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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

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.

Posted by Rick Steves on May 31, 2009
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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.

Posted by Rick Steves on May 29, 2009
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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.

Posted by Rick Steves on May 25, 2009
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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.

Posted by Rick Steves on May 20, 2009
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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.

Posted by Rick Steves on May 15, 2009
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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."

Posted by Rick Steves on May 12, 2009
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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.

Posted by Rick Steves on May 08, 2009
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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."

Posted by Rick Steves on May 01, 2009
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