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Rick Steves: Blog Gone Europe

I'm on the road in Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Montenegro and Bosnia — weaving my travel experiences into my business, and sharing what's on my mind. If you think it's inappropriate for a travel writer to stir up discussion on his blog with political observations and insights gained from traveling abroad, you may not want to read any further. — Rick

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by Rick Steves on May 29, 2008
Comments (126)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by Rick Steves on May 27, 2008
Comments (59)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by Rick Steves on May 21, 2008
Comments (64)

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

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

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

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

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

At the Shah’s palace — a museum since he was overthrown in 1978 — an old aristocratic woman came up to me and said, “We are united and we are proud. When you go home, you must tell the truth.” Iranians believe that Western media makes their culture look menacing, and never shows its warm, human and gracious side. I assured her that we were here to show the people of Iran rather than its bombastic government.

I understand well-employed people here make $5,000 to $15,000 a year, and pay essentially no tax. It seems to me that the economy doesn’t need to be very efficient, and taxes don’t matter much to a government funded by oil. Measuring productivity at a glance, things seem pretty low-energy. While the Islamic Revolution is not anti-capitalism, there seems to be a lack of incentive to really be efficient.

I can tell from our first day that the people of Iran will be the big joy of our visit — everyone’s mellow, quick to smile, very courteous. It’s almost like the country’s on valium. (But then, perhaps Iranians are just not driven as we are by capitalist values to work hard and enjoy material prosperity.)

In a bookstore a woman patiently showed me fine poetry books. As we left, she gave me a book for free. At the Shah’s palace, the public toilet was far away and a guard winked and slipped me secretly to a staff toilet — I imagine used by the Shah’s lackeys. The folks at the travel agency who set up our tour gave us each a platter of lemony pistachios...the best I’ve ever had. (My lips are puckered with them now as I type, as they are my standard bedside snack.)

I step out onto my hotel-room balcony to hear the hummm of 14 million people and marvel at fresh snow whitening the mountain above the ritzy high-rise condos of North Tehran. Looking straight down, the hotel’s entryway is buzzing with activity, as the hotel’s hosting a conference on Islamic unity. The circular driveway is lined by the flags of 30 nations. (Huge collections of flags seem to be common here — perhaps because it provides a handy opportunity to exclude the Stars and Stripes. Apart from being featured in hateful political murals, I haven’t seen an American flag.)

A van with an X-ray machine is permanently parked outside the entrance. Everyone who enters the hotel needs to pass their bags through this first. It’s interesting to see that Iran, a country we feel we need to protect ourselves from, handles security the same way we do.

Posted by Rick Steves on May 19, 2008
Comments (68)

Flying from Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport to Tehran’s Khomeini Airport, I considered airports others on the flight had used: Reagan, DeGaulle...four great leaders in recent history who have left their mark on entire nations. I was entering a society 30 years into the Islamic revolution of the Ayatollah Khomeini. The lives of 70 million people in the Islamic Republic of Iran have been shaped by this man. More than half the country has no memory of living under anything but a theocracy.

Buckling my seatbelt, it occurred to me that someone could come on the plane’s loudspeaker and say, “We’re taking this plane to Tehran” and no one would be alarmed. The plane was filled with Iranian people — their features were different from mine, but they dressed and acted just like me.

These people were well off — well dressed, healthy. It was horrible to think of fighting them in a war. Then I wondered if it is easier to bomb a society ground down by years of sanctions. Are scruffy, poor looking people easier to shock and awe? As we all settled into the wide-body jet, I wished the big decision-makers of our world weren’t shielded from an opportunity to share an economy cabin with people like this.

I made this same Istanbul-to-Tehran trip 30 years ago. Last time it took three days on a bus and the Shah was on his last legs. Wandering Iranian towns in 1978, I remember riot squads in the streets and the Shah’s portraits seeming to hang tenuously in market stalls. I also remember being struck by the harsh gap between rich and poor in Tehran. I was 23 years old. I believe that was the first time in my life I was angered by economic injustice.

