Rick Steves: Blog Gone Europe

Seeing America

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:08:00 PST

I have just enjoyed a fascinating fortnight traveling around our country, giving talks. The trip left me inspired to explore the USA. I was hosted by wonderful people in Fort Smith Arkansas, Port Huron north of Detroit, Philadelphia, Oklahoma City, at the International House on campus in Berkeley, and at Apple and Google headquarters in Silicon Valley. Going from Apple to Arkansas, I was struck by the variety in this country. Given that, it's a compliment to our civility that we hold together as well as we do.

My fantasy is to put together a 20-cities-in-30-days lecture tour to small towns in unlikely corners, letting locals share their pride in their communities with me each afternoon as part of the deal. (I must admit that a two-bit celebrity is treated like a four-bit one in smaller towns.)

I felt the pride and goodness of people everywhere. Philadelphians, while a bit apologetic that they are neither DC or NYC, love their city. The people of Arkansas have a good humor about their reputation. Even though they still joke "thank God for Mississippi" when it comes to leading the country in obesity, teen pregnancies, lack of education, and poverty, they are making impressive progress as a state. These days, joking about Arkansas that way is like joking about England's food ' it shows you haven't been there in a while.

But the Deep South wears its conservatism like Seattleites wear their liberalism. Laying my head on an American flag pillowcase in my B&B, hearing people say with pride, "Eighty percent of America's soldiers come from The South," and the omnipresence of Fox News in breakfast rooms and lobbies made me feel a bit of a foreigner.

I met many Europeans. It seemed most were wives of locals. I didn't realize how many German war brides came here after WWII. Apparently, most ended up in the South. Whenever I met a European spouse, they expressed how they enjoyed hearing a European perspective in a public forum. (But that yearning always seemed to be trumped by the gentility, goodness, and strong community of Southern living.)

The people I met, while culturally different from me, were smart, caring, and proud of the accomplishments of their communities. My last stop was Oklahoma City, where I enjoyed talking to a huge crowd of 1,400. People even drove in from out of state. From the big turnout to the VIP meals before and after, it was a delightful experience.

While news stories (like retired generals making fortunes on the boards of companies that sell the USA weaponry) seemed particularly annoying on this trip, traveling around the USA made me feel good about the people of this country.

Wherever I went, people were trying to be good citizens and caring neighbors. They enjoyed the edgy message I brought with my "Travel as a Political Act" lectures, and I enjoyed the caliber of their character. I feel I planted some progressive seeds. And, at the same time, I gained more respect for Conservative America. I want to do more of this.

Europeans Share Their Healthcare Experience, Part 4: Switzerland and Belgium

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:30:00 PST

To bring some diverse experience into the discussion on health care reform here in the USA, I've asked my friends in Europe to share how health care works in their lives. In this final of four entries, here are comments from my friends in Switzerland and Belgium:

From Fritz in Switzerland:

In Switzerland, everyone has health insurance provided either through an employer (by payroll deduction) or by paying privately to a health insurance company. A family with two children has an annual premium of about 8,000 CHF (about $7,300). For every doctor's bill, the insured person pays 10 percent. If a person becomes unemployed, then the goverment pays the premium based upon 80 percent of the average wage earned by that person over the past five years. The health insurance company reimburses the insured person, who then pays the doctor or hospital. There is talk of reforming this system because it has been misused.

Switzerland can no longer afford the luxury we've had in the past. We have over 1,000 hospitals ' that's too many for Switzerland. All the hospitals want the newest technology, scanners, MRIs, etc. Health care lobbying, corrupt politicians, an aging population, and billions in revenue makes changing the system almost impossible. So I pay and pay, this year 15 percent more than last year!

We have the system you are dreaming about, but our wishes and demands are so high that it gets unaffordable. Careless socialist politicians denied the missuse of our social security insurance and allowed hugh deficits. Now we have to stop and turn things around. When it comes to health care, no society can afford everything, top quality, any time, for everybody. Switzerland will now deal with that reality.

From Christian and Danielle in Belgium:

In Belgium we pay €20 (about $28) to see a general practitioner at his or her office. We are reimbursed 85 percent of this amount. Surgery is paid directly between the hospital and the social security system. A visit to the dentist is free once a year. Glasses are almost all at our expense.

One of the disadvantages of our system is a lack of responsibility. Patients have the right to change doctors without any reason given and then have the same exams done over. Doctors tend to charge for examinations which they did not do, or to do operations which are not needed. Retirement pensions are getting strained, because we live longer.

It seems that people in Belgium get their prescriptions almost always when their company is restructuring. That can be a problem. Half of the prescription is paid by your company and half by the state.

But as a whole, it is a good system, as we also pay for those who have no money at all.

Europeans Share Their Healthcare Experience, Part 3: Italy

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

To bring some diverse experience into the discussion on health care reform here in the USA, I've asked my friends in Europe to share how health care works in their lives. In this third of four entries, here are comments from my Italian friends:

From Susanna in Italy:

The system in Italy is faaaaar from being perfect, but the idea behind it is the right one: Everybody has the right to have health care ' it's really one of those things that makes a democracy, a real democracy.

In Italy, I pay for the national health care system through taxes. The rate depends how much you make per year (there are income brackets to determine how much you are going to pay). Recently, the government decided to ask for a payment for examinations or medicines (we call it a "ticket," in America you call it a "co-pay"). There are some categories ' such as retired people with low income, people with chronic diseases, and the unemployed ' who don't have to pay.

What I really dislike about the system is the long lines to get appointments for any kind of tests (from basic to more complex). It depends on the region, but it's a problem all over the country.

Italy is a country of paradoxes. We have, on one side, excellent doctors with incredible training, and, on the other side, we have "scandals" involving important Italian hospitals in which the hygienic conditions are poor and dangerous. The other problem is that Italy has an "aging" population. We have fewer people working to support the retired population, which is living longer and longer. Because of that, health care costs to our society as a whole have gone way up, while tax revenue has not.

Overall, I'm satisfied with the system, but it must be said that I'm in good health. When my father had cancer and later died from it, I have to say that we were so lucky to meet such fantastic people (doctors, nurses, and volunteers) that it made this traumatic experience less severe. Moneywise, we didn't have to pay a penny for all the treatments he went through.

From Donald in Italy:

The Italian health system has the usual diversity of standards from north to south. In my tour guiding over the years, I have assured dubious tourists in Sicily that the hospital we were in was perfectly competent (whilst hoping they did not notice the crunch of the cockroach I had just stealthily stood on). But I have also been hospitalized in an institution in the Italian Alps where I was given a private room with balcony and mountain view, four-star meals with my choice of dishes, and treated with medical equipment worth thousands ' all on national health. In the end, I would rather have national health care than be without it.

In Italy, you have to know how to work the system. A few years ago, I was spending a fortune at a private optician in Milan, who kept trying to convince me to have laser surgery costing thousands of euros per eye. I didn't have much confidence in him, so I did the Italian thing ' I talked to everyone I knew until I found a friend of a friend who knew a brilliant Russian optician working nearby. A couple of phone calls and a couple of days later, I found myself in the Russian's office where, in half an hour, I was given excellent, unbiased, and free advice about laser surgery and a prescription for contacts and glasses. When in Rome...

I know critics will say that there is less inefficiency in a private system. Would the critics of nationalized medicine advocate the privatization of other government departments such as the ministry of defense? Might that not lead to a series of business-driven wars being fought...ooops! Call me naive, but I would rather support a country which spends more money on inefficiently curing its citizens rather than on inefficiently destroying its perceived enemies.

From Nina in Italy:

I have dual citizenship and have lived abroad for 13 years. I have experienced health care systems in the US and Italy. For me, one particular misconception about the US system is the notion of choice. It seems to be a topic that elicits such strong emotions. In the US, we are led to believe that buying into a private insurance plan means that as consumers we have more choices. In reality, the choice of care is never ours, and not even left to our doctors to decide. More often than not, it is insurance companies that decide when, where, and for how long we can receive treatment.

Here in Italy, everyone has access to a government-run system that is funded through taxes, with some private alternatives for those who want to or can afford to go beyond our public service. Health care decisions are not made by someone worried about making a profit. Even the language we use to discuss health care in America (patients are "consumers") echoes the fact that in the US we rely on a system meant to generate profits ' whereas in Italy health care is viewed as every person's right.

It seems impossible to me that a country as wealthy as the US cannot find a way to guarantee access to health care for everyone. There are so many ways to cut costs, including eliminating all of the frills. In the US, when you walk into a hospital or doctor's office, you are greeted by a nice reception area with art on the walls, plants, matching chairs, etc. In Italy the paint may be peeling off the walls, and the chairs in the waiting room may not be the most comfortable ' but the care you get is good and thorough.

Europeans Share Their Healthcare Experience, Part 2: Great Britain

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

To bring some diverse experience into the discussion on health care reform here in the USA, I've asked my friends in Europe to share how health care works in their lives. In this second of four entries, here are comments from my British friends:

From Martin in Wales:

The National Health Service (NHS) in Wales is essentially the same as the English NHS founded over 60 years ago. Today, the main difference between the services in England and Wales is that in Wales (as in Scotland) we pay nothing for medications. Our Welsh Assembly decided that no matter the cost of the drugs, the duration of the illness, or the wealth of the patient, no charge is made for prescription drugs.

This fulfils of the one of founding principles of the NHS ' like justice, health care is "blind." You are treated no matter who you are or what your financial means are. None would pretend that the NHS is perfect: New and expensive drugs are used to combat diseases in an increasingly aging population, which puts financial strains on our system. However, knowing that the NHS will try always to treat you to the best of its ability is something valued highly by most Welsh people.

Treatment under the NHS is free, but the cost is huge. We pay for it in our taxes. In the US, people pay insurance companies for their health care, whereas in Britain, we pay the government. You may think this makes the two systems the same, that it's only a matter of who you pay. I don't think so. Don't forget that the NHS is "blind" and its blindness is its true virtue. Insurance companies insure the individual for a profit, while the NHS delivers care, free to all.

From Tom in England:

The United Kingdom National Health Service (NHS) was 60 years old last year and continues to provide "free" health care from cradle to grave. The NHS is state-funded. It is paid for by employers and employees making a contribution direct from earnings. Care and treatment is free to citizens. Drugs are about $10 per prescription. The NHS system enables completely free access and care for people who can't pay taxes: the poor, unemployed, and elderly.

When things go wrong with the NHS, it's given massive prominence by a media looking to sell newspapers and pump up TV ratings. However, for the majority of the English ' those not made fools by hysterical media coverage ' it is quite popular. We like the NHS because it takes away the worry about what would happen if your health fails, if there's an accident, or if you just need help as you get older. It's not perfect. No health care system is. But there are millions of people who would testify that they'd be dead without it.

The creation of our free service came after World War II, when there was a desire to spread health care to all citizens. The demographics have changed since then, however. A population that lives longer requires more costly care. Every society needs to deal honestly with this reality. Life-saving treatments have been developed that cost more. And so, in 2009, the NHS is one of the biggest topics of political debate ' it's called by some a "sacred cow." The bottom line is that none of the major political parties will try to remove it ' and certainly not when they are facing a general election in 2010. I think most of us would call our NHS a 60-year-old success story, regardless of today's financial challenges.

Europeans Share Their Health Care Experience, Part 1: Scandinavia

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:58:00 PST

To bring some diverse experience into the discussion on health care reform here in the USA, I've asked my friends in Europe to share how health care works in their lives. In this four-part series, we'll start with the most highly taxed and socialistic part of Europe: Scandinavia.

From Hakan in Sweden:

In Sweden, we have free choice in health care. It means that patients can choose a hospital anywhere in the country.

In 2005, the cost of the health and medical care sector amounted to 8.4 percent of GDP (in the US, it was over 15 percent). This amount includes the cost of pharmaceutical products, dental care, eyeglasses, and patient fees paid by households.

We employ a "high-cost protection scheme" that means that no patient ever needs to pay more than a total of 900 SEK (about $125) over a 12-month period. For pharmaceutical costs, no patient has to pay more than SEK 1,800 (about $250) over a 12-month period for prescription drugs. This way, no citizen will be put into poverty because of health problems.

The fee for visiting a doctor or hospital varies from 100-300 SEK (about $14-32), but once you have paid 900 SEK in a 12-month period, the rest of the care is totally free ' no matter what kind of treatment you need. Private-care providers are also "clients" of the government. A patient can choose a private doctor or hospital, pay the small fee, and the government pays the difference.

The health and medical services have an obligation to strengthen the situation of the patient, for example, by providing individually tailored information, freedom to choose between treatment options, and the right to a second opinion in cases of life-threatening or other particularly serious diseases or injuries.

Having lived here all my life and raised my family here in Stockholm, I honestly do not see anything bad with our health care system.

From Richard in Demark:

I have lived and worked in Denmark for 24 years and have had numerous encounters with the health care system. In all cases I was satisfied or impressed with the quality of service and the low cost (apart from the tax system ' more about that later).

The health care system in Denmark is free to all who live here. Even visiting tourists will be treated free of charge in case of an emergency. A non-Danish friend of mine who sprained her ankle during a recent visit was X-rayed, bandaged, treated by a doctor, and even given a pair of crutches to use ' and was not charged anything. She was only asked to return the crutches when she left Denmark.

The quality of Danish health care ' which is not run on a profit motive ' is very good, though there is a waiting time for some non-life-threatening operations like a hip replacement. But everyone will eventually get the operation they need. Hospitals are free, doctor visits are free, and medicine is highly subsidized so that those who need a lot of medicine get it at a greatly reduced charge. Dentistry is subsidized.

This is paid for through our tax system, which ' at 52 percent ' is perhaps the highest in the world. None of the 10 political parties in Denmark has ever wanted to change that, because they know that they would not get any votes. The vast majority of Danes are agreeable to pay these high taxes; they know that they get about 50 percent of the money back each year in a vast array of benefits. Seven out of 10 Danes are willing to pay even more taxes, if necessary, to maintain the health care system we expect.

