy. Those both for and against my trip here all agree with that. A key word here is sustainable. I believe — given time and a chance to evolve on their cultural terms — the will of the people ultimately prevails. For now, this country is not free (and no one here claims it is). A creepiness that comes with big government pervades the place. I wonder how free-minded people cope. I