Rick Steves: Blog Gone Europe

We Were Those Rushed Hamburger-Guzzling Ugly Americans

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:46:00 PST

After our promenade down the Ramblas, I was designated navigator to find our way back to the hostel. I thought we were taking all the correct turns on all the right streets, but somehow I got us terribly lost. Knowing no Spanish, I think I confused some of the street names. It was already 10:30 and we had to be back at our hostel by 11:30, when a group of people were going out clubbing together. So we quickly hailed a taxi and splurged.

We found a wine bar that served German food. Zoe inhaled a hot dog and I devoured a hamburger. The woman serving us said, "You are very quick!" We realized we were playing into the ugly American stereotype. We couldn't slow down to enjoy a leisurely meal because we were in such an absurd hurry. We barely had time to chew our food properly and then we washed it down with gulps of house wine. I was very embarrassed, but we had a night of clubbing ahead of us and it was important that we were nourished!

We got back to the hostel just in time to head out again with a big group of fellow hostel guests. Everyone carried their beer, wine, or sangria completely out in the open. Zoe and I shared a terribly cheap bottle of white wine. As we took turns taking swigs from the bottle, I felt ridiculous, liberated, and a little wild, all at the same time.

While drinking liberally like that on the streets, I definitely didn't feel like I was in the States anymore. I wasn't behaving like a Spaniard either, because we saw no other locals carousing in the streets like us. All the locals I saw were having much more classy evenings, drinking leisurely in wine bars. Oh dear, here we go again ' acting as ambassadors of the ugly part of American party culture: sophomoric binge drinking. It's definitely a really fun time, but I am not proud of it.

We all took the Metro down to the beach, where there is a whole string of hot trendy clubs. We went to Club Havana and were some of the first people to arrive. Apparently 12:30 a.m. is totally unfashionably early in this country. It was a sizable club with about six bars, a spacious dance floor, and a terrace outside overlooking the ocean.

I could really distinguish ' just by looks ' between the tourists and the locals. Some of the locals were so well-dressed and beautiful! They seem to wear a lot of white.

Zoe and I were really enjoying all the friends from our hostel, so we mostly stuck with them on the dance floor. After a little while I think the wine got to us and we got tired and sad ' tired from jetlag and it being two in the morning, sad because we missed our boyfriends. So we called it an early night and took a cab back to our hostel.

' Jackie

Happily Lost in Barcelona

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:23:00 PST

We threw on lightweight dresses and hit the streets, map in hand. Before we had even consulted the guidebook, we found ourselves on the Ramblas, drinking in the sights, smells, and of course, the sounds (it was delightfully noisy everywhere). Outdoor pet stores, street vendors, performers, and the inebriated shared the street with hoards of locals and tourists.

It didn't take long for us to meet a couple of these drunks...ahem...vivacious individuals (they were certainly high as well, but it became obvious that alcohol was their drug of choice). The shirtless one made a beeline for Jackie, and the toothless one, for me. I ignored mine's repeated demand for cigarettes, and listened to Jackie's tell what seemed to be a woeful tale. It sounded appropriate for an AA meeting, or maybe a therapy appointment, but was told with glee, on dirty steps, to complete strangers.

We wandered further, stumbling upon an outdoor market that we had planned on seeing. It was closing, but its vibrancy was evident even at dusk. Jackie managed to purchase a bunch of carrots, which we washed in a revoltingly filthy outdoor sink. It got the job done, though, and we chomped happily as we strolled through the streets, stealing giddy glances at one another.

Then we walked along the waterfront, and jet lag became more irrelevant still. I couldn't stop exclaiming how in love with the city I was. It was an unbelievably romantic setting, with huge statues everywhere, waves crashing, and wind blowing. The sky was dramatically purple with exquisite clouds. I couldn't walk more than a few feet without being paralyzed by the beauty, and my little digital camera was hot and tired in my hands.

We walked and walked and got more lost in the beauty of the city, eventually actually getting lost. The Medieval gridlines, or lack thereof, were not conducive to jet-lagged tourists finding their way home. Being lost and hungry didn't dampen my spirits though, because I felt like I was lost on the world's most extensive movie set. The old was brilliantly mixed with the new ' traditional old Spaniards, teens in miniskirts and espadrilles, gothic architecture, and artful graffiti. Jackie, the more competent one, kept reassuring me that she knew where we were. I didn't know whether I believed her or not, but I was happy when we admitted defeat and taxied it home. Realizing that it was almost 11 p.m. ' the time all the kids at the hostel were going out ' we ducked into the first restaurant we found. It was a little German place, and in keeping with the classiness that Americans are famous for, we ordered a hotdog and a hamburger and scarfed them down in a minute flat. The bartender could not stop shaking her head and exclaiming that she'd never seen anyone eat so fast. In keeping with our ugly American status, we forgot to tip and literally ran out the door.

We arrived at our hostel just in time to throw on some going-out gear and head out with our bubbly group. We were introduced to the nightlife and the metro system simultaneously and seamlessly, bonding with our diverse group of eager travelers immediately. We went to a club called "Havana," which was fancy and touristy, but undeniably chic.

' Zoe

Zoe Jackie Barcelona

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:24:00 PST

When I arrived at the hostel after a slightly hectic 20 hours of traveling, it was comforting to find my good old familiar friend, Zoe, napping peacefully on the bunk bed we would share in a six-person dorm-style room.

The first thing we did was walk to the nearby Plaça de Catalunya, the main square of Barcelona. I wish I had an audioguide like the kind you can use in some art museums, but one that applied to the whole city of Barcelona. So many statues and monuments are scattered around, and I'm curious what they are all about.

The Ramblas (The Champs-�0lysées of Barcelona) runs from the Plaça de Catalunya down to the waterfront. We strolled down this busy street, trying to get our bearings for our Spanish surroundings. We walked through La Boqueria (a big produce market) as it was shutting down, and caught glimpses of bright rainbow arrays of vegetables, fruits, and candies.

We saw and encountered some bizarre characters as we continued our stroll down the Ramblas. One drunkard stopped me, saying he wanted to practice his English with me. He proceeded to tell me stories of drunken disasters that had landed him in that hospital ' he pointed ' just down the street. Then he asked me for more booze. We saw a man dressed in an entirely crimson suit and hat riding a bike covered in bright flowers. We also saw transsexuals, prostitutes, and tons of tourists.

Barcelona's waterfront is a crowded harbor punctuated by a few striking displays of Modernista architecture. At least that's what I've been told this bizarre architecture is called. I really don't know anything about it. I've read just a little bit about Gaudí, and I'm curious to find out more about this style that looks like melting cakes and dripping ice cream cones.

As we walked along the Mediterranean just after sunset, we thought of our boyfriends back home. We wondered if we should have brought them with us on this trip. They had expressed interest, but we were set on the idea of a girls' trip. Now we felt tinges of regret. We just wished they were here to experience romantic España with us.

Before I left on this trip, my dad asked me if I had any worries about anything. I said I didn't really, except that I was worried I would miss my boyfriend. He said that when he was just a little older than I am now, he had planned a trip with his girlfriend of the time. She wasn't able to make it, so he went with one of his best guy friends and had a blast. He realized that at such a young age maybe romantic couples don't make the best travel partners.

Anyway, I believe that when you're young you should never ever let love set you back. If you love travel then you should seize every opportunity presented to you, especially when you're young. While boyfriends might be thousands of miles away, these days they are really only a Facebook message or a phone call away.

Zoe and I are going to be like Vicky and Cristina in Vicky Cristina Barcelona ' minus the whole love affair of course. Who can watch that movie and not want to come here? We might not have time to do all the soul-searching those girls did, but at least we'll get a taste of some of that intriguing Catalan culture.

' Jackie

I'm Not in California Anymore

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:00:00 PST

I am Zoe Schuler, daughter of Doug Schuler. I have a feeling this will mean little to you. Rather, I will introduce myself as Zoe, the friend of the daughter of Rick Steves. I am beyond excited to be traveling with Jackie to Barcelona, Madrid, and Lisbon.

But, waking up at 3:20 a.m. felt wrong. Zipping up my suitcase felt like a mistake. Stepping foot in the airport felt ominous. I couldn't stop going over my schedule in my head, obsessing first over the different gate numbers and flight numbers, and then over the bus stops and street names. I felt intimidated knowing I would have to spend my first day in Barcelona sans Jackie, would have to navigate alone, relying only on my own competence. These feelings of dread were to spontaneously evaporate upon my first sighting of a square, or plaça.

After a grueling 20 hours, my last plane touched the ground, and I looked out my window to behold Barcelona... It looked like Los Angeles from the air, with smog just as thick. On the ground, I followed the directions provided by our hostel and got on the Aerobus. My travel fatigue soon translated to giddy excitement.