Danes have the mature and realistic understanding that you cannot give everyone a quality health care system, good schools, and the elements that help to make for a good quality of life, without paying for it. Freedom does not mean not paying taxes. For us, freedom is paying taxes. By taking care of each other, and the weaker elements in our society, we all have a better quality of life with very low crime rates, few prisons, and a sense of security that it is not "me against the world." That is part of what it means to be Danish.

From Hanne and Trond in Norway:

In Norway, everyone has, in principle, equal rights to health care. Norwegian hospitals are "free" for patients (being financed with taxes) and everyone is entitled to treatment, irrespective of income and insurance. However, many things are not always working well here.

When hospitalized, no one asks for insurance coverage. You can stay for as long as it takes without having to worry about costs. At the hospital, every part of the treatment is free, indefinitely. At home, people with chronic illnesses get medicine and necessary medical equipment almost for free, save for a limited, annual base payment.

But some parts of the system don't function well. Depending on the illness, you could wait a long time for necessary hospital treatment (typically non-emergency surgery). For instance, you have to go through your family doctor in order to be referred to a specialist. When the family doctors have way too many patients and limited opening hours (and limited telephone hours!), this is often an obstacle. Of course, any emergency treatment is exempt from "queuing."

As for the cost, the hospitals operate with a combined budget of approximately NOK 75 billion ($13 billion). Our health care is not free ' we pay for it in our taxes: Our corporations pay a flat tax rate of 28 percent on their profits. Wage income is taxed under a progressive structure, from almost zero (very low, part-time wages) to a maximum marginal tax rate of 54 percent. The average "industrial worker" has a tax rate of 30 to 35 percent.

Travel Writer as Curator

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:07:00 PST

I've been in San Francisco for a couple of days ' giving talks, enjoying a bit of the Bay Area, and meeting with travel publishers and travel editors. Today was filled with philosophy about the role of a travel writer and tour guide. I'm not sure exactly what we were talking about, but it stirred my thoughts nicely.

I spent breakfast talking with Spud Hilton (travel editor of the San Francisco Chronicle). One of only about a dozen journalists in the USA still earning their income as a full-time travel editor, Spud gave me an update on the state of newspapers in our economy.

As we lamented the cost to society of traditional journalism morphing into blogs and amateur Internet postings, Spud compared "citizen journalism" to "citizen dentistry" or getting a "citizen plumber" ' do we really want to dispense with the professionals in trying to understand our world through news reporting?

Spud also talked about the challenges of getting good articles for his travel section. He likes a travel story that gives a place a personality profile, written by a writer who shares his experiences there in a way that tells more about the place than the writer.

I lamented how I can do a month of really productive guidebook work and come up with almost nothing of any value for newspaper articles. Then I can go out for two days without my guidebook chores and stir up plenty of great anecdotal material for newspaper and magazine writing.

Spud said one reason he likes to run my articles in the Chronicle is that people in the Bay Area already feel like they know me. This is helpful because he figures they get up and running with me more quickly, and that enables me to establish myself in a place with fewer words. And fewer words is a plus when you have limited newspaper space.

Conventional thinking is that people go to the travel section of a newspaper to learn about good deals. Spud believes you can find countless deals online these days, and for a paper to offer something unique it needs to run finely crafted articles that take you there.

We were talking about my new Travel as a Political Act book, and found that we were both dealing with the same notion that there are two fundamentally different ways to travel ' the old "tourist versus traveler" thing ' and that one is not necessarily right or wrong. My passion has been to inspire people to both have fun and have that broadening experience.

Spud, who landed his position in part because he's an expert in (and a fan of) the cruise industry, also sees two kinds of travel: what he terms "discovery travel" and "leisure travel." We agreed that these are not mutually exclusive. You can go to Mazatlán and have the leisure on the beach (with a plastic wristband giving you unlimited margaritas and a stretch of Pacific beach cleared of locals)...and then head a couple blocks inland to eat real Mexican food with locals.

Then I had lunch with my publisher, and the fun conversation continued. My publisher is a futurist/visionary/travel publishing wonk ' a wonderful man to collaborate with if you want your guidebooks to succeed. In analyzing the ebb and flow of various guidebook series, he was into the notion that some guidebooks are into aggregation while others are into curation (as if designed by a "curator").

Aggregation publishers build their guidebooks by pooling all the data in a giant content bank, and then ladle out various configurations as if buying modular furniture: Would you like an L-shaped sofa? How about a guidebook to clubs and shopping in capital cities? Other guidebooks are a result of "curation" ' designing, organizing, and interpreting information that works together holistically, like a body works together. Knowing what a traveler needs and what they've learned or experienced so far, a "curation" guidebook intuits what is helpful as the trip unfolds.

I told my publisher that I experimented this summer with letting my staff dedicate days to hotel updates, freeing up time for me to "live the books" and have the experiences in order to better shape and design this end of the information. I was thinking this might be the most valuable use of my time. He said, "Yes...curation." (Perhaps the word is just made up...but I like it much better than aggregation.)

Then, this afternoon, I talked on the phone with my tour operations department and grappled with the challenge of guides who keep their groups very happy by aggregating the travel experiences on a tour, but aren't curators in bringing everything together to give a big context and maximize meaning and learning by weaving together what the various local guides have shared and taught.

Whether its through newspaper articles, guidebooks, or tour experiences, we are scrambling to make the travel experience as rich and meaningful as possible.

Paola's Arc: Many Recommended Restaurants Have a Shelf Life

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:27:00 PST

I love recommending good restaurants in my guidebooks. But they seem to have a quality arc and often don't belong in a good guidebook forever. Typically they start tentative, become stars, get lazy and greedy, and then often fall out.

Trattoria der Pallaro, one of my favorites in Rome, seems to be heading down. I visit almost every year unannounced and wander through the place talking with diners and staff and reassessing the place. It is funky, memorable, and in my 2009 visit most people there were having a wonderful experience with a quirky hostess in a memorable neighborhood setting. But now I'm getting bad reports and need to reconsider my recommendation.

Almost every place will get occassional bad feedback...but when a pattern emerges, I need to take note, even if the place is a long establshed favorite that is still generally making people happy customers. For an insight into how we deal with this phenomenon, here's a recent thread of correspondence between our travelers using the guidebook, my managing editor (Risa), and me:

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Hi Rick,

Here are some recent negative reader-feedback emails concerning Trattoria der Pallaro in Rome. We talk up Pallaro quite a lot in the Rome guidebook. Should we contact Paola or reconsider our recommendation?

Risa

Forwarded Message #1:

Dear Rick,

I am a solo woman traveler, elderly, who has always used your travel guides to help along my holidays.

I was in Rome in September and went for dinner to Trattoria der Pallaro run by Paola which you recommend in your Rome guidebook. Well I had a terrible experience there and hence this letter.

The meal was OK but as I do not take coffee I asked for my check before coffee was served. Paola herself came to my table and I gave her €21 as your book stated. She asked for €25.... OK, the rates may have gone up after your book was published. So I gave her a €5 note and then she asked for €20. I told her that I had already given her this amount, but she insisted that I hadn't...I had seen her slip it into the pocket of her apron and I said so. She then started to raise her voice and spat out a volley of words in Italian, in a loud and uncouth way. She then called a waiter who spoke no more English than she did, saying she did not understand what I was saying. I refused to pay more and she kept a loud tirade so that heads started to turn in our direction...rather embarrassing too as I had no idea what she was saying. Whatever I said fell on her deaf ears and finally I had to pay an extra €20... a meal that now cost €45 and was certainly not worth it. And at the end of all this, she did not give me my bill...an offense in Italian law. If I did not have to leave early the next morning, I would have gone to the Italian Tourist Police and lodged a complaint. Too late now. A very disturbing event. And an eating place best avoided.

Regards, Katie B

Forwarded Message #2:

Dear Rick,

I returned this week from a trip to Italy and relied heavily on your Rome guidebook. I found it helpful, up-to-date and precise in many of the details.

A major disappointment on the last night in this magnificent city propels me to write with the hope for some correction in your description of the Trattoria der Pallaro. I had dinner there with four friends and felt that it was a bad experience. My friends unanimously agree with my assessment.

The first dish of lentils was bland and uninteresting, but we still hoped for better things to arrive. Even an amateur cook could produce this easiest of dishes. Next came hard-to-chew penne (pasta al dente is good, pasta quasi cruda e altra cosa) with what must have been a weak tomato coulis mixed with either a little cream or milk. In an effort to enhance the taste, a tiny quantity of grated pecorino was on the table. Despite that, I could not finish the dish. Another complete miss was the secondo piatto, a kind of non-descript meat ragout ' probably made of leftovers. In addition to the food the house wine served, I think, was acidy and reminded me of the very cheap wine I would drink in my student days three decades ago: some rather unremarkable commercial brand. Service was sloppy. To top it all off, there was a small bowl of peaches in a sugary syrup. I do not remember the other offerings in this gastronomic palette, but I am quite sure they were of the same ilk.

The package was offered at somewhat above €26, but we would have been very pleased to pay a bit more if only the quality of the meal would have been slightly higher.

We hope to continue to rely on your guides and that somehow attention will be given to this complaint.

Sincerely, Gerald R

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Risa,

While just two unhappy customers, this is disconcerting and part of a trend. On my visit this spring, while most of our readers were having a blast there, I heard similar complaints and have had similar concerns with Paola getting more aggressive and taking our recommendation for granted. Send me our guidebook listing and I'll edit it down. We should email her about this troublesome pattern, too.

Rick

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Rick,

Here is the current listing in Rick Steves' Rome:

Trattoria der Pallaro, a well-worn eatery that has no menu, has a slogan: "Here, you'll eat what we want to feed you." Paola Fazi - with a towel wrapped around her head turban-style - and her family serve up a five-course meal of typically Roman food for €25, including wine, coffee, and a tasty mandarin juice finale. As many locals return day after day, each evening features a different menu (Tue-Sun 12:00-15:30 & 19:00-24:00, closed Mon, cash only, indoor/outdoor seating on quiet square, a block south of Corso Vittorio Emanuele, down Largo del Chiavari to Largo del Pallaro 15, tel. 06-6880-1488).

Risa

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Risa,

Let's go with this edited listing warning readers about the potentially uneven experience. This is what I should have written after this year's visit, but my judgment was clouded by happier visits in past years and wishful thinking:

Trattoria der Pallaro, an eccentric and well-worn eatery that has no menu, has a slogan: "Here, you'll eat what we want to feed you." Paola Fazi - with a towel wrapped around her head turban-style - and her gang dishes up a five-course meal of bland but typically Roman food for €25, including wine and coffee, and capped with a thimble of mandarin juice. While the service is odd and the food is forgettable, the experience can be fun (Tue-Sun 12:00-15:30 & 19:00-24:00, closed Mon, cash only, indoor/outdoor seating on quiet square, a block south of Corso Vittorio Emanuele, down Largo del Chiavari to Largo del Pallaro 15, tel. 06-6880-1488).

Rick

---

Rick,

We'll use this for reprints and the next edition. Thanks. Sounds like Pallaro is turning into a quirky experience like the Cimbraccola in Milano (run by Stefanini, with mediocre food, pins in the map, and imaginary mama in the kitchen). This write-up better reflects the experience our readers will have.

Risa

In 2010, Is an Electronic Guidebook Packing Too Light?

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:16:00 PST

There's an exciting buzz among travelers and travel publishers about electronic books replacing paper ones. For those of us in travel publishing, this is a season of digital scrambling. And users' heads are spinning with all the new technological options: iPhone apps, books on phones, electronic books on Kindle (the Amazon electronic book reader), small books printed on command (like our popular new Snapshots series), Urbanspoon, and Yelp.

I've met lots of travelers in Europe enthusiastically toting Kindles. Some are obnoxiously evangelical about them. Others are not so happy. I just received this interesting email report from someone upset about traveling with an electronic "book."

Dear Rick,

We made a huge mistake. We thought we could use the Kindle version of your Venice guidebook. Wrong! We just arrived and there is no way to use it as a guidebook while traveling. It is great reading, but not convenient to use while exploring. (That is a Kindle issue.) Is there someplace in Venice that carries your guidebook? Or, is there one of your people in Venice that we can get a copy of your book from? Please help.

- Charlie and Mary

I am pretty slow in all of this. And, while determined not to be a Luddite about the demise of paper, I recently invited one of my employees (who I thought was a bit over-enthusiastic about futuristic forms of travel information) into my office, pointed to the 30 different Rick Steves guidebooks lining my windowsill, and said, "This is what we do...paper guidebooks."

I know the publishing world is changing very fast. I just like paper guidebooks. I've bumped into lots of people in Europe thrilled with their Kindles. While it is a brilliant innovation and certainly the future, at this point some find the technology still clunky for guidebooks.

I'd love to hear about your own thoughts and experiences in the Comments.

Bono on Obama’s Rebranding of America

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 19:32:00 PST

The world honors our president with its most prestigious award ' the Nobel Peace Prize. And, somehow, many Americans find a way to twist it into a negative. I'm perplexed. For a decade I've prayed that our country could retake its position as a leader among nations. Suddenly, we're there. The ideals of our country are shining brightly, we have a leader who is credible and respected, and our country takes a giant leap in the listing of most admired nations.

My work is so impacted by how America is perceived abroad, and my patriotism has had me lamenting how the brand of America was tarnished in the last decade. I'm not alone in this concern. I spent a day on Capitol Hill last year helping Bread for the World lobby for aid for hungry people. As they needed Republican votes, they basically found out which of those Members of Congress enjoyed European travel, and had me going from office to office talking travel and segueing from there to developmental aid.

During my visits on Capitol Hill, I kept hearing two concepts: the emerging importance of "soft power" and the need to polish the tarnished "brand of America." Republicans I met were talking about how waging "soft power" (helping people with our brains and hearts) could actually be more cost-effective for our national interest than waging "hard power" (forcing things with our muscles). And they were lamenting how the sorry state of "the brand of America" was threatening our economy.

So now we have a man who, less than a year into his presidency, is doing all he can to wage soft power and polish the brand of America. And the world applauds us the best way it knows how, as it essentially says, "Lead us, and we will follow." Yet our president practically needs to apologize for the honor of that award here at home.

