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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 a week in central Spain (Madrid, Toledo, Segovia), I'm heading for Ireland.

I like to catch emerging neighborhoods in my guidebooks. Here's a new listing for my 2007 Spain book: In Madrid, a neighborhood called Lavapies is emerging as a colorful magnet for people looking for the multi-ethnic tapestry of Madrid society enjoying pithy, cheap, seedy yet fun-loving life on the streets. As is the case with most neighborhoods like this, they experience an evolution: so cheap only the immigrants, down-trodden, counter-culture types can live there. The liveliness they bring attracts those with more money who like the diversity and color. Businesses erupt to cater to those bohemian/trendy tastes. Rents go up. Those who gave the area the color in the first place can no longer afford to live there. They move out and here comes Starbucks. For now, Lavapies is edgy, yet comfy enough for most.

This district has almost no tourists. Old ladies with their tired bodies and busy fans hang out on their tiny balconies as they have for 40 years watching the scene. Shady types lurk on side streets.

For food, you'll find all the various kinds of tapas bars plus great Indian and Moroccan eateries. I list a couple of places that appealed to me...but explore your options. I'd recommend making the entire walk once, then backtrack and eat at the place or places that appeal.

From metro stop "Anton Martin" walk down Calle Ave Maria (on its way to becoming Calle Ave Allah) to Plaza Lavapies (old ladies hang out with the swarthy drunks here while a mosaic of cultures treat this square as a communal living room) and then up Calle Lavapies to Plaza Tirso de Molina (with a metro stop). This newly remodeled square was once plagued by druggies. Now with a playground and flower kiosks, it's homey and inviting. This is a fine example of the vision for Madrid's public spaces.

If traveling to Madrid, keep these places in mind: Bar Melos is a thriving dive jammed with a hungry and nubile local crowd famous for its giant patty melts called Zapatillas de Lacon y Queso (because they are the size and shape of a zapatilla or slipper, €7 feeds at least two, Ave Maria 44). Nuevo Cafe Barbieri is a dying breed of smoky mirror cafe with a circa 1940 ambiance playing classical music in afternoon and jazz in the evening and offering its coffee sippers a menu of loaner books (Ave Maria 45). At Calle Lavapies 44, consider a fun cluster of three places: Indian Restaurant Shapla (good €8 menu); Teteria Lakutubia (an atmospheric tea house); and Montes Wine Bar with countless wines open and served by the glass and good tapas (crawl under the bar to get to the WC).

With a good guide, art--even obscure art buried in side chapels--comes to life. In Segovia's cathedral I found a fun piece in a side chapel. I added this to my guidebook:

The many side chapels are mostly 16th century and come with big locking gates--a reminder that they were the private sacred domain of the rich families and guilds who "owned" them. They could enjoy private Masses here with their names actually in the blessings and a fine burial spot close to the altar. Its many 17th century paintings hang behind a mahogany wood gate imported from colonial America. The center statue is Mary of the Apocalypse (as described in Revelations, standing on a devil and half moon--looks like bull's horns). Mary's pregnant and the devil licks his evil chops waiting to devour the baby Messiah.

By the way, only Americans say "Holy Toledo." Spaniards and the English don't recognize the phrase. Locals tell me it's likely from Sephardic Jews (Spanish branch) who emigrated eventually to America. To their American ancestors, Toledo was the most holy Jewish city in Europe...Holy Toledo!

Whenever I find a new eatery with a business plan driven by a chef's passion, I am one happy guidebook researcher. Here's my favorite new find for my Toledo chapter:

Adolfo Vinoteca--The highly respected local chef Adolfo who runs a fine restaurant across the street, runs this wine bar in hopes of introducing the young generation to the culture of fine food and wine. The place offers super elegance without the pretension. You can't go wrong with their short list of gourmet appetizers (€5 each) and fine local wines (€2 to €3 per glass). I'd just throw myself at the mercy of Jonathan, and enjoy the feeling of gourmet slaves in the kitchen bringing you your wildest edible fancies. If the Starship Enterprise had a Spanish wine & tapas bar, this would be it. Wine is sold at shop prices with a €6 cork fee (daily 12:00-24:00, across from the cathedral at Calle Nuncio Viejo 1, tel. 925-224-244).