I got off the bus at Plaça de Catalunya and immediately knew that my tiresome journey had been worth every second. I wasn't in California anymore. The architecture was beautiful as promised, the people colorful, and the general feel bustling. I wandered the streets, asking for directions in broken Spanish from two different strange but friendly faces, and eventually found a locked door with a small sign that read "Hostel De Sant Amberg." I rang the buzzer.

"Si?"

"Hola," I stuttered.

I was immediately buzzed in, and opened the door to a small foyer. There was a staircase, an ancient elevator, and a small hallway with a turtle sitting innocently on the ground. I told myself to be positive as I climbed the dark, depressing, and hot stairs.

As it turns out, a heightened sense of positivity was not required. I opened the hostel door to behold a small paradise. Clean rooms, free Wi-Fi, and, most importantly, fellow travelers who were friendly right off the bat. While I waited for my bedding to be washed, I befriended an American named Frank and we headed off to get some eats. In my tired state, it didn't take long for me to let my life story come pouring out. We enjoyed a meal of very oily pasta, then headed home for a very long siesta. Four hours later I awoke to Jackie's gentle sing-songy, "Zoe... Zo... Zoe, wake up, girl."

My Third Travel Blog: This Time It's Zoe and Jackie in Spain and Portugal

jackie@ricksteves.com (Jackie Steves) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:00:00 PST

When I arrived home in Seattle after completing my first year at Georgetown University, I found two plain black Moleskine journals, identical to the one in which I am currently writing, on my bookshelf.

I opened one of them and read the following:

They prize hospitality so highly that they are more than happy to welcome me, a stranger, into their house for three weeks to sleep in their only bed, and eat the little and basic food they can afford. Here, you don't need to worry about makeup, checking your email, owning the hottest pair of jeans, or getting into the best university. There are always plenty of siblings around to play with, the whole family does chores together, they eat every meal together, and they smother each other with kisses whenever they feel like it.

I wrote those words two summers ago about the host family I stayed with in Morocco while on a "global service-learning" trip with a group from my high school.

I opened the other journal and read the first few lines:

Last week, I marched across the quad with my class of 120, and up to the stage wearing a billowing black gown and a wreath of orchids to be handed my high school diploma. I survived high school, but will I survive the next month? Tomorrow, I fly to Europe. This time will be different, however, from the past 18 summers of traveling to Europe because I will be traveling with no parents. It will be just me and my friend, Juliana.

Those words were written just last summer.

Excerpts from both of those travel journals were published in blogs on my dad's website. Now I write in my third plain black journal words which will go in my third travel blog.

Before I begin my summer job as an assistant guide on a couple Rick Steves' tours, I will travel for ten days in Spain and Portugal with Zoe, one of my best friends from high school. I've traveled all over Western Europe every year of my life, but have yet to step foot ' or rather, roll suitcase ' on the Iberian Peninsula. I can't wait to see what I've been missing. Ten days will be just enough time to spend a few days in three of Spain and Portugal's major cities: Barcelona, Madrid, and Lisbon.

I've known Zoe since I was 11 and went to school with her from sixth through 12th grade. At one point we decided that one day one of us would be president and the other would be vice president (we haven't gotten around to that quite yet). At a later point we decided that, despite our parents' wishes, we just had to get our bellybuttons pierced together (we did get around to that ' sorry mom!). Most of my memorable adolescent adventures involved Zoe, but the one on which we are about to embark will surely outdo the rest.

Taking a Break

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:27:00 PST

With our daughter Jackie blogging about her adventures in Spain and Portugal, I'm taking a break from my blogging. I'll be blogging from Norway later in July. But for now⬦let's stow away for some teen travel fun in Spain with Jackie. I'll see you there.

Jackie Steves Goes to Spain, Leaving Mom and Dad Only a Blog to Read

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:23:00 PST

When I was a young guy, my friends knew how well I cooked. When there was a big party, they said, "Why don't you bring chairs?"

I still don't bring any dishes to a party...but what I cook up is travel plans. I just love helping friends and family plan their trips. It's what I do. In the last week, I've been immersed in helping plan our daughter's Iberian escape.

(Later in the summer, Jackie will be assisting on our family tours ' Rome to Paris, two weeks ' orchestrating the kids' activities. But on the way to Rome, she's dropping into Spain for her own little vacation.)

As a parent (and her travel advisor), I'm excited to follow her adventures in Spain and Portugal. In fact, starting Sunday, I'll be letting Jackie and her best friend, Zoe, take my blog stage and pack us all along for the adventures of two 19-year-old young women in Iberia.

With all the heavy news lately and my penchant for steering this blog into politics, their report will be a breath of fresh teenage air. Imagine just flitting around Barcelona, Madrid, and Lisbon with your BFF simply to enjoy the art, beaches, food, and boys.

Every day for a couple weeks, we'll hear from Jackie and Zoe about their escapades. As a travel teacher, I'm personally fascinated by the party-centric hostel world that teen travelers enjoy. It's something I can never report on. But Jackie sure can. I'll be right there with you, commenting as the Dad 5,000 miles away to their blogs, and I hope you can travel with all of us too.

Then, when Jackie and Zoe finish their trip, I'll hop back in: blogging from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, and Germany for the rest of July and August.

By the way, if you'd rather have anxiety-ridden and polarizing politics instead, my take on the tumult in Iran is featured in an editorial exclusive to the Seattle Times.

Surviving the Psychological Economic Crisis

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:54:00 PST

While in Spain recently, I saw a guy wearing a T-shirt that read "Surviving the Psychological Economic Crisis." If you lost your job or your retirement savings, the crisis is real. But apparently lots of people are still working and still committing themselves to travel this summer. I'm leaving for Norway in four days and ready for fish balls.

Having just been in Europe for two months, I was trying to get a feel for how the "crisis" was playing out in the tourist industry there. It's hard to say. It seemed many restaurants were deathly quiet...almost too quiet to properly assess for my guidebook research. That was both scary and frustrating. But many of the sights were packed as never before. Dubrovnik was a literal human traffic jam at the height of the midday cruise ship crowd scene. The month before, in Rome, I joined the touristic mosh pit as thousands of visitors oozed slowly into and then out of the Pantheon. It was literally wall-to-wall people as I'd never experienced before. And everyone seemed to be having a blast. Regardless of whether numbers are up or down, those who are able to travel seem to be happy as could be. Everywhere I went, I was impressed by tourists on a travel high.

Anticrisis Menu. Business is slow at many of Europe's restaurants. Prices are certainly not going up and many are coming down.
Enlarge photo

Clearly business is down in Europe. Guides told me the spring was saved only by the work they got taking school groups around. Group bookings are way down. In Eastern Europe, many hotels that generally accommodate groups have simply shut down. Travelers encounter restaurants both more generous and more aggressive. You'll notice prices are being kept low. Many places advertise desperate specials. I even encountered "anticrisis menus" in Spain. While restaurants are feeling the pinch and creatively trying to win the business of diners, once they have you at the table, you need to be careful that they don't push extras on you. Be clear, be strong, and understand the prices before you order. A restaurant I really like in Rome has great prices, but a 20 percent cover. Suddenly it's not such a great deal.

Little hotels are being hurt as big hotels drop prices to attract business. Suddenly a small family-run guesthouse that used to be a fine value at 80 euros is no less expensive than the big, four-star, business-class hotel with rooms on the push list.

Cities are being more aggressive too. In Florence, everyone pays 4 euros each to book entry to its more popular museums. Even local tour companies need to prepay and prebook admission times long in advance. My favorite Florentine tour company is reeling from the cost as they booked thousands of entries at the start of the season, expecting a busy schedule of their groups visiting the Uffizi and Accademia. Now that the season is here, they are not running as many tours as anticipated...and the city won't refund all those 4-euro booking fees.

Enlarge photo

While our tour business at Europe Through the Back Door was slow for the first four months of the year, things have snapped back. People are less nervous about the safety of their savings, and with summer approaching, are booking tours at the last minute as never before. Suddenly we are calling guides who we thought would have no work from us and asking if they're available to take groups in the summer and fall.

Iran: Death to Election Fraud

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 22:35:00 PST

Readers have been asking me for my take on the situation now unfolding in Iran. How have my experiences filming a public television show there last year shaped my impressions of current events?

I plan to explain my thinking about this issue in an op-ed piece for the Seattle Times, which is scheduled to run in next Sunday's edition (June 28). Since we don't know how this situation will end, of course it's far too early to talk about cause and effect. But, as someone who has traveled to Iran recently, this is my hunch:

When I visited Iran a year ago, I sensed that they would eventually win their freedom ' but it had to be on their own terms. Crucially, what's going on today in Iran is an organic process, not something brought about by foreign meddling. In my mind, this gives it a legitimate chance of success, and our stance so far of simply staying out of their way is the best thing we can do.