I was ready to collect my thoughts on this for a blog entry, and I stumbled on a great editorial in the New York Times by Bono dealing exactly with this topic from a European point of view. Much as I hate to give up my bully blog pulpit, I find Bono brilliant and must simply offer you his words on this timely topic. Here's Bono:

Rebranding America (by Bono, from NY Times, Oct 18, 2009)

A few years ago, I accepted a Golden Globe award by barking out an expletive. One imagines President Obama did the same when he heard about his Nobel, and not out of excitement.

When Mr. Obama takes the stage at Oslo City Hall this December, he won't be the first sitting president to receive the peace prize, but he might be the most controversial. There's a sense in some quarters of these not-so-United States that Norway, Europe and the World haven't a clue about the real President Obama; instead, they fixate on a fantasy version of the president, a projection of what they hope and wish he is, and what they wish America to be.

Well, I happen to be European, and I can project with the best of them. So here's why I think the virtual Obama is the real Obama, and why I think the man might deserve the hype. It starts with a quotation from a speech he gave at the United Nations last month: "We will support the Millennium Development Goals, and approach next year's summit with a global plan to make them a reality. And we will set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time."

They're not my words, they're your president's. If they're not familiar, it's because they didn't make many headlines. But for me, these 36 words are why I believe Mr. Obama could well be a force for peace and prosperity ' if the words signal action.

The millennium goals, for those of you who don't know, are a persistent nag of a noble, global compact. They're a set of commitments we all made nine years ago whose goal is to halve extreme poverty by 2015. Barack Obama wasn't there in 2000, but he's there now. Indeed he's gone further ' all the way, in fact. Halve it, he says, then end it.

Many have spoken about the need for a rebranding of America. Rebrand, restart, reboot. In my view these 36 words, alongside the administration's approach to fighting nuclear proliferation and climate change, improving relations in the Middle East and, by the way, creating jobs and providing health care at home, are rebranding in action.

These new steps ' and those 36 words ' remind the world that America is not just a country but an idea, a great idea about opportunity for all and responsibility to your fellow man.
All right ... I don't speak for the rest of the world. Sometimes I think I do ' but as my bandmates will quickly (and loudly) point out, I don't even speak for one small group of four musicians. But I will venture to say that in the farthest corners of the globe, the president's words are more than a pop song people want to hear on the radio. They are lifelines.

In dangerous, clangorous times, the idea of America rings like a bell (see King, M. L., Jr., and Dylan, Bob). It hits a high note and sustains it without wearing on your nerves. (If only we all could.) This was the melody line of the Marshall Plan and it's resonating again. Why? Because the world sees that America might just hold the keys to solving the three greatest threats we face on this planet: extreme poverty, extreme ideology and extreme climate change. The world senses that America, with renewed global support, might be better placed to defeat this axis of extremism with a new model of foreign policy.

It is a strangely unsettling feeling to realize that the largest Navy, the fastest Air Force, the fittest strike force, cannot fully protect us from the ghost that is terrorism .... Asymmetry is the key word from Kabul to Gaza .... Might is not right.

I think back to a phone call I got a couple of years ago from Gen. James Jones. At the time, he was retiring from the top job at NATO; the idea of a President Obama was a wild flight of the imagination.

General Jones was curious about the work many of us were doing in economic development, and how smarter aid ' embodied in initiatives like President George W. Bush's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief and the Millennium Challenge Corporation ' was beginning to save lives and change the game for many countries. Remember, this was a moment when America couldn't get its cigarette lighted in polite European nations like Norway; but even then, in the developing world, the United States was still seen as a positive, even transformative, presence.

In an asymmetrical war, he said, the emphasis had to be on making American foreign policy conform to that formula.

Enter Barack Obama.

If that last line still seems like a joke to you ... it may not for long. Mr. Obama has put together a team of people who believe in this equation. That includes the general himself, now at the National Security Council; the vice president, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; the Republican defense secretary; and a secretary of state, someone with a long record of championing the cause of women and girls living in poverty, who is now determined to revolutionize health and agriculture for the world's poor. And it looks like the bipartisan coalition in Congress that accomplished so much in global development over the past eight years is still holding amid rancor on pretty much everything else. From a development perspective, you couldn't dream up a better dream team to pursue peace in this way, to rebrand America.

The president said that he considered the peace prize a call to action. And in the fight against extreme poverty, it's action, not intentions, that counts. That stirring sentence he uttered last month will ring hollow unless he returns to next year's United Nations summit meeting with a meaningful, inclusive plan, one that gets results for the billion or more people living on less than $1 a day. Difficult. Very difficult. But doable.

The Nobel Peace Prize is the rest of the world saying, "Don't blow it."

But that's not just directed at Mr. Obama. It's directed at all of us. What the president promised was a "global plan," not an American plan. The same is true on all the other issues that the Nobel committee cited, from nuclear disarmament to climate change ' none of these things will yield to unilateral approaches. They'll take international cooperation and American leadership.
The president has set himself, and the rest of us, no small task.

That's why America shouldn't turn up its national nose at popularity contests. In the same week that Mr. Obama won the Nobel, the United States was ranked as the most admired country in the world, leapfrogging from seventh to the top of the Nation Brands Index survey ' the biggest jump any country has ever made. Like the Nobel, this can be written off as meaningless ... a measure of Mr. Obama's celebrity (and we know what people think of celebrities).

But an America that's tired of being the world's policeman, and is too pinched to be the world's philanthropist, could still be the world's partner. And you can't do that without being, well, loved. Here come the letters to the editor, but let me just say it: Americans are like singers ' we just a little bit, kind of like to be loved. The British want to be admired; the Russians, feared; the French, envied. (The Irish, we just want to be listened to.) But the idea of America, from the very start, was supposed to be contagious enough to sweep up and enthrall the world.
And it is. The world wants to believe in America again because the world needs to believe in America again. We need your ideas ' your idea ' at a time when the rest of the world is running out of them.

(Bono is the lead singer of the band U2 and a co-founder of the advocacy group ONE.)

Wow...Iran Wins an Award

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:43:00 PST

Last year we traveled together via this blog through Iran. That experience inspired me to write my Travel as a Political Act book. And since then, my life has been enriched by lots of connections with people who care about peace with the Muslim world. For instance, two nights ago I shared a stage at Seattle's Town Hall with Gina Salá, an amazing musician who bridges cultures in her music (www.ginasala.com) at a fundraiser for the Voices Education Project. With both music and travelogue, Gina and I helped bring the world to Seattle.

Yesterday I got a fun surprise: The Society of American Travel Writers awarded Rick Steves' Iran with the Gold Medal in the "Special Package/Project" category. While there was a "Travel Broadcast Video" category, the Society decided to award our Iran program not just on the show itself, but on the way we used many multimedia components to engage with the viewers: our related radio interviews, newspaper columns, website, vodcasts, online discussion boards, the $5 Iran DVD for groups initiative (in which we sent the DVD to over 7,000 community groups), the printed Iran journal, and my lectures across the country. Our hope to humanize a country of 70 million people was selected for being a multimedia extravaganza! How exciting!

So many people worked very hard to make this campaign what it is. I am thankful to have such a great team to collaborate with. Here are the judges' official comments on our project:

Category 10: Special Package/Project
Gold: Rick Steves, "Rick Steves' Iran: Yesterday and Today," multimedia
This is a gold winner for two reasons ' the challenging subject and the extraordinary presentation across multiple media. Rick Steves takes us on this unusual journey with a public television special, radio program, Web site with audio, video, links and reader feedback, newspaper reports, day-by-day travel blog and color booklet.

While I generally go about my merry travel writing way without concerning myself with the world of other travel writers, I have great respect for the SATW and am honored to be recognized by them for our Iran project. Just last month, we made our Iran show into a pledge special that will be airing all over the USA this winter, giving the program new life and (we hope) further raising awareness of the struggles of good people living under a bad government.

It's interesting to see what other awards were given to America's many fine travel writers. Learn about this year's awards.

Europe vs. India

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:23:00 PST

People often ask me, "So when are you going to expand into Asia?" I love Asia. I once traveled there as much as in Europe (and even wrote a book back in the early '90s called Asia Through the Back Door). But I can't just "expand into Asia" and do a worthwhile job.

I tell people, "Europe's my beat." I consider it the wading pool for world exploration. It's where the big market is (as I am running a business). And my personal curiosity takes me endlessly back to Europe. It's where I find both my genetic and cultural roots.

But when asked my favorite country, I say, "India." While I enjoy the shock value of saying that, that's not why I say it. I say India because it's true. India wallops anyone's self-assuredness. India rearranged my cultural furniture. My confidence that I understood such basics to life as time, joy, love, pain, and music was shaken. I was humbled in a way that made me a better person. I am thankful for India. If I weren't on a mission in Europe, India's where I'd be. If you enjoy culture shock, India is pure decadence.

Making my focus Europe still leaves me with a lifetime of travel options. Having returned from spending 120 days this year in Spain, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Scandinavia, Estonia, and Germany, I now look ahead and consider what's on deck for 2010. This is the time of year that Risa, my managing editor, needs to figure out which researchers are doing what territory so we can be sure all the guidebooks are adequately updated. A perk of my position is that I get to take my pick of research chores for the coming year.

I told Risa she can count on me to update London, England, Paris, Venice, Vienna, Budapest, Greece, and Istanbul. I'm sure that will evolve, but that's my thinking now. For TV, we'll shoot shows on Helsinki/Tallinn, Basque Country, and South Spain (all places I learned lots about this year). And then I have a big decision: branch further afield (e.g. Morocco, St. Petersburg, Romania, etc.) or redo the big Italy destinations.

The biggest regret I think I've had in my 20 years of TV production was not shooting in high-definition and widescreen (16 x 9) in 2001 when we spent 30 exhilarating days making five of my favorite shows ever, on Rome, Florence, Venice, the Veneto, and the Cinque Terre. While I'd probably let Veneto be, I desperately want to redo the others, perhaps making two Rome shows and two Florence shows. Those are among our most important destinations, and those were the last of the 4 x 3 standard definition shows we did. The old-fashioned aspect ratio and definition, coupled with my old nerdy glasses, make those shows feel really dated. For the last decade, whenever I watch those shows, I ask myself, "Why didn't we spring for the high-def gear...and a new set of glasses?" High-def was pricey and a bit exotic at the time. But now, just a decade later, the old standard definition has become the new black-and-white, and high-def and widescreen have become the new standard.

Hopscotch Sinks. And the Winner Is….

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:15:00 PST

Thanks for your help. So many great comments! No one came to the defense of "Mediterranean Hopscotch." So Rich will get his way. I will propose "Mediterranean Mosaic" to the public television network for the name of the series.

I hope to air four shows for the special, and produce a DVD with those four and four more ' all eight of our Mediterranean episodes on a single killer "Mediterranean Mosaic" disc, as a pledge thank you.

My personal runners-up are Mediterranean Medley... Delights... Treasures... and Charms.

Mediterranean Hopscotch Won't Work

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:03:00 PST

We're having some fun trying to find the right name for our next PBS pledge special. I'm really excited about giving people a sneak peek at our new shows, so we're fast-tracking the post-production of one of the six we shot this summer ' Croatia. Here's the discussion so far between me and my marketing director, Rich Sorensen. Any name ideas from our friends in blog-land are plenty welcome.

Rick to staff:

I'm planning on doing a PBS pledge special featuring Mediterranean destinations called "Mediterranean Hopscotch."
Rick

Hi Guys,

Is that name final? I'd like to help come up with a name. I don't think "Mediterranean Hopscotch" sounds very enticing. And further more, it makes people think of Scotland ' which isn't very Mediterranean.

~Rich.

Rich,

If you have a better name, let me know...but I don't think scotch tape means Scotland. It needs to be four words: Rick Steves' Mediterranean xxx. Your turn, sir.

Rick

Rick Steves' European Dream Cruise Special

Join Rick Steves on this video voyage connecting southern Europe's most captivating ports of call, from bustling Barcelona to exotic Istanbul. Along the way we'll explore the Riviera, Greece's rugged Peloponnese coast ' and get a fresh look along the Adriatic with Rick's all-new show on Croatia.

~Rich.

I don't like cruise. It's not a cruise. How about these:

Mediterranean Treasures

Mediterranean Niblets

Mediterranean Treats

The Iliad and the Wet Dream

Mediterranean Charms

Mediterranean Gems

Rick

How about these:

Mediterranean Mambo

Mediterranean Magic

Mediterranean Meanderings

Mediterranean Gems

Mediterranean Harbors

Mediterranean Favorites

Mediterranean Moments

Mediterranean Sun

Mediterranean Shores

Mediterranean Mix

Mediterranean Medley

Mediterranean Mosey

~Rich.

Or this:

Mediterranean Serendipity

~Rich.

Rich,

Rick Steves' Mediterranean Serendipity ' that's the best so far.

Rick

My Sweet Taskmaster Inbox

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 01:14:00 PST

Now that I'm home again, people keep asking me, "Where's your next trip?" I honestly don't know. After four months of the last five in Europe, it's simply good to be done traveling for a while. (I hope you enjoyed traveling with Cameron via this blog the last couple of weeks as much as I did. Thanks, Cameron, for packing us along.)

I'm overdue for a blog entry. Why the delay? I'll blame my email taskmaster. As my friends and family know, if you want me to do something, give it to me in an email. My inbox is my taskmaster. For example, here's a few of the tasks that fill my inbox and assure me I'll have something to do tomorrow morning at work:

1. My radio and Web staff sent me the list of audio files deconstructed from our radio show archive, which we'll design into our vision of "tour guide radio." We'll offer the various interviews from our radio programs in country-by-country "playlists" for listeners' enjoyment on the road. I need to write the file titles and descriptions.

2. We're producing a new public television pledge special. Its working title: "Mediterranean Hopscotch." (I like the name because it sounds fun and we'll hopscotch from Barcelona to Istanbul, but some of my staff thinks it sounds too much like Scotland.)

3. The production cost from our presenting station seems high, and we need to haggle a bit on that.

4. I'm giving a talk next month in Fort Smith, Arkansas. My travel agent assures me a 50-minute connection in Dallas between here and there is safe. (I'm nervous, but you have to rely on the airlines, and they have yet to let me down ' thank Wilbur, Orville, and God).