The trip is quicker this time — three hours rather than three days. And now every main square and street that was named Shah is named Khomeini. Back then all denominations of paper money had one face on them...like today. At the Khomeini International Airport the only hint of the Shah was the clientele (many of those flying in were likely his supporters who’d fled Iran for the West in 1978 and who were flying in today to visit loved ones).

As the pilot began the descent, rich and elegant Persian women put on their scarves. With all that hair suddenly covered, I noticed how striking long hair can be, how it really does grab a man’s attention. Looking out the window at the lights of Tehran, the sight reminded me of flying into Mexico City at night. Tehran, with 14 million people, is more populous than all of Greece (where I was just traveling).

I’m starting this trip a little bit afraid. I don’t know what’s in store for us. We are anticipating a challenging and extremely productive 10 days here.

Posted by Rick Steves on May 17, 2008
Comments (122)

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

I remember when the bombs first fell on Baghdad, thinking I'd missed an opportunity to make a travel show that could humanize Baghdad and give “collateral damage” a face. I didn’t want to miss an opportunity to do this for Iran. My government would let me go. The Islamic Republic of Iran actually wanted the publicity. I threw together a proposal for a TV show — no politics, just travel. The working title: Iran: Its People and Culture, Yesterday and Today.

After months of fitful applications and negotiations, we were given visas and the government’s support for our mission: a 10-day shoot in Iran — Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, and Persepolis. The permissions were so slow in coming that the project was only a certainty last week when we picked our visas up in Athens. (I had a contingency plan for filming in Istanbul.) Like parents-to-be who want to tell the world but hold back until everything looks okay, I couldn’t announce our plans until we knew for sure the trip was a go.

In the US (where our current policy is not to talk with enemies), the only way we could communicate with Iran was indirectly, via the Pakistani consulate. (The US has more diplomatic dialogue going with North Korea than with Iran.) In Greece, it was strange to go into a relaxed, almost no-security Iranian embassy...and then walk out with visas. We were on our way.

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

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

Preparing for this adventure, I’ve been thinking about the similarities between three countries that are, or have been, notorious thorns in America’s side: Nicaragua, Cuba, and Iran. In each of them, we supported an American-business-friendly dictator who was ultimately thrown out by the poor people in that country: Somoza, Battista and the Shah. Then we proceeded to demonize the dictator’s successor and traumatize their people with economic embargos and noisy saber rattling. In the next 10 days, I hope to learn more about why Iranians chant “Death to America.”

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

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

You might wonder why Iran is letting us in. They actually want to boost Western tourism. I would think that since Western tourism would bring in unwanted ideas (like those which threatened the USSR, which prompted its government to keep tourists out), Iran would see no point in allowing tourists in. But they want more visitors nonetheless.

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

I want to show the state of Iranian women and this will be very delicate. Cafés that allow crews to show women breaking modesty regulations lose their license.

It’s a cash society. Because of the 26-year-old American embargo on Iran, Western credit cards don’t work there. No ATMs for foreigners.

I am tired after 24 relentless days of work (in Portugal — eating, drinking, sightseeing and embracing life there while updating that guidebook; and in Greece — producing two new TV shows). I need to be fresh and quick-minded on camera for interactions with people on the street (we hope for lots of this in Iran) and simply to stay healthy. I’ll lose a night’s sleep as we fly in, arriving at about 4 a.m.

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

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

This will be a journey of discovery for me. We have a very sketchy script to start with. It will evolve over the next 10 days. Each day, after a long day of shooting, I’ll massage what we’ve shot and learned into the script, print out a new version and come up with a shooting plan for the next day. My hunch: By Day 10, we’ll have a fine show.

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

[Interesting development: U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates urges more nongovernment contacts with Iran — Reuters, 5/15/08]

Posted by Rick Steves on May 16, 2008
Comments (237)

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

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

Question: How do Greeks feel about Americans?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Question: Are your tour sales down from last year?

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

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

Posted by Rick Steves on May 14, 2008
Comments (26)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by Rick Steves on May 09, 2008
Comments (48)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Michael: How many titles do you now sell?

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

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

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

Posted by Rick Steves on May 05, 2008
Comments (39)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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