However, even if we have no direct involvement with the Iranian protests, I like to think that we have contributed to the cause of Iranian freedom in some way. When I was in Iran and our own presidential election was heating up, it occurred to me that the Bush (and, seemingly, McCain) policy of tough-talking rhetoric might actually empower Iran's leaders to more effectively preach their message of fear and hate. But under an Obama Administration, our government's attitude (if not our policy) about how to engage the Muslim world has changed. President Obama's stated philosophy of respect and listening makes it harder to demonize the US, and the "Death to America" chants don't quite have the gravity they once did. I have to wonder if our president's more respectful stance toward the Muslim world might have had some effect on events there today (and particularly on Ahmadinejad's ability to harness his people's anger against us).

I do find it fascinating that rather than our government radicalizing the Iranian masses, it's the Iranian government itself that is radicalizing its masses. And by drawing a line in the sand, as their supreme leader did last week, they may have underestimated their young population's passion for freedom.

(PS: I'd like to assure those of you who wondered why I removed my longer entry on this subject from the blog ' and suspected I couldn't handle the hot topic ' that I don't consider this very hot. I just wanted to use much of that material in my op-ed piece in a big-city newspaper rather than here. Sorry. I'll bring it back when I can.)

Media Musings

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:12:00 PST

I was just in LA working to promote my new Travel as a Political Act book. I got to be on the Tavis Smiley Show (which will air nationally on PBS starting this Friday). He is a beautiful man, and it was a joy to sit down with him (cameras rolling) and explain how my passion for getting value out of travel fits his passion for America getting it right.

It's occurring to me that being a PBS celebrity and living in Seattle isn't the best recipe for getting media exposure. Media is commercial ' advertising is its lifeblood. I went to Rachael Ray headquarters last week in NYC for an "informational interview" with one of her editors. While she may be the emerging Martha Stewart (and I find her smile strangely mesmerizing), it was clear from our meeting that my passion for people-to-people travel didn't fit their corporate-friendly approach to tourism. We politely chit-chatted for a few minutes, each of us wondering, "Who set up this interview?"...and then said "best wishes," knowing we were as different as a front door and a back door, and that nothing would come of that meeting.

On the other hand, I've been able to talk with Bob Edwards (PBS and Sirius ' big mind, inspirationally insightful, a thrill to talk with for 40 minutes), Alan Colmes (Fox Radio ' a fun and very engaging man), lots of NPR hosts, and the extremely progressive Pacifica radio in LA. In each case, we had enthusiastic conversations, and know that we'll be talking more in the future.

Getting all this media to promote a book is exhausting, time-consuming, and an almost demoralizing struggle. But yesterday I sat in a chair still warm from the interviewee before me ' Francis Ford Coppola. If the exposure was worth it for him to talk up his new movie...I guess it's worth it for me to talk up my new book.

One thing has occurred to me over the 20-some interviews I've done in the last week: Encouraging people to make travel a political act may get me on progressive radio stations, but that kind of travel is something the industry in general will never embrace. Tourism is huge money, with lots of investments, and it's a challenge to keep travelers blindered and focused on the commercial aspect of tourism.

By most accounts, tourism and armaments are the two biggest industries on earth. Using tourism to build understanding between cultures and peoples helps the short-term bottom line of neither.

Nomads and Cuff Links

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:44:00 PST

I was on the terrace of a fancy Dubrovnik hotel in jeans and a T-shirt. A big shot was at the next table with his hair just right, a coat and tie, and fancy cuff links. I thought, wouldn't it make more sense if the poor and powerless were the ones who had to dress up like that?

In Dubrovnik, the cruise ship crowds were so intense that we literally could not do our filming in the middle of the day. The city was inundated...a human traffic jam. I got a bit down. Then, as is so often the case, things cleared out and the town regained its charm. Those who stay after the tenders have stopped ferrying people back and forth enjoy a town the thousands who blitzed it from their ship have no appreciation of. It's sad to think that the vast majority of Dubrovnik's visitors see a hellishly crowded city and probably leave with the wrong impression. Even if they think they liked Dubrovnik, they didn't really get to meet it.

There's a buzz about how humble little Montenegro is emerging as "the new Mediterranean hotspot." The tourist board there put my film crew in an "emerging hotspot" designer hotel on the Bay of Kotor. It was so elite and reclusive that I expected to see Idi Amin poolside. (Actually, I think he's dead...but I thought it would be cool if they had a blow-up version of him just parked next to the pool on a lounge chair with a cocktail.)

The hotel, open just a month, was a comedy of horrible design. We felt like we were the first guests. My bathroom was far bigger than many entire hotel rooms ' but the toilet was jammed in the corner. I had to tuck up my knees to fit between it and the sink cabinet. The room was dominated by a big Jacuzzi tub for two. I am certain there wasn't enough hot water available to fill it. I doubt it will ever be used, except for something to look at as you're crunched up on the toilet. My bed was vast, but without a side table light or even access to a light switch. A huge rain storm hit with fury enough to keep the automatic glass doors opening and closing on their own. Nothing drained ' a torrent ran down the stairs outside the front door, and everything was dripping. With the rain, a horrible smell drove us out of our rooms. Just as we sat down to our breakfast, the storm knocked out the electricity. Looking past the candelabra on our table, the overwhelmed receptionist explained with a shrug, "When it rains, there is no electricity." The man who runs the place just looked at us and said, "Cows." (I think he meant "chaos.")

Looking in the mirror the other day, I noticed how white my teeth looked. It reminded me that when I asked my dentist the best way to get my teeth whitened, he said, "Get a tan." It's so great to be getting sunshine and exercise on the road.

We drove by a Gypsy camp switchbacking from the Mediterranean coast up into the interior of Montenegro. Our guide explained the local Gypsies don't want to go to school and don't want to work. I commented that they don't want their children to be taught lifestyles that threaten their nomadic ways. The camp was absolutely filthy. Our guide said, "That's their aesthetic." I couldn't really imagine a society with an aesthetic to be sloppy...as if moms bark at her kids, "You can't go out to play until you mess up your room."

All over our world, nomadic cultures like the Roma (or Gypsy) culture are struggling ' I think because they're at odds with societies that require fences, conventional ownership, and non-nomadic ways. I wonder how many nomadic cultures (American Indians, Eskimos, Kurds, Gypsies) will be here in the next generation.

Cresting the mountain into the Montenegrin heartland, we came to a village that looked like it had no economy. Then a man took us into a big, blocky, white building that looked like a giant monopoly house. He opened the door and we stepped inside, under tons of golden ham peacefully aging. It was a smokehouse ' jammed with five layers of hanging hamhocks. Our Montenegrin friend stoked up his fire, filled the place with smoke, and we filmed. More industry than you realize hides out in sleepy villages.

Photos Help Tell the Story

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:54:00 PST

Wrapping up a great trip, a few photos add to the story. Note also a number of photos added to entries over the last two months.


Travelers enjoying tapas and their guidebook. When blitzing tapas bars in Madrid's best neighborhoods, it's fun to find happy travelers putting their guidebook to good use. Enlarge photo	An amazing painting in Cortona. Enlarge photo	Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I open the shutters and greet a new day in Volterra. In a week I meet the TV crew⬦ Enlarge photo

Dottore Vincenzo Riolo in Pisa taught me volumes about his town and is one of many excellent new local guides I met and will recommend in my guidebooks. Enlarge photo	Why call it tourist season if we can't shoot them? A scary welcome in Florence's Oltrarno district. Enlarge photo	Station of the Cross, padded for protection, along the route of a bike race in Slovenia. Enlarge photo

Happy road trippers with favorite guidebooks in Slovenia. Enlarge photo	Cheap and delicious picnic, relaxing in my Zagreb hotel room. Enlarge photo	Cameron Hewitt (co-author of our Croatia & Slovenia guidebook) reads about himself, me, and our American film crew in a Zagreb newspaper. I guess an American film crew in Zagreb is newsworthy. Enlarge photo

Croatian B&B hosts'clicking with new friends in Korcula. Enlarge photo	Day #70⬦Trip over, one last beer to enjoy a Dubrovnik vista and celebrate a smooth and productive trip before flying home. Enlarge photo

Are Brains and Brawn a Zero-Sum Game?

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:27:00 PST

I love traveling in former Yugoslavia. Many enjoy it for its Dalmatian Coast resorts, its seafood, or its great prices. For me, it's like turning a history and politics text book inside out, shaking its contents all over the earth, and then playing in it.

While the region is still smarting from the bloody wars of the 1990s, things are changing fast. Much of the war damage scenes I saw two years ago in Mostar (Bosnia) and wrote into our script have been fixed up. Updating my script, I replaced the sad images (and words) with hopeful ones ' men in hard hats on scaffolds rebuilding blackened shells of buildings.

Like the Habsburgs and Ottomans, Yugoslavia was the fault line of cultures between east and west. Bosnia was the same fault line within Yugoslavia, and the unfortunate city of Mostar was the fault line within Bosnia. It was an epicenter of ethnic tension.
That's why city parks (which were out of the line of sight of snipers) are now jammed with shiny marble tombstones, mostly dated 1993. Primarily Muslim graves, they have images of the person buried there...a reminder that while the Muslims here came to blows with Christians, they are European Muslims and don't have the strict limits (regarding alcohol, modest dress, showing images in art, and so on) imposed on many Muslims farther east.