5. I have a newspaper article due in two days (a weekly chore) and my staff has submitted the raw material from my recent Frankfurt trip with past writing on the city from which to distill the 750 word piece.

6. I'm giving a talk about "community in Europe" for a fundraiser breakfast supporting the adult day care program. A script for the Elder Health video that I'll read is ready to review.

7. Alison of the ACLU, who met with Obama's drug czar (former Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske) and our congressman (Jay Inslee), shares the letter the ACLU gave them explaining why they believe we should treat drug abuse more as a medical problem and less as a criminal one.

8. I'm giving a talk at our state legislature in Olympia in a couple of days sharing with our legislators how European drug policy compares with America's. The ACLU sent me some PowerPoint slides referring to the law being discussed in Washington State to incorporate into my presentation.

9. I want to have a single DVD packed with general budget travel material in a simple cardboard package that we can spread around liberally. An email explains the extra cost for a four-hour disk rather than a standard three-hour one.

10. Ab Walet, my favorite guide in Amsterdam, has confirmed that he'll meet some friends rain or shine for a city tour (by bike if they like) at their downtown Amsterdam apartment. They're taking our Spain/Portugal tour next month and overnighting in Amsterdam for a crazy finale. It's their first time there ' and I want to be sure they max out on the experience given their limited time. So no museums...just Ab, bikes, and four hours exploring the city capped by a big Indonesian dinner.

11. Sayed, our guide from Iran, emailed me saying, "I hope some better days come up so you can bring tours to Iran."

12. Class sign-ups for our teach-a-thon this weekend at the Edmonds Theater are looking good. I always push to overbook by about a third, which makes my events director nervous. But we almost always have no-shows, causing empty seats. My new classes: a general "What's New Review After 2009 Travels," and much-improved shows on Spain and Scandinavia after the fun I had there this year.

13. Another email gives me the files for class handouts listing all the places covered in the talks, which need to be updated accordingly.

It's a lot of work. But I'm so endlessly entertained by it all. That's why I have such a cozy relationship with my sweet Taskmaster Inbox.

Polish Booby Prize

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:57:00 PST

This is the final of four reports that my Eastern Europe guidebook co-author Cameron Hewitt sent me from his travels:

In Poland, the big news is that several Polish cities are hosting matches for the 2012 Euro Cup soccer championships ' which in Europe is only a small step down from hosting the Olympics. Everything's under construction. They're building new high-speed rail lines like crazy, which will be good news in a few years, but is bad news now since most journeys are substantially delayed. The Gdansk-Warsaw trip, usually about four hours, took closer to six.

Warsaw's Central Station ' my vote for most depressing and confusing rail station in Europe ' is slated for a desperately needed overhaul soon. It can't happen fast enough. In the five-minute walk from the ticket office to my platform, I ran into three different American couples who were toting my guidebook and hopelessly baffled about what to do next. Pointing them in the right direction, I felt pretty good-Samaritan about myself...until I realized that they were just the tip of the confused-tourist iceberg. Normally I'd take their confusion as a sign that the book needs improvement; in this case, I think it's the station that needs improvement. (But I'm revamping the "Arrival" section anyway, just in case.)

There's always something new in fast-developing Poland. Every time I go back to certain towns (like Gdansk), I discover that several good hotels and restaurants have opened. Occasionally I've had to list a hotel (with ample "last resort"-type caveats) that I know isn't that great, just because there are no acceptable alternatives. It's so satisfying to visit a few new hotels or restaurants, discover that they're better than the old standbys, and delete the duds from my book. (There's even a good sushi restaurant now in Gdansk ' so long, "Pierogi Restaurant Under the Boar.") In a few cases, if you compare my hotel or restaurant listings from five years ago to today's, you'll find only a couple of overlaps. That's not the case in most books, but in Poland it just shows how things are steadily improving.

A couple of Poles bragged to me that Poland is one of the only countries in Europe that's not suffering so badly from the financial crisis. It's actually had positive economic growth last year. But it's sort of a booby prize. When pressed for reasons, they acknowledged that it's probably because the Polish economy is a bit backwards and not as well-integrated into the global scene, making it less prone to worldwide fluctuations.

I usually have total tunnel vision about my work, but this trip I've been trying to chat more with people I meet. This has reminded me how rewarding it can be to strike up a conversation ' whether with a couple from Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, or a woman from Friday Harbor who's about to embark on an epic journey that will take her to the Baltics, the "-Stans" of central Asia, and the prettiest stretch of the Camino de Santiago. Most fascinating was the pair of young Scottish women who quit their jobs and were traveling all around Europe for four months ' sleeping in their car, cooking on a camp stove, showering once a week ("10 days was the longest"), and making a go of it on a budget of €50 a day, most of which went toward gas and experiences.

But, as always, my favorites have been interactions with Polish people. It's amazing the connections you discover with people you'd think you have nothing in common with. On the long train ride from Gdansk to Warsaw, I shared a compartment with a woman whose husband is a cognitive psychologist/memory researcher. It turns out he's familiar with the work of the professor I was a research assistant for in college.

And just now, as I write this on the train from Warsaw to Krakow, I've been chatting with Monika. She told me she was going to a very remote little village northeast of Krakow to visit her father. I prodded her for more details, and it turns out she grew up in a small town (Szczurowa) that's just a 20-minute drive from the villages where my great-grandparents were born. I've been in her middle-of-nowhere town twice in the last few years. She knows several people with the same surname as my ancestors. And I have to assume that she's probably a distant cousin of some sort.

A few minutes later, "Cousin Monika" became my guardian angel when my computer crashed after I spritzed a little water on the keyboard. She called her brother-in-law, who's a tech support guy, and got some tips. Now my computer is humming away on my lap again.

When traveling, we focus so much on the museums, the cuisine, and the scenery. But it's often these strange, funny, serendipitous little interactions that we remember the most fondly.

Making Friends with Mr. GPS in Switzerland

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:22:00 PST

This is the third of four reports guidebook researcher/writer Cameron Hewitt sent me just this week from his travels in Switzerland and beyond:

One highlight of my time updating our Switzerland guidebook was making friends with the computer voice of my rental car's GPS system.

When I picked up my car, the rental agent said, "Sorry, I don't have the size of car you requested, so I have to give you something a little bigger." It turned out to be a Skoda Superb (made by my favorite up-and-coming Czech automaker) and was literally at least double the size of the car I'd reserved. You could fit our Norwegian rental car in the backseat, and have room left for a Smart Car in the trunk. While it was nice to have essentially a luxury sedan for the trip, it was sometimes challenging to nudge my tank through narrow mountain roads and tight city parking garages.

The car came with a GPS system that spoke in a buttoned-down British voice. I developed a real love-hate relationship with the GPS guy, who occasionally saved me tons of time and stress, but more than once steered me very wrong. Like an over-earnest navigator desperate to make a good impression, Mr. GPS periodically suggested bizarre and impractical routings. On our first day together, he sent me up narrow mountain roads (in some cases, ones I wasn't sure I was legally allowed to drive), where I dodged cows and looked longingly down at the big, fast highway in the valley just below. (I'm guessing my GPS wanted to treat me to the "scenic" route. Yeah, thanks.)

On another occasion, I drove halfway across the country (from Gruyeres to Appenzell) at rush hour, hitting big traffic jams around Bern and Zürich. In order to "help" me avoid traffic on the Bern outerbelt, my GPS directed me to an exit to take surface roads through the city. Little did I know that he planned to send me straight through the heart of downtown. He was as confused as I was... "Turn left in 100 meters. Turn left now. No! Wait! Please make a U-turn if possible." As I found myself doing a three-point turn right in front of the Bern train station, trying to ignore the bewildered stares of rush-hour commuters, I decided that Mr. GPS was on thin ice.

My increasing wariness proved useful a few days later, when ' on the way from St. Moritz to Lugano via Italy's Lake Como ' I realized Mr. GPS had just directed me right past the Lugano turnoff. Hitting the brakes and checking the map, I figured out he was aiming to send me on the freeway, then on a ferry across the lake. I stuck with the slower roads on the correct side of the lake, and got in an hour earlier. (It reminded me of a recent news item, in which a Swedish couple touring Italy mistyped "Capri" as "Carpi" ' and wound up several hundred miles from their intended destination.) The lesson: GPS is only useful in conjunction with a good map and some common sense.

The GPS guy would talk right over any music I was listening to. This created some odd duets. One time, listening to Janis Joplin on the radio, I heard, "Come on, take another little piece of my heart, now, baby... Please make a U-turn if possible."

Pondering why I'm so fixated on my GPS experiences, I realize it's probably because Mr. GPS was my main company for a few days. Now that he's pestering some other driver, I kind of miss him.

Fringe Switzerland and Stinky Cheese

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:08:00 PST

This is the second of four reports that editor/writer/researcher Cameron Hewitt sent me from his travels in Norway, Switzerland, and Poland as he's updating our guidebooks. ' Rick

Only when coming from Norway does Switzerland seem reasonably priced. Dropping $20 or $25 on a decent Swiss dinner felt like a big relief. (Later, when I was in Poland, I could eat like royalty for $20. In Warsaw I had lunch for $2...banana, egg-salad sandwich, and a bottle of water. But, as the stray hair I found in the sandwich attested, sometimes you get what you pay for.)

In the past I've usually focused on the Germanic core of Switzerland, so I forgot how diverse this little country is. This time, I zipped around the Romance language-speaking fringe ' Lausanne and Gruyeres (French), Appenzell (OK, that's still German), St. Moritz area (Romansh), and Lugano (Italian). Every day or two, I switched languages. Though I never crossed a border (aside from a 30-minute detour into Liechtenstein), there was as much culture shock from place to place as if I'd traveled from Paris to Munich to Rome. By the time I got to the Romansh area ' where they speak an obscure Latin dialect that's completely unfamiliar to me ' I was so confused, I found myself grunting to my waiter in Croatian.

It's not just language ' the people in each part of Switzerland have their own quirks. For example, in France, people have a distinct formality, with protocol that visitors are expected to follow. The Swiss are known to be a bit aloof, with a focus on orderliness. And, while I actually appreciate those qualities when I'm in those respective countries, when they're stacked together in French-speaking Switzerland, it feels overly uptight. It often seemed like I could do no right.

Meanwhile, Italian Switzerland ' while certainly tamer than Italy proper ' also has a dollop of Italian chaos. Usually, super-organized Switzerland is a dream for updating a guidebook. But Lugano kept me on my toes. Rushing around on Saturday night to check out some restaurants (which I knew would be closed on Sunday), I was told by two different restaurateurs, "It's busy now. Can you come back tomorrow?" When I reminded them they were closed the next day, they'd wink sheepishly and answer my questions. And three separate times, Italian Swiss locals who I was using to update my information brushed aside my questions with, "Well, if it's in that book, I'm sure it's correct." While I appreciate their faith in our book, how do they think it gets to be correct?

Fortunately, some things never change, no matter which language the people speak. Rivella, my favorite Swiss soft drink ' which is made from milk serum, tastes like chewable vitamins, and comes in four different flavors ' is available nationwide. Over a week, the front seat of my car filled up with (I hate to think of how many) Rivella empties.

It's always interesting to hear observations from the local tourist industry. Middle Eastern travelers flock to Switzerland. A ticket seller at the boat dock in Lugano said that he had tons of Mideast tourists until a couple of weeks ago. Then Ramadan started...and he's only seen one Middle Eastern family since (Christians from Egypt). Since Ramadan starts even earlier next year, Swiss hoteliers are predicting a short but very intense spike in demand early in the season.

I had one particularly cow-heavy stretch that combined Switzerland's best cheeses and milk chocolates. One day I woke up in the town of Gruyeres (famous for its Gruyere cheese), toured two different cheesemaking facilities (with free samples), visited the Broc chocolate factory (more samples), then drove to Appenzell ' another town famous for its stinky but delicious cheese. I like to do as the locals do ' tea and a big English breakfast in Britain, croissants in France, borscht in Poland ' but after a couple of days eating my way through Switzerland's two cheese capitals, I needed dairy detox.

One highlight was arriving in the cutesy Germanic town of Appenzell on what happened to be one of the two or three days a year that the cows come down from mountain pastures. I made sure to be on main street when the farmer proudly paraded his several dozen cows through the village.

Norway's Lofoten Islands: Cod Only Knows Their Beauty

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:09:00 PST

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I just got a great report from Cameron Hewitt, lead editor/writer and guidebook co-author at ETBD, sharing his take on Norway, Switzerland, and Poland. As Cameron often does, he toured the fringe areas that I don't get to as often as I'd like, and he's made some great observations I'd like to share with you. To collaborate with travel writers of this caliber is one of the great joys in my work. Here's the first of four blog entries by Cameron ' reporting on an amazing bit of Norway I've yet to see.

I almost always enjoy the places that I travel to for work. But only a few special destinations thrill me enough to lure me back on my own dime. Norway's one of them. After a week driving around southern Norway's mountains and fjords to update our Scandinavia book a couple of years back, this summer I brought my wife with me to venture to an almost mythical pinnacle at the end of the earth: The Lofoten Islands.

The Lofoten are a chain of spiky islands way up at the northern end of Norway, well above the Arctic Circle...comparable to the northern reaches of Alaska. Why make the effort to travel so far? For years I've drooled at photos of astonishing scenery, like fjords on steroids cast away in the sea. In reality, it was even more astonishingly beautiful...the most breathtaking scenery we'd ever laid eyes on.

To reach the islands, we went to Oslo (already at Alaskan latitudes), then flew due north for about an hour and a half. For the final hop to the islands, we loaded onto a tiny propeller plane, making a brief stopover to pick up two passengers at a practically uninhabited hunk of rock halfway across the sea. The tiny plane had to jam on its brakes the second its wheels hit the tiny runway.

Even here in the northernmost point I've ever visited, the warm Gulf Stream keeps the climate mild. We had great luck with the weather: After a rainy first day, we enjoyed perfect sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-60s the rest of the week. While we were a bit late for the midnight sun, the sky glowed until well after midnight.