Posted by Rick Steves on July 31, 2006
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Madrid is hot. People here say "be thankful you're not in Sevilla." I still have a headache from yesterday's sun. I've never had a too-much-sun headache. But it is really hot here. I should break down and trade my headache for a little unsightly hat hair...but no.

I often think people who talk about the weather and traffic have nothing else of greater interest on their mind. (Talking about the weather and traffic in Seattle is tiresome.) But here in the lofty and over-heated interior of Spain, even people with plenty to say are talking weather these days. I can't believe I am assessing restaurants by their air-conditioning. People who don't have air-con are going to movies just to get a break from the heat. Poor locals, refugees from the heat, lay like lizards in the shade.

Maybe Americans who really believe there's no climate change going on aren't motivated by their economic self-interest. But I believe many deny the existence of global warming because it's not good for the economy (in the short term) to deal with it. (That was, after all, the official US rationale for opting out of the Kyoto Accords.) Assuming the engines of the First World economies are driving global warming, any industrialist (or person holding their stock) sitting in air-con splendor while the poor world is getting the brunt of their greed is somewhere between wrong and evil. Many of these people (who have no idea what living poor in the sweltering developing world is like) can't even consume what they have. What drives them? Call me a liberal, but I'm steaming like the rest of the world.

(Of course, me promoting air travel contributes to airplane emissions which add to the greenhouse problems. My goal this coming season is to find a creative way travelers can contribute to forests enough to negate their personal contribution to this inconvenient truth.)

Things are so hot in Spain that they've moved the times of bullfights two hours later...to 9pm...no more sun and shade tickets. Everything's the same--hot in the shade...and I believe that's where we're all heading. (For the sake of those who follow us, this topic deserves thoughtful and respectful discourse.)

Posted by Rick Steves on July 28, 2006
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Things are so hot in Spain, that they've moved the times of bullfights two hours later...to 9pm. No more sun and shade tickets...everything's the same (hot in the shade). And that's where I'm heading.

The last stop of the metro line is Madrid's Plaza de Toros--the biggest bull arena in Spain. From the metro station, the escalator pumps the crowd directly to the front of the arena. It's all peanuts and crackerjacks...like going to a baseball game. All tickets are only €6 ($8) today as the line up is 3 novice bullfighters (2 bulls each...six fights...two hours of medieval man vs. beast madness). The man in front of me in the ticket line negotiates aggressively for a good seat. I simply say "uno por favore" and end up sitting right next to him. The ramshackle band seems to be directed by the cymbal player who claps a relentless rhythm.

At 9:00 sharp, 500 angry and disoriented kilos of bull charges into the arena. Simple old men sit attentively like season pass holders, girls flutter their fans as if aroused by picadors prancing in tight pants. You can tell who's local and who's not. Tourists uselessly discharge flashes on their cameras. Local man croak "ole" like old goats and the Spanish women wave their white hankies with the kill.

The ritual killing lasts 20 minutes. Then another bull romps into the arena. Of course, even attending a bull fight is controversial among animal rights enthusiasts. I've always been ambivalent about the spectacle, thinking as a travel writer I need to report what is here (not judge it and support a boycott). When the event is kept alive by the patronage of tourists, I would then reconsider my reporting.

With this visit (my first bullfight in 5 or 6 years), the killing seemed more pathetic and cruel than ever and the audience seemed to include more tourists than ever. I left after two bulls (feeling a bit wimpy as I passed the ushers at the door). Walking from the arena back to the metro, there were the other biggest light weights in the stadium--about 20 people out of several thousand, leaving after only a third of the action: all Asian travelers and American families. I stood next to a Mid-West family--mom holding daughter's hand and dad holding son's hand at the subway platform. I said, "Two bulls enough?" The parents nodded. The 12 year old boy summed it up in three words: "That was nasty."