While each evening the tourists clamor to eat down by the river with delightful views of the city's beloved, pointed, single-arch bridge, I took my business to the Boulevard ' the former front line that only now is getting some tentative businesses opening up.

As Mostar in Bosnia-Herzegovina rebuilds, this big new church comes with a minaret-shaped spire that seems designed to reach higher than the neighboring minarets.
Enlarge photo

Enjoying a plate of stuffed peppers and a Sarajevsko beer ' I thought of Sarajevo, considering the Bosnian capital in the news in 1914, 1993, and today. I talked with a young man who served me. He just opened his bar here on the Muslim side. Immediately across the street stands the new Catholic church, with a minaret-shaped spire that rockets up at least double the height of any minaret in town. (He and I compared stress-related cold sores...mine from finishing up three TV shows covering most of ex-Yugoslavia in 20 days...his from opening up a bar on the former front line.) He said that while bullets are no longer flying, he worries about vandalism from young, hate-filled men across the road. There's understandably a lot of "Your father killed my father" and vice versa sentiment. He's been open two months, and so far...no problem.

Eating my meal, I was surrounded by poignant sights and sounds. First a warbly call to prayer echoed across town. Then the church bells tolled determinedly across the street. It was like Turkey and Germany were taking turns knocking on my ears. All the while, a little boy with training wheels on his pint-sized bike pedaled vigorously around and around the newly laid sidewalk by a still-bomb-damaged line of buildings and grass too young to walk on. He went faster and faster with each circle.

The day before, we crossed from the Serbian part of Bosnia into the Croat and Muslim part, filming visual indicators showing that we were crossing a centuries-old cultural divide that was gerrymandered into a border in the 1990s to finagle a fragile peace. Flags flapped proudly from wires strung over the road. Old Serbian kings were stenciled onto abandoned buildings. Ruined castles guarded ghosts of centuries-old threats on strategic mountain passes. On road signs, Cyrillic letters gave way to Latin ones.

Stopping to film one sign at the cusp where cities were indicated in both scripts, Cameron (co-author of our guidebook on this region and a critical part of our filming effort for his passion, knowledge, and contacts here) and I were sitting like Clark Kent's puppies in our van while big, strong Simon and Karel were out with their fancy camera and tripod, framing up the shot. Suddenly a beat-up truck screeched around the corner and skidded to a halt next to Simon and Karel, raising enough dust to obscure the camera.

An enraged man powered out, slammed his door, and screamed at my crew, thumping his chest so hard he almost got air. As he was threatening our friends, Cameron and I were traumatized, watching from the car. Simon and Karel talked calmly with him while taking the camera and tripod down, then walked back to the car ' not knowing if the mad Serb would actually get physical. Thankfully it didn't come to blows.

We learned afterward that the media has been angering Bosnia's Serbian community lately with its 60-Minutes-type coverage of sensitive issues, and apparently this brute just had it out for anyone with a big camera.

While we've met generally gentle and thoughtful people in all communities here, I can also see the potential for more of the sectarian tumult that made the 1990s so horrific. There's a certain strata of society here in each ethnic community, and when you see them, you just have to think "for war...just add bullets and agitate."

I'll see a café filled with skinhead bodybuilders who make me think brains and brawn are a zero-sum game. Some are built like big tubes, with muscles that seem to squeeze their heads really small. They live in poverty, amidst broken concrete and angry graffiti with little but unemployment in their futures.

And then, you get out of the backcountry, and the energy and focus are much different. On Montenegro's coast, people are still talking about the recent concerts featuring Madonna and the Rolling Stones. Both visited Montenegro (with local government sponsorship to help put that homely little country of 700,000 on the map) and sold out (30,000 tickets at $50 each ' lots of gross for a small, poor country).

The Stones learned native words, referring to the country by its local name (Crna Gora), wishing all a dober dan (good day), and so on. They thrilled the euphoric crowd with a robust encore set. Madonna, on the other hand, didn't relate to anything local, never talked to the people, and ignored their pleas for an encore. Friends who went to the concert recalled that she was in her helicopter, lifting up over the stadium on her way out of the country three minutes after singing the last verse of her last song.

Tito Said ‘No’ to Stalin...and We Look Suspicious with No Beards

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:17:00 PST

We've been filming new TV shows in Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, and Bosnia for nearly three weeks.

Tito may have been the father of his country, but he's dead and the only image I saw of him in the 20 days I spent in the former Yugoslavia was on this T-shirt.
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Talking with locals about their memories of growing up in Yugoslavia (which broke apart in the 1990s), people have generally good memories of the times. Marshal Tito (its strong-arm dictator) is remembered in a single phrase: "He said 'No' to Stalin." People remember the stability. And time and time again people said, "It was a good time...we could travel."

Yugoslavians were free to travel when other Communist Europeans could not because they were happy to return. Locals here remember when their "Red Passport" was worth more on the black market than an American passport. That's because Yugoslavia was on good terms with ' and its citizens could travel in ' both the First World and the Second (Communist) World.

People in these countries speak what used to be called Serbo-Croatian (or Croato-Serbian depending on your ethnicity). Today the languages are all still essentially the same but, as required by each new country's constitution, they are called Bosnian, Montenegrin, Serbian, and Croatian.

Europeans differ in how their national pride compares with their pragmatic need to connect with the rest of the world. You can read it in the letters they choose to indicate their country on car license plates and road signs. Croatia is proud: "Hr" for Hrvatska. Hellas is pragmatic: "Gr" for "Greece." Germany is proud: "D" for Deutschland. Östereich is pragmatic: "A" for "Austria." Magyarország needs to be pragmatic: "H" for "Hungary." France doesn't need to show its cards since France is French for "France."

It's interesting to see how the images lodged in my mind from past trips ripen in my head over the years ' or simply change with the country. I write a script calling for a great view, painting, café, or experience ' we go there and my cameraman wonders "what were you thinking?" Years ago in Croatia, there were lots of goats roasting on spits. People's tastes have changed, the cost is up, and a goat slowly spinning over a grill is no longer an icon of the region. (Actually, in three weeks traveling here, we've seen less than 100 head of any kind of cattle, sheep, or goats.) It's like my image of Greece with old guys drinking retsina wine. The Greeks are into better wine now, retsina is considered rotgut, and it has faded away from the tavern scene.

I've noticed every region of the Mediterranean is pushing its wine industry. Occasionally, regional pride blinds them to quality. Each region of the former Yugoslavia seems proud of the wine they produce ' and none of it is any good compared to what I drank in Spain, France, and Italy. I find wine here on par with Greece. The difference: Here waiters actually admit it's overpriced. We paid $40 to try a bottle of the best wine in Croatia. In Greece, I asked a wine merchant what local wine he'd buy for $30. He said, "With $30, I'd get three $10 bottles."

We've had some great people moments, especially in remote Montenegro. Dropping in on a mountaintop, Serbian-Orthodox monastery, the monks (their long black beards matching their long black robes) told me, "You look suspicious with no beards." In prepping them for my interview, I said part of our mission was to help Americans understand rather than fear people who were different. They joked, "We'll have to prove to them they have reason to fear."

Later, in the middle of a Montenegrin nowhere, we met an American family traveling with their 91-year-old mother. We shared stories of beautiful times we've enjoyed and lessons we've learned getting to know the people in this region.

Later, the grandma gave me the most encouraging compliment I've heard on this trip. I had to call my film crew over so she could repeat it. "Your TV show inspires me to keep going when I should be staying home."

Suicide Notes

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Sun, 31 May 2009 06:32:00 PST

For the last two months of travel it's occurred to me that the tragedy of people committing suicide is universal ' it happens in all cultures.

Here in Croatia, we were atop one of the tallest buildings in Zagreb for our TV work. It provided a great, high view of the city but we had to take apart our camera to slip the lens through the prison-like bars that caged in what was a top-floor, view café. My Croatian friend explained, "This spot is very tempting if you're prone to kill yourself." The ambience of what could have been the most exciting café in town was completely murdered to stop people from jumping.

In Ljubljana, what was once the tallest building in Slovenia ' nicknamed simply "the Skyscraper" ' had a trendy café on its top floor, but it's been closed as too many were jumping to their deaths. Slovenes, so easy-going and friendly, are, statistically one of the more suicide-prone people in Europe.

Earlier, while I was in Spain, it seemed every town had a place known as a departure point for people committing suicide. An average of three people a year travel "from all over Andalusia" to jump off the famous bridge into Ronda's gorge.

Standing at the Balcony of Europe, a gentle, Old World terrace overlooking the Mediterranean in Nerja, I asked my guide if it is a suicide point. She said, "No, but last year a city official investigated for corruption slit his wrists in his office, didn't die, dribbled his blood all the way to the balcony, and jumped."