Things are casual in the Lofoten. When we picked up our cheapo rental car at the airport and asked about dropping it off before our return flight, the rental agent said, "You can yoost leave the keys above the visor with the door unlocked. Or give them to that guy," pointing at the security agent. (Sure enough, a week later, "that guy" happily took our keys.)

We spent our first two nights in a charming little fishing village called Henningsvær, with a smattering of galleries and cafés. From there, we side-tripped into the main town of the Lofoten, Svolvær, where we took an RIB (rigid inflatable boat, a.k.a. Zodiac) high-speed boat tour bouncing across the waves to the surrounding inlets, fjords, and islands, at speeds approaching 50 knots. It was a thrill ride punctuated with incredible views.

Everywhere we went, we stayed in rorbuer, which are little fishermen's cabins that stand on stilts above the water. These have been rehabbed to varying degrees to house tourists, and come with modern bathrooms and kitchens. The rorbuer were perfect for relaxing in a rustic environment, enjoying the scenery, and tuning into the pace of village Norwegian life.

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Our favorite stop was the town of Reine, in the middle of a fjord immersed in the most spectacular stretch of Lofoten scenery. Our rorbu there was meticulously renovated, perfectly combining rustic charm and modern comfort (www.reinerorbuer.no). We checked in, stepped in the door to our cabin, and immediately said, "Let's stay here longer." (Within minutes, we'd made arrangements to extend our stay.) We never got tired of staring out at the billion-dollar views from our rorbu. Basing in Reine, we took a fjord cruise, rented sea kayaks for a tranquil paddle, and went on intoxicating lakeside and fjordside hikes. It was just a 15-minute drive to the remote fishing village called Å (the last letter in the Norwegian alphabet, and the last town in the Lofoten), where we toured its humble museum and gagged down a taste of cod liver oil. And we strolled along also some fantastic, broad, white-sand beaches. While we saw a few brave swimmers go in the water (mostly kids), even in August we found it too cold to go deeper than our ankles.

The Lofoten feel impossibly remote. It's improbable that this chain of islands is even populated. But those warm Gulf Stream waters flush schools of cod way up here in the winter, making local fishermen very happy. Rickety-looking wooden cod-drying racks are everywhere.

It's clear that these days, tourism has eclipsed fishing as the main industry. Even this distant corner of Norway feels civilized ' we paid for most everything with our credit card, and everyone we met spoke perfect English. And yet, amenities are sparse. Each village seems to have a catch-all store that combines the bare minimum necessities: convenience store, grocery, gas station, and post office. After stumbling onto a good latte on the first day of our trip, we never found one again. Missing were all the little trappings of a resort area...no ice-cream parlors, tacky trinket shops, Internet cafés, and so on. While this sounds idyllic, we were surprised to find ourselves wishing for some of those comforting little subconscious signposts that we were on vacation. One night, after wandering through a desolate village searching for an after-dinner ice-cream cone, we finally settled for an ice-cream sandwich from the convenience store's freezer.

The few restaurants we splurged on ranged from excellent (a melt-in-your-mouth Arctic char) to...memorable. We were determined to try bacalao, the dried-and-salted cod dish that's a local staple. Even dressed up in a flavorful stew, it was tough to swallow. Another night, one of the cheapest items on the menu was whale steak. Feeling adventurous ' and despite the server's description ("quite gamey, similar to elk or reindeer") and the animal-rights controversy that the menu acknowledged ' I went for it. It came out bleeding-rare and reeking of game...which I suddenly remembered makes me gag. In general, food is not the big attraction here. (When we got back to Oslo, we gratefully wolfed down a cheap Indian meal.) And food prices, like all other prices, are almost comically high. When a candy bar or a can of pop costs $5, you really have to do some soul-searching with each purchase: OK, do I really need this?

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Even though it was the last week of August, and despite the perfect weather, the extremely short tourist season was already grinding to a halt. On several occasions, we were told that something had just closed "yesterday." One evening, after having confirmed that the village's lone tavern would be open for dinner, we showed up only to find they had just one dish available: fish soup with cracker bread. (We drove to the next town for something more appetizing.) We did run into several fellow intrepid travelers gasping at the scenery. However, in a full week in the Lofoten, we never once encountered a single other American.

Hairspray and Vikings

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:35:00 PST

I'm back in Edmonds now, finished with research and filming for the year. Like a big-game fisherman, finally back in port, I am pleased that we have six great shows in the cooler.

When filming I don't give my wardrobe a second thought (obviously). The idea of putting on makeup is laughable. And I've never put anything on my hair...but the hair causes me problems. While I'm not picky about other things, I don't like my hair blowing funny. If the wind is coming at me head-on, it'll actually give me a good wind-blown look. But if it's blowing against the grain, we have to wait for the wind to die down before we keep shooting. For a decade we've been waiting. We routinely lose great on-camera bits because of the wind and my hair. A couple times I've toyed with "product," but I just can't bring myself to use it.

As we were wrapping up our last show of the season, we were grabbing some glorious sun in windy Stockholm for on-cameras, and my hair was causing everything to grind to a halt. The weather was changing and we had to get the on-cameras shot. Someone said "hairspray," and our local guide popped into a fancy hotel and bought a can. Simon, my producer, took me aside and spray-painted it all over my head. I stood on the pier with the wind coming at me from the wrong direction, nailed the on-camera, and the hair was perfect. It was like I'd just discovered hairspray. For ten years I've been fighting the wind. Now, as we wound up this shoot, I finally discovered hairspray. I have a new (and unlikely) friend.

Along with hair, I worked on taming Nordic history. I discovered how Scandinavians define their Middle Ages (which they do differently from the rest of Europe, because there was no Roman Empire to fall up in the north). The Viking Age is defined by the first and last Viking raids on England: 793 and 1050 A.D. And in Scandinavia, medieval times are also called the "Catholic Era" ' stretching from the end of the Viking Age and the coming of Christianity (around 1050) until the Reformation (1527).

I got some more clarity on Scandinavian history. There were different Viking groups in each country. As Vikings, Norwegians went west to Iceland, Greenland, and America; Danes went south to England, France, and the Mediterranean; and the Swedes went east into Russia. (The word "Russia" has Viking roots.)

While Swedes went abroad readily, they were slower to open their doors to non-white immigrants. But Sweden has come a long way when it comes to accepting immigrants, as a popular story illustrates. In 1927 a black man worked in a Stockholm gas station. For Swedes who hadn't traveled, he was the first black person they'd ever seen, and people journeyed from great distances to fill their car up here, just to get a look at him. (Business boomed, and his job was secure.)

Photos: Navigating Norway

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:24:00 PST


As a TV producer, it's a challenge when my crew sees a gorgeous view and I want them to wait for a better view that I know is just up ahead. After driving all day across Norway, from Oslo to the fjord country in the west, we descended from the mountains, and this was our very first fjord sighting. Even though I knew better vistas awaited, the crew had to get out and film the sight. This is the farthest point inland of Norway's longest fjord ' Sognefjord. Enlarge photo	When the sun came out, we made sure we were in position for vistas like this to show off the fjord's wonder. Simon Griffith (producer) and Karel Bauer (cameraman) worked tirelessly for 20 days last month, helping me bring home three exciting new shows on Scandinavia. Enlarge photo	A big part of my research work is running down leads. Most are dead-ends. At the end of a busy day on the fjords, I followed one such lead up a gravelly road to a cluster of 27 abandoned farmhouses ' once a goaty gang of farm families, then abandoned, and now coming back to life. Thanks to Lila, who's monitoring this project, Otternes Farm is a place where travelers can connect with Norway's past on a breathtaking perch high above Aurlandsfjord. It's in our upcoming TV show and covered in the new edition of our Scandinavia book. Enlarge photo

For years, I've told the story about the eureka moment I had as a 14-year-old kid in Oslo's Vigeland Sculpture Park. I noticed how my parents were loving me so much, and I looked around and saw a vast park speckled with others' families ' parents loving their children just as much. Right then it occurred to me how our world is filled with equally lovable children of God. While I've traveled with this wonderful truth ever since, I've never been able to capture that feeling on film. And every time I'm in Oslo I try. Enlarge photo	As a teenage ragamuffin vagabond slumming through Europe (with high-school buddy then and co-author buddy now, Gene Openshaw), I'd pop in on relatives in Norway. It was a much-needed depot for a bit of family warmth and some good food (notice the bulging bag Gene is toting). Thirty-five years later, Uncle Thor still meets me at the train station in his little town of Sandefjord. While I no longer need the free food, I still enjoy the dose of family warmth just as much. Enlarge 1973 \| Enlarge 2009

Budget Overview: Two Young Women, Three Cities, Ten Days

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 10:07:00 PST

Before the trip, my dad made the accurate estimation that we could travel on $60-80 US a day. We ended up making it on about 68 dollars a day, not including two flights and a train ride. In total, we each spent about $1,816.

Here's a rough summary:

Barcelona hostel: Sant Jordi Alberg (per person, per night) ' $49

Madrid hotel: Hotel Europa (Thanks, Dad! He hooked us up with a free stay at his friends' hotel) ' Free!

Lisbon hostel: Traveler's House (per person, per night) ' $30

Round-trip plane from Seattle to Spain ' $900

Train from Barcelona to Madrid (per person) ' $157

Plane from Madrid to Lisbon (per person) ' $43

We each withdrew about €280 ($400 US) from ATMs over the course of the trip to cover all our daily expenses. So that's about $35 per day.

We cut down on daily costs by being cheap with food. We would grab a snack of yogurt, fruit, or cheese from the grocery store for breakfast. We would pick up something like cheap sandwiches for lunch. Snacks consisted of fruit and veggies from produce stands and the occasional ice cream cone. We would usually sit down for dinner at a rather cheap restaurant, usually spending about $8-12 each.

Being card-carrying students cut museum costs down sometimes as much as $5. At Madrid's Royal Palace, for instance, showing your student card let you pay $7 instead of $12.50.

I have to admit that being a female at bars and clubs helps a lot. I don't think we ever had to pay for our own drinks. On more low-key nights, we would pick up a decent bottle of wine from the grocery store for just $5, and go out to share it while chilling in the town square. (Such public drinking is accepted over here.)

We hailed cabs on a couple nights to get back to our hostel when it was too late and dark to walk back safely. Otherwise we used the cheap subway, buses, and trolleys. Tickets for these forms of public transportation are usually just about $2.

Thanks to my dad, we got tours from four local guides for free, a free dinner, and a free fado concert.

We were very cheap here and there, but always comfortable. It was a happy medium between living on nothing but peanut butter (like my brother's friend did on their Eurotrip) and the way I travel with my parents.

' Jackie

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:01:00 PST

This morning, employees of the hostel pleaded with us to stay a few more days, but we grudgingly checked out anyway. One of the employees, a Norwegian, told us that he had planned to visit Lisbon for five days and then go on to travel to Spain and France, but he never left. Now he's been living in Lisbon for five months and says he has never been happier. I am not surprised. It's difficult not to fall in love with this city. Zoe and I even contemplated telling our parents, "Oops, we missed our flights," so we could stay another couple of weeks.

On the flipside of the bitter departure there was some sweet. Zoe was excited to get home to her boyfriend and parents. And I'm ready to go on to some of my favorite countries, take on the responsibility of an assistant tour guide, and replenish my depleted bank account.

Having reached the end of our trip, it's fun to ruminate about the experience overall. We spent a few days in three very different Iberian cities. Barcelona stands out for its boisterous nightlife and arresting Art Nouveau beauties. I'll remember Madrid for its illustrious paintings, bustling squares, and overall liveliness. At the mention of Lisbon, my mind will conjure up visions of regimented mustard yellow buildings, rickety people-packed trolleys, and the anguished expressions of fado artists singing their heart-wrenching story.

' Jackie

A Fado Finale On Our Last Night in Lisbon

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:32:00 PST

Last night we walked to Bairro Alto, the area west of downtown Lisbon, with the fashion district and the best nightlife. My dad had emailed his friend, Gabriel, who owns a restaurant where they put on fado performances. So when we arrived at the restaurant, he had been expecting us (along with a French woman who could have either been his wife or his mother, I couldn't tell) and gave us the warmest of greetings.

He showed us into his cozy little restaurant, where the walls were decorated with paintings and sketches of fado singers. As soon as we sat down, Gabriel brought us a bottle of vinho verde, a sparkling white Portuguese wine. We ordered the seafood rice that he suggested, and he brought us out a big, steaming pot of it, with shrimps, crab, muscles, clams, scallops, and tons of flavor. The best meal of our trip by far! For dessert he brought us his special dessert, the name of which I do not know. It was like a cold frothy mocha cream. We felt like princesses because he kept offering to bring us all kinds of things and when we asked for the check he wouldn't let us pay.

Meanwhile, we heard three fado singers. Throughout all the performances, two elderly men played two different types of guitars. The first to sing was a short old blind man. His manner of singing was a bit jarring to me at first. I had never heard music like this before. It was a powerful guttural singing with the occasional vibrato. I couldn't understand a word, but it was clear that it was a terribly sad and dramatic love story. With each successive song I grew to like it more.

I don't remember well the woman who performed next because the woman who followed her absolutely blew me away. Her song was one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard. Her heartfelt passion filled the room. During the few songs she sang, I was head-over-heels in love with fado. Zoe and I were mesmerized, staring at her face screwed up with fervor and torment. We didn't touch our food once during her performance. When she finished, Zoe was speechless, and all I could say was, "Wow." This woman and her fado, Zoe and I will never forget.

Gabriel introduced us to his 18-year-old son, Tom, who showed us his family's bar upstairs. He made us mojitos and we talked about music and travel. The bar was decorated with rock band posters and Zoe commented that he must really like American rock bands. He said, matter of factly, "No, which band is American in here?" "ACDC," I guessed. No, they're Australian. Zoe guessed Black Sabbath. No, they're English. The only American rock band we could find among the posters was Kiss. All the rest were actually not American. I barely know anything about rock bands, but that really made me feel arrogant for assuming most famous rock bands originate from the States.

' Jackie

A Zoe-Style Visit to the Postcard-Perfect Town of Sintra

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 10:40:00 PST

This morning we took the train to Sintra, a town just 15 miles north of Lisbon. It used to be the perfect getaway for Lisbon's aristocracy and royalty. Now their palaces have been turned into museums and their gardens into public parks for tourists to enjoy.

Up until today we have followed a rather busy itinerary, seeing a few sights a day. Today I told Zoe, "Let's do today Zoe-style and just explore the town aimlessly." So that was the nature of our visit to Sintra, and in the end we were very glad for it.

We wandered away from the train station, up the delightfully green hillside, in the direction of the castle. Most of the buildings are centuries-old mansions so rustic they meld with nature, seeming to belong perfectly. A few little areas of touristy cafés and shops interrupt this harmony, but even these little businesses were charming.

Zoe and I took turns doing silly poses with the sculptures that stood at intervals along the path winding up to the palaces. We couldn't stop taking pictures of the hillside and the water ' really the epitome of picturesque. Every once in a while we came upon groups of little children following each other in a line like little ducklings, all wearing the same color hat, either blue or red or yellow. They must have been summer day camps for Portuguese young children ' very cute.

We didn't go inside any of the palaces or the castle. Instead, we meandered up random alleyways and came upon a little peaceful refuge with a fountain at the center decorated with Moorish tiling. The trickling water and cool shade called us to rest and read our books for a bit.

' Jackie

Sweet Sweet Sintra

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:00:00 PST

On our last day, Jackie and I agreed to go to a small, charming, picturesque town ' without any type of itinerary. With clothes on our backs and books in our bags, we rode the train to the last stop ' Sintra. It was a destination we had been told would be criminal to miss, so we committed the entire day to it. We were feeling melancholy about our impending departure from one another (and for me, from Europe entirely), but it made our last hours together all the sweeter. Sintra immediately lived up to its reputation for beauty and charm. After walking not more than a few minutes, we saw on our left a stone wall, and on the right a breathtaking panorama. The town was built around a valley, and the valley had pretty structures amongst lush vegetation. Palm trees and a diverse array of statues, all by different artists, lined the road. The road ended in a hilly cobblestone-street neighborhood. Little winding streets were lined with shops selling touristy merchandise and restaurants boasting, "Real Portuguese Food" and "Hamburgers and Hotdogs."

We found ourselves a delightful little reading nook next to a pretty fountain and parked there for an hour or so, leaving reluctantly, slaves to our hunger. We retraced our steps, passing the train station to venture in the opposite direction we had initially walked. After some routine restaurant-choosing dysfunction, we sat down in the one restaurant in town that really did not want our business. After we had been seated in this particular restaurant, the waiter told us we could stay for 15 or 30 minutes. We respectfully scarfed our chow mein and cashew chicken.

After lunch, we returned to a spot we had scoped out on our way to lunch ' shaded benches, pigeons, and a killer view. As usual, my book was not as captivating as my surroundings. Jackie and I grew restless quickly and headed home, eager for our night of food and fado ' a genre of music we had heard much about.

No one could have prepared me for the romance that awaited me on our last night in Lisbon. Rick had alerted a restaurant-owner friend of his about our visit, and we were welcomed into his restaurant with open arms. We were ushered into an intimate corner and presented with bread, cheese, and tuna. Rick's friend insisted that everything on the menu was good, something we didn't doubt, but still probed him for specifics. Seafood rice was ordered, and it arrived just as the lights dimmed, and a blind fado singer and his guitarist took the "stage." In the dim red light, listening to the melancholy music, eating the freshest, most delicious seafood, Jackie and I agreed it was the most romantic date of our lives. Three performers and four servings later, after having pronounced ourselves stuffed, a frothy coffee-flavored dessert was ceremoniously served. Of course we obliged, just as we obliged when we were invited to his son's bar right above the restaurant. The son made us deliciously weak mojitos, and then argued confidently that music accompanied by lyrics was not, in fact, music. We exited the bar soon after our table was infiltrated by a frighteningly intense teenage boy with braces.

The streets were filled with young people with drinks and cell phones in hand. We worked our way through the crowd, striking up a few conversations here and there. We ducked into another bar so I could use the bathroom, and I am pleased to say it was there that I was finally mistaken for Portuguese. There isn't much of a story there, but it must be noted as a victory. The day having been one success after another, we were content to go home at a reasonable hour. We informed a couple of boys wishing to...get to know us better that we were going to walk home so, sadly, could not go dancing with them. They feigned astonishment, exclaiming, "Alone!? No, we will walk you." Without explaining to them that they could not act as our protectors, as they were what we needed protection from, we dashed off and hurried home. I was jealous that waking up the next morning meant the rest of Europe for Jackie and Home for me, but I left Lisbon content with my whirlwind of a trip. I knew no real goodbyes were necessary. Spain and Portugal haven't seen the last of me, and Europe hasn't even seen the beginning! I left confident knowing my friendship with Jackie will never fade, and neither will our drive for adventure. When we hugged goodbye in the airport, I couldn't help envisioning our next journey together...

' Zoe

“Absurdly Gorgeous” Views, Ludicrous Sexism, and Ridiculously Oily Fish

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 00:00:00 PST

This morning we went on another Lisbon Walker walking tour. This time, instead of downtown Baixa, it was "old town" Alfama. Tons of rather dry history was a bit difficult to stomach at such an early hour, but we did witness some views that were "absurdly gorgeous," as Zoe accurately observed. I had to pinch myself while looking out over Lisbon's charming jumble of rooftops and winding alleyways, and the expansive, dazzling Tejo River.

Before we earned the rewarding views, we had to walk up tons of stairs. Alfama is located on a steep hillside, so I could hardly believe our guide when he said guys race bicycles from the castle at the very top down these steep stairs and narrow alleyways, ending down on the waterfront'all in under two minutes. Red Bull sponsors the "Lisbon Downtown Downhill Race" each year. If you don't believe me, check it out for yourself.

We invited a guy from our hostel named Max, from Brighton, England, to join us for an afternoon at the beach. (It's nice to bring a guy friend along because then we are subjected to a lot fewer brazen catcalls.) We rode the convenient train route west along the river to Cascais. The beach was crowded with Portuguese youth. Zoe and I waded into the water, but it was too cold for us to go much past our knees since this is where the river nearly reaches the Atlantic.

Max was great fun to talk to except when he was lost in thought nursing his own heartbreak over a recent breakup with his Brazilian girlfriend. We discussed gender relations. He seemed to think it was acceptable for guys to go out and be loud and drunk, but it was not OK for girls to do so. He expressed concern that more and more "ladies" (his term for females who behave like disgusting males) go out and party obnoxiously. Zoe and I sure gave him an earful in response to his sexist views. He seemed to digest our contention, but then he went on to talk about how British girls these days are degrading themselves so much that they have earned Britain the highest teenage pregnancy rate. He was so oblivious to what a sexist mentality he holds.

For dinner we went to a restaurant recommended to us by Rita (our guide from Monday) to finally try dried and salted codfish'the dish Portugal is most well-known for. It's called bacalhau and they purportedly cook it a million different ways, so the locals never get sick of it. The version Zoe and I tried was almost like fried fish and chips, with all the oil they cooked it in. It was topped with onions and homemade potato chips. I liked it more than Zoe, but from my first experience with it, I wouldn't say I absolutely love bacalhau.

' Jackie

You Are the Beauty of Our House

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 10:58:00 PST

The next morning, we finally hopped on trolley number 28, having already missed two of them because we were simply not standing at a trolley stop. Trolleys are the most charming mode of transport on which I have ever ridden. Although seeming quite antiquated, the trolley line is handy and practical. We got off the trolley and, after striding confidently in the wrong direction for about 20 minutes, realized our error and backtracked, discovering that the flea market we were looking for was, in fact, directly in front of the trolley stop we had got off at.

The goods of the flea market were underwhelming, but the location was, as I have found most of Lisbon to be, overwhelmingly picturesque. After absorbing an adequate amount of beauty and heat, we got back on the trolley, where another mishap was soon to unfold. Someone had parked directly on the trolley line, so about five elderly Portuguese women disembarked and began barking at passing strangers. Eventually, two men jogged to the parked car and sped away, impervious to the angry shouts of the trolley passengers.

We got off the trolley and onto a sleek, air-conditioned bus, where we met up with a solo traveler whose name is eluding me. He was from Columbia, but had been living and studying in the States for at least a decade. We went to see the monuments of Belém, the older part of Portugal. La torre de Belém (the tower of Belém) was a stunning sight to behold ' a castle-like monument made of white stone (probably limestone) stands majestically against the blue sky, with blue water behind it.

Tonight Jackie and I were looking for a small adventure that didn't involve braving the intense club scene. In a moment of brilliance, Jackie suggested we try snails. We found a restaurant that claimed to serve authentic Portuguese food and ordered our snails before we even sat down. Food here, specifically food that was once alive, is served unaltered from its original appearance. If you order a fish, you will get that fish, cooked, on a plate with potatoes. For lunch, Jackie and I ordered a trout-like fish that was served whole, head and all. Our experience with snails was no different except they came sans potatoes. Raising a toast to bravery, and to being warriors and pioneers, we began fishing out the little snails from their shells with toothpicks.

With waning verve, we chewed, forcing as many as we could down, which was about one quarter of them (and that was with us splitting them). Against the protests of the male waiters ("You are the beauty of our house! If you two leave, we too will have to leave!"), we paid and left, a putrid taste lingering in our mouths. Regardless, it was a well-spent six euros, because it satisfied our small appetite for adventure, if not our actual appetite.

The next day we traveled to the beach, taking with us an effervescent British lad named Max. We grabbed fresh fruit, bread, and cheese from a small grocery that smelled like cod fish, then boarded the train. We got off at the last stop, and were hit by the heat like a ton of bricks. Following the crowd, we ambled down to the colorful beach. Each one of us had brought a book with us, but I found myself unable to tear my eyes from the half-naked swimmers and tanners. Wearing a bikini, I have never in my life felt so overdressed at a beach. Most of the beach's inhabitants were topless and/or nearly bottomless, with strategically placed shrouds of fabric.

Jackie and I tried to brave the Atlantic Ocean, but didn't get past our legs. We marveled at the physical maturity of the teens on the beach. The girls here seem to develop earlier, and it isn't uncommon for early teens to be openly (and surprisingly adroitly!) flirting and presumably dating. I was maladroit and immature at that age, thinking utter standoffishness was the ultimate bait. I left the beach in a state of sophomoric shock. The sun had also rendered me useless, so I napped upon arrival at the hostel.

Having promised Rita we would, Jackie and walked to a nearby restaurant later that night to try the infamous cod. On our way there, I was accosted by a young man, who, grabbing my arms, pleaded, "Marry me!" Not so coolly or calmly, I yelled for him to kindly not touch me. We, of course, arrived at the restaurant well before anyone else had sat down to dine, but the staff reluctantly served us our fried fish and homemade potato chips. I have to confess that I was unimpressed with this so raved-about dish, and left heavy-bellied.

' Zoe

McFlurry for Dinner, Snails for Dessert

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:56:00 PST

This morning we took a slow, jerky trolley ride up the hill to Alfama, an older part of the city with small, windy streets and great views of the water and the rest of the city. We tracked down a flea market that seemed kind of tired and junky to me.

We caught another trolley going the opposite direction to visit Belém, an area three miles west of Lisbon's downtown. Belém faired much better than the rest of Lisbon in the 1755 earthquake and has some very old, precious sights to show for it.

We visited the Belém Tower, a stunning white stone structure, once used to protect the city's harbor. Now it stands as a monument to Lisbon's Age of Discovery.

It's fascinating to consider how Portugal was once the greatest and wealthiest power in the world. You would never guess this from walking the streets, the abode of a number of deformed and bedraggled homeless people. Lisbon especially feels like it has never been very wealthy since, thanks to the earthquake, it has few remnants from its Golden Age left.

Zoe and I shared a fish dish for lunch and, of course, it came complete with head, teeth, skin, and lots of little bones.

We visited the massive Monastery of Jerónimos, which contains the tomb of Vasco da Gama. Not much to write home about, just very very old-feeling.

A few days ago, back in the Madrid airport, I think Zoe and I were extra tired from waking up at six in the morning'tired enough to decide on a McDonald's McFlurry for breakfast. Before that, neither of us had stepped foot in a McDonald's for years. I guess we enjoyed our bizarre morning McFlurry experience so much that we needed an encore. Instead of breakfast, though, this time we had them for dinner.

While we silly American girls enjoy ice cream for dinner, Portuguese seem to enjoy fish for all three meals, as well as for snacks. For a second course, after a first course of McFlurry, we tried these fried little fish cakes that were quite tasty.

We decided to have a more laid-back night, so we just went on a stroll around Baixa (downtown). We stopped by a homey Portuguese-family-owned bar to try Super Bock, the popular Portuguese beer. I guess my taste buds don't discriminate much when it comes to beer, because it just tasted like Heineken to me.

We had heard something about Portuguese snails, so we decided to try them for dessert. I absolutely love French-prepared escargot, with all the garlic and butter they use. Portuguese snails are quite another story. They are much smaller, much more snail-like, and come in a salty snail broth. Instead of garlic and butter, you get little antennas. We managed to swallow a few, but the more we ate, the more grossed out we became. That's the last time I'll order Portuguese snails, but at least now I can say I tried them.

' Jackie

Dying Downtown and Dancing Buildings

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:21:00 PST

Our tour began in Praça do Comércio, a vast square surrounded by mustard yellow buildings. Just as Inés had made art come alive for me, Rita brought buildings to life. We walked through the downtown area, completely enthralled by our history lesson. This tour was enough to make anyone an avid history learner. Each building's history was as rich as its facade was attractive. I found myself falling deeper and deeper in love with Lisbon for its quirkiness. I mentioned death earlier, and I was alluding to a couple of things. The first is that there was a notable massacre in 1506. A drought was plaguing the city, so the priests of a central Catholic church advised their congregation to go slaughter Jews in an attempt to please God. Thousands were murdered, and the drought did not magically end. The church later suffered a fire, which is apparent in the crude texture of the walls. Its interior is now painted red to commemorate both the fire and the blood shed in the massacre. There are also two monuments erected in the square where the church lies, expressing the church's regret.