In the Andalusian hilltown of Arcos, where they brag only they "can see the backs of the birds as they fly," it's traditional for suicidal men to jump from one side of the hilltown and women to jump from the other.

And the Swiss, people famous for being successful and content, have a relatively high suicide rate. The bridge in Lausanne was so commonly used as the springboard for those who wanted to end it all that on Christmas and New Year's, when troubled people are inclined to become distraught, volunteers take turns manning the bridge with hot chocolate and cookies, ready to talk people out of killing themselves.

Is it just me, or does every major city have its spot notorious as a place for people to kill themselves?

When traveling, I strive to see beyond the tourist glitz and find the mundane grind and reality of life. Like the sweetness of being happy, the despair of being hopeless knows no borders.

Checking Out and Stupid Showers

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Fri, 29 May 2009 15:10:00 PST

Cameron Hewitt, who co-authors our Croatia & Slovenia guidebook, is part of our film crew for this 20-day, three-episode shoot in "Ex-Yugoslavia," as people call it here. We were talking about showers and bathrooms and he told a good "cord" story. Showers in Europe come with an emergency cord to pull if you fall and can't get up. While working as a tour guide, Cameron was checking into a hotel with one of our tour groups. Everyone on the tour was settling into their rooms. He was at the reception desk watching lights flash on, as tour members throughout the hotel were pulling their emergency cords. The hotel staff just shrugged, ignoring what could be calls for help, knowing it was just clueless tourists. I wondered what happens when someone actually does fall and can't get up.

My staff knows I think design is a key to being successful in our business. Even in top-end hotels, I find some showers horribly designed. I just used a particularly narrow shower stall in which the hot/cold lever stuck directly into the center, making the already limited standing space even tighter. If I nudged it accidently while washing, it would either scald or freeze me. And to make a tough shower stall even worst, they didn't give it a soap dish. There was no place to put shampoo or soap but on the floor or to balance it precariously atop the sliding door.

Hoteliers don't appreciate an activist guidebook researcher. One of the rare suggestions I give to hotel owners is to actually take a shower in the rooms they rent and then show some compassion to people who do so every night...and invest in soap dishes.

An almost daily part of travel ' packing up to check out of a room ' is a kind of ritual for me. It takes time and is tinged with the risk of leaving something behind. My toiletries kit is so small that if I'm missing something there's a big gap in it. My alarm clock is the final piece of that puzzle. Putting on my socks, I wonder if I really need to wear them again, considering my laundry level like checking a battery or a gas tank. I spread out the cover of my bed so nothing gets lost in a big wrinkle. I corral stuff scattered around the room onto the bed before tucking everything into my bag. For a one- or two-night stop, I rarely use the closet or drawers, so they don't need to be checked. I carefully survey the electrical outlets to be sure I didn't leave some recharging cord behind. I physically feel my security pouch to confirm that my passport ' the only item easy to feel without opening it ' is in there. As nearly every hotel has me leave it for awhile at the check-in desk, it is conceivable that I could forget to pick it up.

One advantage of packing light ' you rarely leave something behind. I can't remember forgetting anything in a hotel for years.

By the way, I was interviewed by Michael Duffy, assistant managing editor and Washington bureau chief of Time Magazine, recently. They sent a hotshot photographer to shoot me in Florence a couple weeks ago. And this week his article about me, my work, and the new Travel as a Political Act book is appearing worldwide in Time. Apparently I came one newsy, Supreme Court nominee story away from making it on the cover. It was a quiet news week...but not quite quiet enough. That would have been quite a break. Check it out.

Risk Having the Door Slammed in Your Face — To Risk Being Invited In

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Mon, 25 May 2009 10:57:00 PST

We just finished filming a new show on Slovenia and it occurred to me that a tiny, typically overlooked nation of two million people is diverse and fascinating enough to pack a fine, 30-minute program. Discussing this with my camera crew, I dreamed up a new measure for shows: locals per script.

I wondered out loud if this ratio was the lowest population per episode of the hundred and some shows we've done so far: one show for two million people. Then we remembered Ireland ' four shows for four million people. Poland ' one show for 40 million ' is about our worst by that measure. Thirteen shows on Italy is a lot but still some five million Italians per episode.

Relating back to our recent discussion of noisy American travelers: Travelers needing to avoid the noise can go to smoking sections ' where they still exist. I was once settling into the scenic "Norway in a Nutshell" train ride from Oslo to Bergen. My car was a noisy commotion of American tourists. You know I love Americans ' even noisy ones (a group to which, on occasion, I belong). But I was in a quiet mood...just wanted to be me, the rhythm of the rails, and Norway's best mountain scenery. I simply moved to the smoking car ' not a tourist in sight, just quiet Norwegians.

The same trick works in restaurants. If you don't like the tourist noise⬦move to the smoking section (or dine after nine when the tables are filled with discrete Europeans rather than Americans who dine earlier).

Here are some thought-provoking comments I've heard in the last few days: Rome is no Legoland. I'm very much against gastronomic fundamentalism (go ahead, drink red wine with fish). The last games with the Olympic spirit were Sapporo in 1972 (then came Munich). Slovenian women have the strongest handshakes in Europe. Croats seem self-assured in their ineptitude. Seeing the decrepit and massive old factories here makes me nostalgic for my stamp collection.

Walking across an almost desolate square in the almost desolate Istrian Peninsula hilltown of Motovun a couple nights ago, I was marveling at how dead the town was. Then I heard a men's a cappella group practicing. I snooped around to find out where they were. Around the corner, I went up a short flight of stairs and stared at a closed door separating me from their heavenly singing. I gently pushed the door open just a crack to see the group. It was a dozen men sitting in a half-circle with their backs to me, led by a woman director with springy hair who looked like a mad, young, female Beethoven standing before them and her electric keyboard. She saw me, abandoned her group, and literally ran to the door I opened.
She opened the door further and invited me in with enthusiasm in keeping with her directing style. I pulled out a chair and savored the chorus ' a traditional klapa group typical of the Dalmatian Coast.

Bringing in my film crew, producer Simon agreed it was a magic moment...and we captured it, kicking off our Croatia episode with a wonderful bit of what we call "positive serendipity." The lesson (which I intend to work into the script): when out wandering, poke around and risk having a door slammed on you ' in order to risk being invited in.

I’m in Slovenia…and <i>Travel as a Political Act</i> Is in the Bookstores

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Wed, 20 May 2009 15:26:00 PST

I'm in Slovenia filming. Tina Hiti, a Slovenian guide who leads our tours in this part of Europe, joined us to help out. Having lunch in the Julian Alps with Tina and my film crew, we all just cut off chunks of our dishes and shared the local specialties.

Normally laid-back Tina got visibly anxious. She said that the most stressful thing in her first year leading our tours was being surrounded by Americans who shared their dishes in restaurants. The plates would arrive and immediately...it's a tasting festival. She wanted to build a shield around her plate with a sign saying, "Keep away. I ordered this dish and it's not to share. That's how we Slovenians eat." Just for fun, once with her own Slovene friends, she tried the American-style sampling...and her friends became similarly uptight about their food.

Tina and Saso have a second child on the way. They live in what was the attic of her childhood home. Filming their place, I told her that in the US there was a stigma about 30-somethings living with their parents ' especially if raising their own family. She said this arrangement is common, and considered good for everyone in places like Slovenia...it's wonderfully economic, encourages great family values, and it's equipped with built-in babysitters. But, there's one unwritten rule: separate entrances. An old Slovenian saying teaches that in-laws may be welcome to drop in...but wearing shoes, not slippers.

We sat down to dinner with her parents. Tina's dad, Gorazd, is famous throughout Slovenia as a three-time Olympic hockey star. It's handy for Tina because whenever she gets pulled over by the police, she says her last name and ends up talking hockey with the cops.

I was getting Gorazd's take on Tito and Yugoslavia. I asked if there was a nostalgia for the old days in Slovenia. He said that, for him, the problem with Yugoslavia was that socialism is good for bad workers and bad for good workers. And, he said, capitalism is good for good workers and bad for bad workers. As Slovenia had the best workers, Tito's socialism favored other Yugoslavian republics ' like Serbia. Slovenes are happy with their independence, and life here seems very good.

My Travel as a Political Act book just hit the bookstores in the last week or so. While working in Europe, I have a strict ethic of not allowing fun marketing opportunities and work requests from my home office to interrupt me. My stride, focus, and rhythm here are a joy, and important to maintain.

But I'm so excited about this political book that I have made time for several newspaper and magazine interviews. (I even had a photographer from Time magazine tracking me for a day in Florence. Stay tuned.)

With any interview, I try to come up with vivid anecdotes to make points. For each of these political book interviews, I find that whatever I'm currently experiencing, even in the last hour (like Gorazd's memories of the frustrations of being a hard worker in Yugoslavia), provides a vivid example to illustrate the book's message: that travel as a political act really makes your travels more fun and meaningful. (Sure, you can get the book in bookstores ' or at a special price right here on our website.)