Also, Lisbon's downtown is dying. People aren't moving away, and people aren't moving there. A freeze was put on rent prices some 50 ago, so now the rent is literally as low as 10 euros. The population is old because no one wants to move out ' so they live there until they die.

This being said, the vibe in the neighborhood is anything but stale. The streets are loud and vibrant, just like the people. The layout of the city appears to be without rhyme or reason, but this is not the case. Portugal's leader of the mid-1700s, Pombal, was a prime minister who sought the powers of dictatorship. After the great fire of 1755, not wishing to compete with either the nobles or the Church, he mandated that every residential building be rebuilt identically. In Lisbon, historically stern (but now charmingly decrepit) buildings line the streets. The rhyme lies therein. No government money was allotted to the rebuilding of churches, and only very few were allowed to rebuild on their original holy ground. One particular church that was granted this right boasts its original ornate beauty, but lies directly behind Pombal's new, Stepford-similar buildings. And therein lies the reason for the apparent randomness.

Rita also described the buildings as "dancing." Having been built to withstand both earthquake and fire, the architecture was constructed very specifically. Over the decades, people have subtly'but possibly fatally'been altering the structural support of entire buildings with their minor remodels, such as the tearing down of a wall.

After our tour we went to our hostel for our routine siesta, but couldn't turn down an invitation to hunt for bacalhau (dried and salted cod famous to Lisbon). We hit the streets with two UW grad students, one of whom (Serge) turned out to be quite the character, stopping to buy a terrifying little electric dog with glowing green eyes. Street vendors quite persistently push "marijuana," "hashish," and "cocaine." The reality, which explains why these vendors are so open about their merchandise, is that their bags contain oregano. Police can take no legal action against them, so they plague the streets, dealing herbs at exorbitant prices. Serge justified his purchase of the dog by saying, "I either had to buy cocaine, or this."

We gave up our search for the bacalhau when we discovered a confectionary shop. An overly-enthused Serge ordered four recommended Portuguese desserts that we all shared with forks.

That night we enjoyed a home-cooked meal of sausage, cheese, and bread at our hostel. We filled ourselves to the brim and then traveled in an eager pack to the bars. We enjoyed yet another night of dancing and mingling, meeting people from all over the world. Jackie and I met a gentle Norwegian boy with whom we discussed love and other elusive topics.

' Zoe

Party in the Streets of Bairro Alto

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:35:00 PST

We met a couple guys back at our hostel who were grad students at University of Washington (the school Zoe goes to). They asked us to come on a mission with them to find bacalhau for an afternoon snack. Bacalhau is salted codfish, a Portuguese specialty. We agreed, but instead of finding fish we ended up at the Confeitaria Nacional, a sweets shop that dates back to the 19th century, where we tried four different Portuguese pastries (which I don't recommend.)

Last night our hostel prepared an "authentic Portuguese meal" for us. It consisted of olives, rustic bread, a soft mellow cheese, a selection of salami and sausage, and red wine. Jean, a funny, short Portuguese guy who works for the hostel, made a show out of firing up a mini terracotta grill to cook the sausage. He and a couple of the other guys who run the hostel danced around to reggae music as we all ate. What a sweet job they have! Paid to eat, drink, and party with young tourists.

It's impossible to get bored while staying at a hostel with so many young travelers from all over the world to talk to. They all put our trip to shame in terms of adventurousness. They travel for months, with no end in sight. Today they're in Lisbon, tomorrow they decide they will go to the island of Ibiza, and by the next week they will have found their way to Morocco. It's all on a whim and they can't get enough.

I talked to this one girl from Russia who is traveling on her own. It's astonishing that she has to go through lots of trouble to get a visa to be allowed to travel outside of Russia. She said that it's risky for her to travel right now because the economy is bad and her boss might decide to let her go unexpectedly while she is away.

Two hostel employees led us up the hill to the Bairro Alto neighborhood, where all the young nightlife is in Lisbon. They took us to a small, empty bar first, and our group filled the place. After a round of drinks we moved to a club where they played Latin music. Pedro, a Brazilian guy with dreads who works at the hostel, taught me how to dance to Latin music the "right" way. He took the lead as I tried to keep up, swinging my hips to the quick rhythm. Such regimented dance is not my favorite, so I soon broke away to tango my-style with my favorite dance partner, Zoe.

The night scene in Bairro Alto is awesome in the summer because people take their drinks outside of the bar to hang out where it's cooler. So instead of secluded parties in various bars it's more like just one big party all throughout the streets.

' Jackie

The Best Hostel in the World

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:51:00 PST

Lisbon was immediately and obviously different from the cities we visited in Spain. I felt disoriented and overwhelmed, with every fiber of my body entirely intrigued. This place is plagued, or rather blessed, by incongruities. It feels both rich and poor, forgotten and remembered, and most importantly, dying but lively.

Despite our initial directional misstep, we came upon our hostel easily. I know I raved about the last hostel, and I would still rave, but this hostel transcends all hostels, maybe all hotels for that matter. It's plushly decorated, with all the modern accoutrements of luxury and clean as the Steves' residence (and that's clean!).

Only photos will do it justice. There's free Internet, free computer use (IMacs), and free breakfast. It's full of vivacious young people, and being on a central street of downtown, right next to the central square, it stands among teeming crowds. I am surrounded by life. Also death, as I will explain later...

We grabbed a quick lunch of sandwiches and salad. Apparently my meal, which was called menu economico, came with a bica (espresso). I drank it with a little bit of help from Jackie, so we were energized for our walking tour with Rita.

' Zoe

It’s Mostly Yellow and Dying, But I Love It

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:00:00 PST

Yesterday morning we bid "adios" to Spain and flew to Lisbon. We felt like sardines bumping fins and tails on our disorienting bus ride into downtown and got off a stop too late. We had to roll our bags a ways to finally reach our hostel oasis.

To call "The Traveler's House" a youth hostel, however, is a bit misleading because this place is luxurious! The common room is littered with plush bean bags, three Mac computers offer free internet access, a wide selection of DVDs are available to watch on their big screen TV, they make the beds for you, and an eggs and toast breakfast is included! Besides that, it's very spacious and decorated tres chic. All that for just 30 US Dollars per person per night.

We met up with another guide friend of my dad's, Rita, from Lisbon Walker in the early afternoon for a walking tour of Baixa, Lisbon's downtown. We met her by the river in a big square called Praca do Comercio. I had no idea Lisbon had such an interesting history⬦

Lisbon's Royal Palace used to be located on this square until it was destroyed by the huge earthquake in 1755. It was actually three earthquakes plus a tsunami plus a huge fire (sparked by candles Catholics were lighting for All Saints' Day)⬦equals a very ruined city.

Afterward, the king was more interested in his mistresses than in ruling Portugal, so his prime minister, Pombal, seized the opportunity to rebuild the city himself. He acted like a dictator, doing everything to take away power from the nobles and the Church in order to maintain his authority.

He made the nobles all dress like plain old bourgeoisie. He built fire-and-earthquake-proof buildings in a uniform grid and painted them all a somber yellow. He required that all the shops be located on the ground floor, that nobles live on the second floor, and that lower classes live on the upper floors. Pombal was clearly a nutcase. I mean who in their right mind paints a city mustard yellow? At least choose a nice blue!

He allowed the Church to rebuild only a few of their churches, if and only if the new architecture was very discreet. We visited a couple churches hidden in the midst of large buildings. One of them was completely undistinguishable from the street unless you walked to see its small façade on one side. The other church was given away only by a tiny cross above it on the roof.

A third church she showed us is sparse inside with walls painted all red. This color eerily reminds visitors of the bloodshed in the fiery aftermath of the 1755 earthquake. In the square outside that church, locals massacred 4,000 Jews in 1506. Last year, the city built a monument in the center of this square to remember that horrific act of genocide. Much of the Portuguese Inquisition was also carried out in this square.

Lisbon's downtown is now "dying." The river that runs beneath it is rotting the wood foundations of the buildings. Fifty years ago apartment rent rates were frozen so some people still pay a mere $10 to rent. Landowners have no incentive to fix the places up because they can't charge any more regardless. No young people want to buy such shabby apartments so all that is left are old people. It's not even a great shopping district because there are better shopping malls elsewhere. Despite all this, the squares are full of locals and tourists abound everywhere.

So far I like Lisbon even more than I did Spain. It has that metropolitan feel but it's intimate at the same time. Its got lots of quirks: hidden churches, an obsession with fish, legions of cat-calling men (some of whom literally "meow" at you), street vendors who offer us automated dog toys and hash, famous liquor named after a clown, and lots of old people with plenty of attitude.

' Jackie

Musical Chairs in the Geriatric Ward

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:00:00 PST

Early Monday morning Jackie and I checked out of the hotel, and took the Metro, then a bus, to the airport. After a healthy and simple breakfast, we spotted a McDonald's, and in our tired stupor we decided that McFlurries were in order. So McFlurries were had. I will unabashedly admit that our morning has never been so full of smiles! Ice cream and Peanut M&Ms are quite the dynamic duo, a hard combo to beat.

Our flight (which we get on at "last call" because we had been calmly waiting at the wrong gate until we realized our mistake) seemed to last 10 minutes. Getting off the plane, Jackie said she was happy we had only one bus ride to take, instead of having to endure carrying our bags up more stairs in the Metro. We got our bags, found the bus stop, and marveled that we were really in Portugal, a country that, frankly, neither of us knew much about.

The bus arrived and we stored our bags and found poles to grasp. The bus was already full when we boarded it, but it got packed. Before long, it felt like we were in the geriatric ward of a hospital, an overflowing one at that. Jackie and I played a bit of musical chairs, occasionally sitting down only to give up our seats again moments later. Then we played nurse, helping lift an old man out of his seat and situate him with his walking crutches. Then more musical chairs, and then eventually we got off at a stop, the last stop, the wrong stop. The bus driver begrudgingly pointed us in the right direction, and we started off on the narrow cobblestone streets.

' Zoe

Blown Away By Paintings and Their Messages

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:19:00 PST

This morning we woke up early to meet Inés, a local guide, and tag along with a Rick Steves tour group for the morning. Inés took us on a walking tour of the Old Town.

It was fun to be with a big jolly group of Americans for just one morning. I didn't mind the fact that our union with them popped my adolescent Spanish bubble. It's always a little shell-shocking when my steady diet of being in the company of young adults is interrupted. It happens each time I come home from college. In this case, I felt the contrast between the hostel crowd and atmosphere I had been immersed in during the past week, and the group of studious adult tour members who ask too many questions. Melting in with a group of Americans takes the edge off of that alienated feeling you have in a foreign country. Usually that alienated feeling is pleasant to me, but a morning with fellow countrypeople can be a comfortable respite from the unfamiliar.

We visited a convent where cloistered nuns sell cookies using a lazy-Susan system so others don't see them and they don't see others. Unfortunately, we didn't get to taste their sweets because it was the Sabbath, the only day they aren't open for business.

Inés joked about leaving Zoe and me behind because the convent really needs more recruits. I am in total awe of women who have enough devotion to God to surrender visual contact with the outside world. I can't even imagine what that would be like. I am selfish and indulgent to the extent that I want to do the very opposite'travel. I want to see everything my external world has to offer and have face-to-face conversations with as many people as possible.

When the sisters reach a certain age, some of them take a time out from being "cloistered;" their teeth get so bad (perhaps from eating too many cookies?), they must go out in public to pay a visit to the dentist.

Zoe and I tagged along with the tour group to the Prado. According to that guidebook by that one travel guy, Steve Rick or whatever his name is, the Prado is "the greatest painting museum in the world." I had to memorize some of these paintings for my art history exams this past year and it was really cool to see them up close and in person.

My favorite was "Descent of Christ from the Cross," by Rogier van der Weyden. I never understood why Flemish painting was my art history professor's favorite until I saw this masterpiece in the flesh. Could this really be from the early 15th century? I was awestruck by the painter's skill. His rendering was incredibly realistic, with life-like shadows, anatomically perfect hands and feet, lush folds of cloth, and scrupulously detailed vegetation. I imagine those who love art for its technical virtuosity might feel like swooning at the sight of this display of perfection.

I also liked Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights," a triptych of paradise, sin, and hell. Bosch painted surrealism centuries before the movement even started. He uses vivid imagery and complex meaning to project the message that hedonism and debauchery will surely doom you to hell. The right panel, a horrific depiction of hell, almost makes me want to run back to the convent we visited this morning and become a cloistered nun to avoid Earthly distractions (like all the sex being had in the middle panel) and have better chances at making it to Bosch's stunning paradise.

We left the tour group and went out to lunch with Inés. I still hadn't tried many tapas, so I jumped at the opportunity to let a Spaniard order for me. Inés and I shared three tapas, the names of which I am not sure, but they were something like octopus with potatoes, peppers with cheese, and potatoes with three sauces. Their preparation of these foods was new to me and they all had great flavor, but did not make for a light meal.

We rushed to Reina Sophía (a modern art museum) and headed straight for Picasso's "Guernica." Once I saw this masterpiece with my own eyes, I was convinced of all the things I had heard'about how it is the most politically powerful painting of the twentieth century. Picasso didn't even need the help of color to depict the intensity of the horrors of war. The mother, with her dead baby in arms, cries so hard her eyes slide down her face like tears and her tongue is a knife. It is utter chaos, deformity, loud suffering, unimaginable pain, and hope, all at once. Hope is found in the little flower and the woman, who resembles Picasso's lover, holding a light.

' Jackie

My Awakening

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:28:00 PST

The next day was our museum day. We started out on a walking tour with Inés ' a dynamic Spanish tour guide. I started feeling more oriented as she led us through the squares and streets of Madrid's Old Town, sharing her extensive historical knowledge with us. I introduced myself to a friendly girl named Julia, began chatting with her, and then all the underage folk emerged from the woodwork and distanced ourselves from the middle-aged folk. Jackie and I are at that torn-between-worlds age where we don't want to be teenagers or adults, so we pillage, taking only the best of both worlds. The best of both worlds was there on this tour, and soon the non-adults were re-dispersed. I wound up talking to a lot of "grown-ups" who were interesting and kind, put me at ease, and truthfully, made me miss my parents a lot. I felt connected to the people on the tour, unsurprisingly so, because, after all, it was the Steves family that brought us together.