Last week, while traveling from Italy to Slovenia, I shared a train ride with a man from about the proudest corner of the USA. I was trying to work on my laptop, and he was talking ' as many Americans are inclined to do ' so loudly that everyone on the train had no choice but to hear his conversation.

He rattled on for the entire ride in a way that made it clear he had learned nothing, challenged none of his ethnocentric truths, and made no friends in his travels. His trip started with a sour note on the plane ride, where "the only difference between first class and economy was the curtain." He didn't bother with the Uffizi in Florence because "why wait in that long line." He explained to all on board that the Middle East is a mess because "we should have never let Khomeini return to Iran."

He treated his wife like he treated cultures he didn't understand, saying, "She has to put up with me because all the available good-looking men were gay."

He told me he was being met at the Venice train station by a water taxi, and someone would be on the track with his name on a signboard. I told him I write guidebooks, and with a guidebook he could get to his San Marco hotel on a public boat just about as fast, for $10 rather than $150.

That comment didn't go over very well. (He used air quotes when referring to my "work.") And, rather than get in a discussion about my other book (Travel as a Political Act), I went to another car so I could get me and my keyboard some peace and quiet.

The Mouth Cannot Be Finished until It Smells of Cows

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:18:00 PST

Enjoying a dinner in one of my favorite Roman restaurants, I struck up a conversation with the couple at the next table, and eventually joined them. (It turned out they were Robert and Ina Caro; Robert is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author for books on the Washington, DC power scene.) We were talking about how, in several of our favorite restaurants, the namesake owners eventually end up just shuffling around grating Parmesan cheese on their customers' pasta. The restaurant is their life, their meaning, their persona, and it likely takes a toll on their family lives. As they grow older they really know nothing else.

We were talking about dessert with a man at a nearby table. I said, "For me, it's cheese and a little more good red wine." He told of how his grandfather always said, in local dialect, "La boca l'è minga straca se la spuza de vaca" ' "the mouth cannot be finished until it smells of cows." To the rustic foodie two generations ago, you must finish the meal with cheese.

The Caros were charming conversationalists and a joy to spend an evening with. I poured some of their water into my glass and was stunned at my first sip. The conversation was so stimulating, I just assumed they would be drinking their water frizzante (sparkling). I didn't realize I was a snob about choice of water.

(By admitting to my bigotry in this area, I don't mean to pre-empt my resident hecklers. Heckling is what makes London's Speakers Corner so fun. And this blog is the Speakers' Corner of my dreams.)

The Caros knew Paris very well but were in Rome for their first time. Ina described her first time in Rome like being well read and suddenly finding a great new author. I thought she was right (and that I should read more). I recalled the famous quote: "Living life without traveling is like having a great book and never turning the page." Then I flipped it around: "Living life without reading is like having a passport but never using it."

Either way, la vita è bella. Embrace it.

Wild Boar and Fried Brain

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Tue, 12 May 2009 11:37:00 PST

Studying Italian restaurants in the last week, I came up with some theories.

While I've never liked putting up with TV noise when grabbing a simple meal in Europe, I now realize that when an eatery has the TV playing, it's often because it's where the local workers drop by to eat...and that indicates a low price and a good value.

I've realized I should stay away from restaurants famous for inventing a pasta dish. Alfredo (of fettuccini fame) and Carbonara are both Roman restaurants, and they're both much more famous than they are good. And seeing how the back lanes of Rome are clogged with cars has inspired me to think a little about adopting a diet that won't clog my arteries. (But not until after this trip.)

Italy's no-smoking rules have caused some bars to stop serving drinks earlier than before. That's because now that they have to be smoke-free, young drinkers who want a cigarette take their drink outside...which disturbs neighbors who didn't hear the action back when people stayed (and smoked) inside. Neighbors complain, and bars comply.

The other day I was talking about styles of guiding with an Italian tour guide. He explained that guides here all know that when dealing with cruise-ship travelers or Americans, the more jokes you tell, the more tips you get. This shapes many guides' delivery.

Italians are pretty excited about Fiat having purchased Chrysler, given Fiat's hybrid technology and passion for fuel efficiency. I've spent two days in the last week with guides driving tough, economic little four-wheel-drive Fiat Pandas. They love them and predict that Americans will be driving small European-style cars in the future. I know when many Americans hear the word Fiat they think "Fix It Again Tony"... but it's not your grandmother's Fiat any more.

For the first time I encountered a guest house that chose not to install phones in its rooms because nearly all their guests travel with cell phones now.

While I pride myself in not needing to dress up to enjoy a good restaurant, there is a limit. I was in a restaurant yesterday where a couple of American travelers made me get my notebook out and jot down, "Even in a modest trattoria, shorts and T-shirts look goofy at dinner."

Italian TV actually broadcasts Obama speeches and press conferences live ' Italians remain enamored with our president. Part of their fascination with Obama is that it stokes their dream that they can replace their cartoonish president, Berlusconi, someday soon.

My American friend Annie, and her Italian husband, took me out to a great restaurant in Volterra. The waiter recommended the day's specials: wild boar and fried brain. I've had lots of wild boar, as it's big throughout Tuscany. And for the last few days I've had a fried brain, too.

Annie's baby is bilingual. She says "Yummy liver" in Italian to her daddy and in English to her mommy.
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Annie has the cutest little two-year-old. Annie said parents raising bilingual children here figure their kids will at first fall six months behind linguistically, as they grapple with the confusion of double language input. But, by the age of five, most bilingual children are ahead of other kids their age in each language. As for little Julia, she was wondering why English words don't end in vowels like all of her dad's words. She says "clock-o," "ghost-o," and "dog-o."

A Carnivore in Tuscany and a Blacksmith in Hell

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:42:00 PST

Since Rome I've had a busy week, visiting a series of stony cities ' each historic and, it seems, made entirely of stone. Most have Etruscan foundations, plenty of ancient Roman stones still standing, and a thousand years of pride and paranoia stacked and weathered in whatever is quarried nearby. Orvieto, Civita de Bagnoregio, Assisi, Cortona, Montepulciano, Montalcino, and now Volterra - most of them touristy, but late at night, they're all the domain of mostly locals ' polishing their stones with convivial promenades.

I sat under rustic, noble, Volterra stones tonight ' bats bursting through the floodlights, ghostly towers held together with rusted iron corsets, a stony bench cold on my butt at the base of palaces that made commoners feel small six centuries ago.

These stones have soul. The countless peasant backs they bent so many centuries ago gave to future generations the architectural equivalent of fine wines, something to be savored and pondered in solitary moments like the one I just enjoyed.

Giulio brings a slab of steak to the customer for an okay to cook it up.
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I'm in Tuscany, so proud of its beef ' last night I sunk my teeth into a carnivore's dream come true. In a stony cellar, under one long, tough vault, I joined a local crowd. The scene was powered by an open fire in the far back of the vault. Flickering in front of the flames was a gurney, upon which lay a hunk of beef the size of a small human corpse. Like a blacksmith in hell, Giulio ' a lanky man in a T-shirt ' hacked at the beef with a cleaver, lopping off a steak every few minutes.

In a kind of mouth-watering tango, he pranced past the boisterous tables of eaters, holding above the commotion, like a tray of drinks, the raw slab of beef on butcher's paper. Giulio presented the slabs to each table of diners, telling them the weight and price (€3 per hundred grams, one kilo ' the minimum is about $40) and getting their OK to cook it. He'd then dance back to the inferno and cook the slab: seven minutes on one side, seven on the other. There's no asking how you'd like it done; this is the way it is done. And about 15 minutes later, you got steak.

When the meal's done, Giulio pulls the pencil out of his ponytail and scribbles your bill on the paper table cloth. The beef goes with the hearty red wine here in Tuscany. "It's tradition here to serve only one glass for water and wine," Giulio explained, as if to keep the humble tradition of old-time trattorias alive. The single glass was the only downside. It was a fine dinner ' and will make a vivid memory (and great addition to my Italy guidebook).

La vita è bella...life is good in Italy. And the good life seems, like the cuisine, simple. Locals are really into the "marriage" of correct foods. An older wine needs a stronger cheese. Only a tourist would pull the fat off the prosciutto.

To me, the cuisine is a symphony ' it's like music. The ingredients are the instruments. The quality is important...but even good instruments can be out of tune. The marriage of the ingredients is what provides the tonality. I'm not sophisticated enough to explain what's good or bad. But when things are in tune, you taste it.

Fried Air and Big Fans in Rome

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Fri, 01 May 2009 09:46:00 PST

Flying from northwest Spain to Rome, my discount airline had a 10-kilo carry-on limit. I don't recall ever actually weighing my bag when packing...but it turns out it was exactly 10 kilos (22 pounds).