Inés told stories about thieves, about nuns, and about kings. She pointed out restaurants, cathedrals, and palaces. She did it with pizzazz and grace, poking fun at the group at our persistent tendency to plop down on steps, stairs, benches, or whatever surface was remotely accommodating of a human body.

I've never been a classical art fanatic. Most of it evokes zero emotion on my end because it isn't relatable. I'm not a noble, or a saint. I'm not even rich or religious. That being said, the art museum was my favorite part of the tour. I owe my newfound art appreciation to Inés, because she made the art personal. She mixed history and gossip, talking about the politics of the time and the torrid love affairs the painters enjoyed.

The museum was my favorite part of the tour, but lunch was my favorite part of the day. Jackie and I had the pleasure of sharing Portuguese food with Inés at a nearby restaurant. The food was beyond, but the conversation was beyond beyond. I don't meet a lot of people who knock my socks off right off the bat; Inés knocked off my entire outfit in a matter of hours. Her warmth, enthusiasm, intelligence, wit, energy, and generosity was awe-inspiring. I will always remember her, especially the off-work part where she dedicated her day to me and Jackie. After lunch, we raced to La Reina Sofía modern art museum to see Picasso's "Guernica" before the museum closed. I now understand what all the hullabaloo is about. Wow.

' Zoe

How to Tell Good Restaurants from Bad and Americans from Spaniards

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:25:00 PST

When we set out to find a restaurant for dinner last night, we were so hungry that we settled too early.

We found a place where most of the tables outside were occupied. Lots of business is a good sign, right? Oh, but wait, no one is eating the food. They are all just drinking coffee or beer. We look at the menu and it has everything from pasta and pizza to hamburgers and steak, paella and ham'bad sign. Restaurants that dedicate themselves to one area of food are usually safer than those that offer an impressive gamut. I ordered gazpacho and Zoe ordered pasta. The bread was stale, the gazpacho came from a carton, the pasta was microwaved, and they overcharged us. Terrible restaurant choice. We'll take it as a lesson.

I can usually eat anything, but could not bring myself to eat my gazpacho, so my still-hungry stomach was a great excuse to go get churros con chocolate. We went to a famous chain listed in my dad's book and it was heavenly.

Then we bought a cheap bottle of white wine and perched ourselves on a bench in the Plaza Santa Ana for an evening of people watching. We tried to pin down the specific traits that distinguish Americans from Spaniards. American males are pretty easy to pick out, with their baggier clothing, running shoes, backpacks, sloppier shirts, and cargo shorts.

Females are trickier. There is definitely a difference in clothing style, but it is more complex. American females are either more preppy or more slobbish (i.e., sweatshirts, sneakers). Their hair and makeup are usually relatively prim. Spanish females are more daring with their fashion choices and hairstyles. American females wear more shorts and flip-flops. Spanish females wear more black and pants. Americans are generally taller, thicker, and lighter-complexioned. But of course, these are all generalizations and in some cases it's anyone's guess.

Zoe keeps wondering out loud why people automatically know we are American. They immediately speak English when we walk into a store or restaurant. "I'm wearing a dress and shoes like them. I have choppy bangs and nearly black hair like some of them. I don't think my clothing style is that different from Spanish girls," Zoe mused.

Over the years, I think I've developed a rather keen sense for deciphering nationalities. Even though dissecting Zoe's appearance in a technical manner may not lead one to label her American, there is definitely something in particular I can't articulate that gives her away. It might be her facial features, the way she carries herself, the earrings she wears, or maybe just her vibe in general.

' Jackie

Palace and Park, Churros and Chocolate

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 09:46:00 PST

And I didn't let the night pass me by! First, Jackie and I packed in a day of sightseeing. We went to El Palacio Real first, and discussed what redecorations we would make were we to marry into the royal family. Neither of us is too keen on doing so, so our plans for renovation will probably gather dust and be forgotten. The splendor of one plushly decorated room after another indeed makes the palace a memorable one, and we didn't hesitate to explore each and every room open to the public. Both of us agreed that the Armory and Pharmacy portions of the palace were eerie.

Then, as suggested in Rick's book, we hopped on the #27 bus and did a self-guided tour of the more modern portion of Madrid. It was a shock to my system to see modern architecture! Then, on the Metro home, my bottom was pat squarely and firmly by a middle-aged Spanish woman, which confused me to no end but didn't faze me too much.

So Jackie and I have had an ongoing discussion about all things restaurant-related, and as I mentioned before, I can no longer make fun of Jackie for her pickiness in choosing a meal. After this very long and hot day of walking and navigating the city, I was desperate to eat. I think Jackie was too, but she is less of a drama queen about it. Regardless, we are searching for a place that looks good, and we come across a pretty crowded restaurant with lots of outdoor seating. Jackie urges us to press on, and see if we can find somewhere better, and I start to go along with it, but then decide to be firm and insist we eat there. She politely obliges and we find seats in the less crowded interior of the restaurant. I order a water and what I think will be fresh pasta. How can you go wrong with that, right? Jackie orders gazpacho. In a suspiciously short time, both our meals are served. Mine is incredibly heavy-sauced and oily, but completely tasteless, and hers is equally unappetizing. We munch on stale bread, thinking about the churros con chocolate that we'll eat later. La cuenta (the bill) comes, and we discover that we paid nearly two euros for the stale bread that we didn't order, and two Euros for my 12 ounces of water. I try to argue with the waiter, but he points to the menu, and I am crestfallen. On the way out, I look at Jackie, and she doesn't even have to say "I told you so." She understands that I had to learn the hard way.

Determined to forget our poor dining experience, we bought churros con chocolate and ate them with glee. Then we freshened up in the hotel and parked ourselves in the loud and lively square. People-watching, as always, was as entertaining as any movie. More entertaining, though, was the gaggle of Italian men ' all doctors ' who crowded around us and quickly began showering us with compliments (the only one I accepted gracefully was the one that I had an authentic accent!). Because both Jackie and I are instinctual "yes-women" when we travel (keeping safety in mind, obviously), we decided there was no harm in sitting down with them. Our strategy served us well, and we found ourselves lost in a raucous quad-lingual conversation. I spoke Spanish, the men spoke Italian, Jackie spoke French, and everyone dropped an English phrase every so often. Jackie asked them about their wives at one point; "No, we don't have wives. Not here we don't have wives." One of the more forward of the bunch kept focusing his attention on me and saying, "Zowie, you are so beautiful. Would you like to go dancing later?" I grew tired of making excuses, and Jackie's compliment-quota for the night was filled, so we thanked them for the wine and dashed away.

' Zoe

Traveling Styles: Products of Our Families

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:00:00 PST

Rick's newest post: Swinging through Norway, from Stave Church to Stave Church

Zoe and I visited the Royal Palace of Madrid today and walked through a tiny portion of its 2,000 rooms! Zoe declared she would like to take one of the palace's massive chandeliers home ' and I decided I would like a fresco of chubby cupids, gods, and goddesses on the ceiling of my bedroom.

We visited the Caixa Forum. The random temporary exhibits we browsed inside didn't do much for me, but the vertical garden outside was lovely.

We strolled through some of Retiro Park's 30 acres. Then we caught Public Bus #27 to see Madrid's Manhattan ' the modern part of the city busy with skyscrapers but few tourists. The bus dropped us off at the "Gateway to Europe." Zoe proposed, "Let's go to France! I've never been before." But then we read in the guidebook that the "Gateway to Europe" was two leaning skyscrapers sandwiching the freeway to France and the rest of Europe. Too bad we didn't have a car for a road trip to go dit "bonjour" à France.

Zoe and I discussed different traveling styles people have. She loves to explore neighborhoods. I like to make sure not to miss all the big sights. Museums are more forgettable for her, whereas I could spend hours in museums any day (especially the art ones). She finds beaches on the Mediterranean majestic. Just one day at the beach is enough for me. She would rather make an adventure out of finding and picking a restaurant. I would rather track down a specific restaurant recommended to me by someone else. She loves perusing clothing stores, seeking to score a great foreign fashion find. I'm too cheap and lazy to put in that extra effort that shopping overseas requires. She is dedicated to documenting all our experiences with photos (which I really appreciate), while I selfishly hate to interrupt any moment with the pulling out of my camera.

We are both products of our families. The way I was brought up on family trips seems to have really shaped what I now fancy. Back in the day, as a youngster I hated my parents' insistence on their chock-full agenda. Weren't we supposed to be on vacation? I get plenty education going to school nine months out of the year, so why are you dragging me to another "enlightening" museum? If I have to look at another Roman ruin I might shoot myself. Aren't summer vacations supposed to be spent relaxing on the beach working on a sexy golden tan? Why can't we just eat that pizza from the stand over there instead of hiking miles to that stupid restaurant you're so set on? But now, while traveling on my own, my travel preferences are much more similar to my parents than I ever would have anticipated.

It's refreshing to travel with someone with a different travel style. Zoe has made me step back to ponder and even rethink why I travel the way I do ' and why I like it.

I was brought up traveling with a dad who had to see and visit everything while researching and updating his guidebooks. This instilled in me a sense of obligation, and even guilt, if my days aren't filled with sightseeing. I've realized that such traveling strictly according to an intense agenda can be like wearing blinders. Zoe is really great at observing the more discreet elements of a foreign culture. Sometimes I am so consumed with navigating to reach the next destination that I miss the finer points.

Trips, in my opinion, should strike a balance between being educational lessons and enjoyable, fun times. At the end of the day, if you're super-tired but still haven't made it to that last sight on your list, give yourself a break! Always tell yourself, I'll make it back here someday ' and that church I didn't see this time around will be waiting for me to visit.

' Jackie

The Here and Now

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:00:00 PST

It's four thirty in the AM, and I am wide awake ' which is not unusual for Spain. The unusual thing is that I am in my hotel room, having been asleep for most of the night. I just woke up, and I assume it was because of all the drunken yelling outside. I just heard a belligerent American yell, at an unreasonably loud volume, "Nobody in this ****ing city knows where they are. Not even the ****ing taxi drivers know how the **** to get anywhere. **** my life."

I am feeling like I always feel when I travel, wishing I had a disclaimer painted on my forehead: "Just because I am from the States does not mean I am just an American." It's not that I disavow patriotism; it's that when I see some fellow American travelers, I see the validity of the stereotypes. One woman today was sitting in the hotel lobby, and I couldn't help but listen to her blab on and on. It was one snobby, boring, petty little monologue after the next. I think the woman she was talking at was Spanish, but can't be sure, seeing as how the woman did not get one word in. I was already disgusted by this woman when she barks at me, "Are you almost done!?"

I politely exclaimed that yes, I would wrap it up. "Sorry, I didn't know you were waiting!" (Honestly, I didn't.)

"Yeah," she said "I'm waiting."

I don't know why I think I can claim special status, because, after all, I am the American sleeping in my crisp little hotel, listening to the nightlife happen without me. At least I'm not the American condemning a city for all its people's alleged disorientation though. Anyway, tomorrow I won't let the night pass me by.

' Zoe

The City Run Not by A King, but by a "Pharoah"

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:00:00 PST

Yesterday we took a breezy three-hour, high-speed train ride from Barcelona to Madrid.

I met up with Federico, a guide friend of my dad's, for a guided walking tour of the city. We began at an Egyptian temple that dated back to many centuries before Christ. We visited the palace, where we enjoyed spectacular views of the park to the east of downtown Madrid, as well as the Cathedral next door.

I was curious about the Spanish monarchy. I learned from Federico that they have absolutely no political power, but the people choose to have a monarchy so that the royal family may act as cultural ambassadors of Spain. He said the family moves between nine palaces at certain times of year, but that these palaces are owned by the people ' not the monarch. The democratically elected Parliament wields real political power.

Spaniards must really care about their culture, because supporting a fancy royal family and carting them and their 100-plus attendants around the country every couple of months must cost a boatload of tax euros!

Federico showed me a grand monument to Miguel de Cervantes and his novel Don Quixote. Federico's enchanting stories from certain chapters of the novel persuaded me to read Don Quixote when I get home. Don Quixote is expected to be the brave hero, but he is really a complete idiot. His fat little sidekick squire, Sancho, supposedly a simple-minded peasant, is actually very wise and saves Don Quixote from all kinds of trouble. Cervantes cleverly wrote this sarcastic novel to critique society and government at a time when any blatant criticism would not be allowed.

Miguel de Cervantes died April 23, 1616 (the exact same day as Shakespeare). Now April 23 is the International Day of the Book. On this day Spaniards buy one book and sometimes a rose to give as a gift to someone else. I thought that was such a nice literacy-promoting alternative to all our commercial "Hallmark holidays" in the States.

A Muslim wall was erected in Madrid in the ninth century to separate Christians from Muslims. People would climb over that wall "like cats" to visit whatever friends and family they had on the other side. Today there is a corollary to that name. Someone who was born in Madrid and comes from many generations who have all lived in Madrid is called a "cat." Federico proudly told me that he himself is a "cat."

The name of this city is a hybrid of names that different invaders gave to the area at different points in history. In the second century B.C., the Romans named it "Matrice," referring to rivers that run through it. Six centuries later, Muslims renamed it "Mayrit," referencing the area's water resources as a "womb" or a "giver of life."

A name that means "giver of life" is definitely fitting for Madrid. I think I like Madrid better than Barcelona. It is so lively here. The streets are more bustling, with a tourist-local mix. The cafés are more crowded at all hours, and the city breathes, using its huge Retiro Park for lungs. Even some of the squares like Plaza Santa Ana are populated ' with trees.

Throughout our tour we dodged many construction projects. The people of Spain call their mayor "Pharaoh" because he has planned so many projects to improve the city in hopes of winning the bid to host the Summer Olympics of 2016.

Zoe and I waited at a restaurant for 40 minutes for their next batch of steaming seafood paella to come out. Terribly oily and absolutely delicious. The waiter of course overcharged us three euros for our wine, but we caught him!

' Jackie

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