I had a special reason to pack light on this trip. A month ago I flew to Europe ' a bit nervously ' one week after a hernia operation. Ten kilos was about all I could hoist. My doctor said there was no hurry to get it fixed, but I love feeling healthy when traveling...I didn't want to travel feeling like bits of my guts were popping out like naughty chicks in an open basket. After a month on the treadmill of Iberia, I'm fit as a flamenco guitar.

Landing in Rome, I tried to stay mentally in Spain until I got all those guidebook files finalized and emailed back to my ETBD editors. But I failed. It's so exciting to research this great city.

Rome has a fixed taxi rate: €40 to and from the airport. On the curb a big, new, officious sign (next to the €40 sign) said the trip cost €60. I asked a cabbie what he charged; he said €60 to the center. It seemed like a scam. Later I quizzed an honest cabbie; he explained that while city cabs are limited to €40, regional cabs can charge €60 because they'll have to dead-head back out of the city. Many dishonest city cabs seize the opportunity to point to the sign and charge tourists €60. Any cab with "SPQR" on the door is a city cab and legally can only charge €40. Scam scuttled.

My theme this trip is to help travelers stretch their dollars and maximize their experience. Rather than opt for the taxi default (i.e. just pay the €40 and get right to my hotel), I decided to do the smart budget move and rely on public transit. I paid €11 to zip into town on the train and €16 for a one-week transit pass, which will cover all my bus, metro and tram travel in Rome for my stay. And I had €13 left over to go shopping and stock my hotel pantry with five days worth of juice, water, fruit, veggies and munchies. (I was impressed by what I lugged up to my room for little more than the cost of a plate of pasta.) It took me less than an hour door-to-door (from the airplane, to the train, to the central station, onto the bus and then a 100 yard-walk to my hotel).

I've been here four days now and only just stepped into the Pantheon. It was literally the most crowded I've ever seen it ' a human traffic jam slowly flowing in, then out, with parents holding their little ones high as if to make sure they had enough air. I haven't even seen the Colosseum, Forum, or St. Peter's yet. I'm doing lots of hotels, restaurants and odd sights that are new to me or that I haven't seen in over a decade (my researchers visit these places annually, when I can't).

With my favorite local guide, Francesca, I revisited Ostia Antica (Rome's ancient seaport, which rivals Pompeii and is a simple 30-minute side trip by train from downtown) and polished up my self-guided walk, in hopes of producing an audio tour covering this site this winter. We rented bikes for a pedal through the Villa Borghese. And, even though she hates the Cappuccin Crypt (with its thousands of neatly stacked human bones, designed artfully to remind us vacationers of our mortality), I got her to take me through it, and to translate the descriptions in each boney chapel for my new guidebook edition. (One chapel has a clock, without hands, made of bones ' the explanation reads, "once Sister Death takes you there, the afterlife is eternal...there is no time.")

With each Rome visit, I book a driver for an entire day. I generally line up all the hotels in town I need to visit in smart order on a page, and we systematically visit each one. With a car I can do three days' work in a single day. This time, I spliced in three far-away sights I had yet to see: the Museum of the Roman Resistance (about the citizens' heroics during the Nazi occupation), the Auditorium (a wonderful contemporary "park of music" concert venue designed by Renzo Piano ' outside of town but clearly the way to connect with Rome's culture scene), and the Catacombs of Priscilla (the cute, intimate, least visited ' and now my favorite ' of the catacombs).

At Ostia, I was frustrated with the worthless descriptions posted throughout the site. I read several, hoping to beef up my existing guidebook coverage. The words were many but worthless. I commented to Francesca that only in Italy are fancy guides called "docents," and that the only place in Europe I've ever actually heard the English word "didactic" used is here in Italy ' and from people trying to impress me. Francesca taught me the Roman concept of aria fritta ' literally "fried air." The phrase describes any wording, that's, like these descriptions, greasy and heavy but contains nothing of value. Much of what tourists read and hear in Italy is aria fritta.

My challenge is to recommend guides that give meaning to the sights without being "didactic." Rome's walking-tour companies are many and hard working, but they frustrate me here. I meet lots of tourists here using my guidebooks and quiz them about their experiences. When one couple said, "We just took a tour from so-and-so's company," I asked "And how was it?" ' because I had been concerned about the quality of teaching by that outfit's guides. They said, "The guide was a sweet 23 year old Irish kid. He rattled off dates like you couldn't imagine. And at the Vatican Museum, he showed us how, in one tapestry, the eyes of the guy follow you when you walk across the room. He joked that 'Maybe it's the carabinieri.' In another tapestry, the table actually did the same illusion trick. It followed us across the room!" That was exactly what I'd feared. They loved the tour, but I think, while they were entertained, they learned almost nothing of value.

Yesterday, I spent two hours on another company's tour and lived through one of my biggest pet peeves: guides who tell stories of things that happened in that neighborhood (with plenty of professorial qualifiers), but don't tie the wealth of visuals surrounding you to the people living there, past and present.

You can read a book without flying to Rome. A walking tour (which costs triple the price of that book) should connect you vividly to the place: Sit on a threshold worn by the nervous heels of a century of prostitutes...eating a fava bean picked up from the market that, for a thousand years, has sold local peasants their standard green⬦under the watchful eyes of a hooded heretic whose statue reminds you that he was burned on this spot because this neighborhood ' even with that papal palace looking down on it ' was filled with trouble makers. And this neighborhood remains, to this day, Rome's center of non-conformity.

I visited one café which I like and recommend, in spite of its lousy food, because it's cheap, friendly, shady, and far from the tourists while close to the Colosseum. They've started advertising a "Rick Steves menu": pasta, a hamburger, and a Coke. I told them that's no Rick Steves menu. Updating this book is like weeding a massive garden.

Hiking back to my hotel, I met a couple both dressed as if out of a safari catalog and each very short. They got really excited and (in Lollipop Guild unison) said, "We're your biggest fans."

Translucent Pigs' Ears and Eating the Sea: Good Morning in Santiago

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 15:17:00 PST

Pilgrims finish their journey. Jubilation sloshes all over the square in front of the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela each morning as those hiking the Camino de Santiago finish their trek.
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I'm tucked away in Santiago de Compostela, in the northwest corner of Spain. It's my last day here before flying to Rome. I have a three-part agenda: see pilgrims reach their goal in front of the cathedral, explore the market, and buy some barnacles in the seafood section ' then have them cooked for me, on the spot, in a café.

Whenever I'm here, I make a point to be on the big square, at the foot of the towering cathedral of St. James, at around 10 in the morning. That's when scores of well-worn pilgrims march in triumphantly from their last overnight on the train ' most finishing a 30-day, 500-mile hike from the French border. They finish their camino by stepping on the scallop shell embedded in the pavement at the foot of the cathedral. I just love watching how different people handle jubilation.

If Europe had a rain forest, it would be here. But instead it has a city made of granite painted green by moss. The historic and stony buildings of Santiago come in a watercolor green. Rainy as it often is, this morning the church is back-lit by the rising sun and, looking up, the weary pilgrim squints...small before God.

Routinely, pilgrims ask me to take their photo and email it to them. Then they say, "I've got to go meet with St. James" and ' as has been the routine for a thousand years ' they head into the cathedral.

Two blocks away, the market is thriving, oblivious to the personal triumphs going on over at St. James' tomb. There's something about wandering through a farmers market early in the morning anywhere in the world. It's a chance to observe the most fundamental commerce: Salt-of-the-earth people pull food out of the ground, cart it into the city, and sell what they've harvested to people who don't have gardens.

A yummy box of pigs' ears. Buy them tonight at your favorite tapas bar.
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Dried-apple grandmothers line up like a babushka can-can. Each sits on a stool so small it disappears under her work dress. At the women's feet are brown woven baskets filled like cornucopias ' still-dirty eggs in one; in the next, greens clearly pulled this morning, soil clinging to their roots. One woman hopes to earn a few extra euros with homebrews ' golden bottles with ramshackle corks ' one named "licor café," the other, more mysteriously, "oruzo casero."

Another row of babushkas in shawls sit before rickety card tables filled with yellow cheeses shaped like giant Hershey's Kisses...or, to locals, breasts. The local cheese is called tetilla ' that's "tits" ' to revenge a prudish priest who, seven centuries ago, told a sculptor at the cathedral to redo a statue that he considered too buxom. Ever since, the townsfolk have shaped their cheese like exactly what the priest didn't want them to see carved in stone. And you can't go anywhere in Santiago without seeing cheese tetilla. In fact the town is famous for its creamy, mild tetilla.

Stepping further into the market, I notice spicy red chorizo chains framing merchants' faces. Chickens, plucked and looking rubber as can be, fill glass cases. The sound of cascading clams and castanet shrimp ' red, doomed, and flipping mad ' greets me as I enter the seafood hall. Fisherwomen in rubber aprons and matching gloves sort through folding money.

There's a commotion at the best stalls. Short ladies with dusty, blue-plaid roller carts jostle for the best deals. A selection of pigs' ears mixed with hooves going nowhere fills a shoebox. The ears, translucent in the low rays of the morning sun, look as if someone had systematically and neatly flattened and filed conch shells.

Barnacles are very expensive unless you buy them in the market and have them cooked to order. They're worth both the expense and trouble.
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I buy my percebes (barnacles) ' at €25 a kilo, they're one-third the price I'd pay in a bar. I get 200 grams for €5 and hustle my full bag over to the market café called Churro Mania. There, Ramon and Julia boil them for €3 per person, plus 10 percent of the cost of whatever you have them cook up. Feeling quite like a local ' sipping my beer so early in the morning ' I wait for my barnacles to cook.

Then, the climax of my morning: Julia brings my barnacles, stacked steaming on their stainless steel plate, as well as bread, and another beer. I'm set. Twist, rip, bite. It's the bounty of the sea condensed into every little morsel...edible jubilation.

Haggis in Northern Spain and Free Shipping

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:31:00 PST

I'm in northern Spain working hard, but it is a little discouraging because so few Americans are traveling here. León and Burgos are great old towns with awe-inspiring cathedrals and plenty of colorful tapas bars. (I just found the Spanish twin to Scottish haggis ' it's called morcilla and comes without the skin. You'd think a dog got sick on your plate. Smear it on toast with a fine red wine. It's quite tasty...if you like haggis...which I do.)

Sure, it's great traveling here. But I want lots of people to use my work. And the chances of that here, relative to just about anywhere else in Spain, are about nil.

Anyone walking through town with a backpack is likely a pilgrim, heading like me (but on foot) from France to Santiago. (Some 80,000 are expected this year ' I figure that's about 500 a day through the season.) I play a game: When they walk past, I spin around to see the scallop shell dangling from their pack ' as it has from the rucksacks of pilgrims for over a thousand years. I love the idea that the first guidebook ever written talked up "going local, packing light, and watching out for pickpockets" for pilgrims traveling the Camino de Santiago a thousand years ago.

My guide, Paco, is from Pamplona ' a famously conservative town with a famously rowdy drunken brawl each summer when the bulls run. Today in León we walked by a sex shop and Paco said, "Not in my town."

Pamplona is a center of the super-conservative wing of the Catholic Church, Opus Dei (with a university, medical science center, hospital, lots of money, and lots of power). Franco put it here to tighten Navarre's connection to the rest of Spain. I commented on the contradiction of pious Pamplona being famous for its annual drunken brawl, and tied it to the notion of a PK (a "pastor's kid"...often the troublemaker in middle school). Paco, who stressed that Opus Dei neighbors are welcome and respected, explained that they may believe sex is not for fun. But when they party...they really party. He then said, "We say, 'In Spain, you could never say that that priest is not your father.'"

When Franco died in 1975, the end of his repression unleashed an orgy of pent-up hedonism. A decade of movies was known as the Destape (disrobed) period ' when every Julia Roberts in Spain had to play topless. Today, these actresses look back and see the irony in the end of Franco's repression being replaced by what they now see as another kind of repression.

In Spain, humor changes from region to region. Paco's take: Andalusian humor is noisy and simple. People in the north have a raw, edgy sense of humor, Saturday Night Live-style. And in Barcelona, people love Woody Allen.

Paco, like everyone here, is high on Obama. Europeans are buzzing about his recent visit at the G20 meeting. Paco explained that the press is famously unimpressed by politicians. "And for the first time in memory, the press corps gave a standing ovation to someone...and for an American president!"

Paco's degree is in marketing. I asked him about "the brand of America." He said when his grandparents were young, French sold. For his parents, Italian sold. For his generation (which came of age in the 1980s), American culture sold. For young people today, China and Japan sell. (Not coincidentally, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is featuring very popular exhibits by Chinese and Japanese artists.)

Paco said that back in the days of Ronald Reagan, people were charmed by American culture on TV and in the movies, and it seemed to match reality. In the last years, the American image on TV and in the movies didn't match the uglier reality people saw on the news. To Paco and his friends, Obama isn't the Messiah, but he has "the face of truth."

I was impressed that Paco had the new edition of my Spain guidebook. He said, "Whenever we need an international book, Amazon.com is our answer." They pay the same as Americans do ' no extra for shipping. And rather than arriving in two or three days, the book comes in about 10.

Paco is from Navarre (in the north). He said, "We are shy and reserved, but when you talk to us, you open the door." I have found this to be very true. He's a good guide for his region, but he's never been to Santiago de Compostela (the greatest city in northern Spain, just a day's drive away). I ribbed him about this, but admitted that I've never been to Yosemite (and he has). So he ribs me that, since he's traveling with me, he'll get to Santiago before I get to Yosemite.

Partridge Makes a Good Red Wine a Bad Red Wine

rick@ricksteves.com (Rick Steves) — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 14:57:00 PST

I'm just a little drunk here after celebrating my two-day nip into France from Spain with a great dinner. Serge, a restaurateur clearly in love with turning people on to good food, asked me what kind of wine I liked. I said Medoc. He lit up, and brought me a bottle from 2003. He said, "That was a very hot year." I said, "Yes. Wasn't that the heat spell that killed thousands of French senior citizens who had no air-con?" He said, "Yes, tragic...but this wine is excellent." So, my guard is down and I'm just throwing together a ratatouille (spell-checker no help with that one) of observations.

Of all the places I've been researching in Western Europe, I believe Spain is the one where smoky hotels and restaurants are the most prevalent. I did find a place that has water in the ashtrays to absorb some of the smell.

Another thought on the "art" (and not, as locals insist, the "sport") of bullfighting: Newspaper stories on bullfighting appear not in the sports section, but in the culture pages.

In Spain and France, republicans are the progressive ones ' those against the king or the dictator and in favor of the Republic. They get confused when considering American politics, where Republicans are on the conservative side of the political spectrum.

I'm always amazed at how stupid and demoralized museum guards seem. Surrounded by great art, they show no curiosity or initiative. Sure there are exceptions. And sure they have boring jobs. But they could learn where the El Grecos are and when the Picasso will return to its normal place.

In Spain, big museums now require groups to rent "whisper systems" for €1 per group member. This gives each person an earpiece and the guide a mic and transmitter. Guides love it because they can talk softly and all can hear, non-paying members can no longer freeload on their commentary, and they broadcast at a unique frequency that can be heard throughout the museum but only by members of their group ' so no one can get lost. For the rest of us, it's nice because we no longer hear the babble of guides in various languages telling their stories.

I just saw an etching of a garrote-style execution in Barcelona. They sit you in a chair with a metal band around your neck and put a crucifix in your hand. Then, as a priest prays for you and the public gawks, they slowly tighten the band until you strangle to death. I knew this happened in the Inquisition (16th century). But the date on this execution was 1894.

I've been getting used to Vista on my new, fast, powerful, and tiny laptop. There's just one problem: When it's plugged in, I receive a low-level shock from the wrist board as I type. My tech man back in the office explained it's because my adapter doesn't engage the ground prong on the three-prong American plug. (Glad I'm done having kids.)

It's fun being in travel stride. Setting up the room is key. I review my pillow options from the varieties in the top shelf of the closet. It's been cold, so I find the extra blanket. I am proactive about asking for a quieter room if I get a room on the street and a lower floor. It can make a big difference. I gather up all the promotional clutter and needless remotes and hide them in a drawer. (I have an ethic not to turn on the TV ' that'll be the end when I start cruising.) And life is so nice after dropping by a market and picking up some fruit, veggies, crackers, and juice (apple is best at room temp) to stock a little hotel-room pantry.

It seems hotels put an eco-friendly note in the bathroom saying, "Help us save the world. Hang towels to reuse, toss in tub to be changed." I hang the towels...and invariably, the maids change them out anyway.

Here in Basque Country, it's politically correct for anyone with a website who supports the Basque movement to use .com rather than .es (the suffix for España).

Hoteliers tell me the economy is so tight and things are so expensive for people that vacationing French wait until they know the weather will be good before committing to a visit.

When you eat so late in Spain, each lunch is a kind of break-fast. For several days I've worked six hard hours with barely a drink or nibble. (That's why Spaniards have a kind of mini-pre-lunch late in the morning.) When I finally sit down for lunch and the beer hits the table, my body sucks it in with unprecedented gusto and appreciation.

Javier, whose dad is a famous Michelin star-rated chef in Toledo (Spain), does his best to corrupt me at his restaurant. It was a lovely evening of being taught the importance of matching food with fine wine.
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The other day, the son of a famous local chef taught me a little gastronomy. Javier said, "Food with wine completes the circle. But you must do it right. Partridge makes good red wine bad red wine. Partridge and white beans...that's perfect with white wine. You must think with your stomach." I'm still learning. The whole matching wine with food thing has been frustrating for me. But several times I've got it right this last week...and lift off...it makes a believer out of you.