Posted by Rick Steves on July 27, 2006
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Changing cultures is always fun. I love to feel disoriented, as I am when I first arrive. After a stint in Austria, I'm in Spain. I got up early. Walking around Madrid at 8am people seem in a kind of fog. It's not clear who's starting their day and who's ending it.

When I enter a new culture, I have certain rituals. In Spain it's: a plate of Pimientos de Padron--sautéed mini green peppers with a delightful coat of salt and oil; savoring a slice of jamon iberico--the most expensive ham, made from acorn fed pigs; people-watching over a tall glass of horchata--that milky, nutty refreshing drink you find only in Spain; eating really late--8pm is tea time, no one seriously starts thinking about dinner until 9:30 or 10:00; setting the circa 1950s orange plastic machine into motion as several ugly oranges drop down, are sliced, squeezed, and fill the glass with liquid sunshine; and being really, really hot.

Austria is a relatively religious part of Europe. But in Spain, people brand Catholicism into their children with the choice of names. My last cabbie's name was Angel. The woman at the hotel desk is Maria Jose (Mary and Joseph). The guy who runs my favorite restaurant is Jesus. And another friend is Jose Maria. Men have Maria in their name and women have Jose.

I'm done with TV production for the season. Simon is back in Seattle editing together the two new Austria TV shows we just shot and I'm in Spain for five days to update my Spain guidebook and apprentice one of my guides to do more research. As always, Spain is a festival of life. The streets are jam packed with people...at midnight.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 26, 2006
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I like the German language. People say it's guttural, but for me, nothing sounds as sexy as the voice of a breathy German woman singing (or talking to me on my German rental car's GPS system...leeeenx, rrrrechts, garrrrrada-aussss). And speaking of Nena...I just saw a billboard in the Munich airport with Ms. "99 Luftballons" all excited to have a photo of English heartthrob Robbie Williams on her cell phone.

Our word "cranky" must come from the German word for "sick," krank. Someone just told me that in many countries with sweeter-sounding languages, German is used in dog obedience schools. Try it on your dog: sitz means "sit," fuss is "heel," platz is "lie down," and schnell is "fast."

Posted by Rick Steves on July 24, 2006
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In the last two weeks in Austria, I noticed that every time I was truly struck by the conviviality of a place, I'd look up and see chestnut leaves.

An old-time vested waiter brings me a tall apfelschorle (apple juice with soda water...standard hot summer drink here for me) as I ponder the finest view in Vienna. Framed under chestnut trees in one direction, the majestic city of Vienna sits solidly on a grand bend in the Danube. And in the other...forested hills which kick off a mighty range of mountains that don't stop until they tumble into the sea at Marseille in France...the Alps are born.

Days later, I'm in my favorite Austrian alpine village, enjoying a second helping of the sweetest saurkraut you can imagine (you can get loopy for good kraut over here...many do) at the lake-side restaurant in Hallstatt. (It's forever etched in my mind for the wonderful evening Anne, Andy, Jackie and I enjoyed here a few years ago when we took our annual family Christmas photo--which I still see on the office and breakfast room walls of my favorite little B&Bs around Europe.) Swans, imported in the 19th century to please the Kaiser and his Empress, glide by for a little genteel begging. Rustic tables line up as if to provide a dinner concert of scenery...a peaceful lake interrupting the power of the alps. And all the action is under one massive chestnut tree.

The next day, in Salzburg we parked our bikes at the Augustinian monastery where, once upon a time, the monks (must have been the most popular monks in town) brewed a heavenly beer. Stepping into their beer garden, it seemed half of Salzburg had gathered (all generations, enjoying fish grilled on sticks, radishes artfully sliced into long delicate spirals--with salt they make the beer taste even better--and tall grey porcelain mugs drawn from old time wooden kegs)...under a chestnut tree orchard of conviviality.

There's a unique Austrian word for that "under the chestnut tree ambiance"...gemutlikeit. A cozy conviviality that can make you dream in lederhosen and dirndls.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 23, 2006
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When it comes to pharmaceuticals, I do my best to "just say no." I rarely take any pill or medicine. The kind of drug abuse that seems unnoticed in our society is that which is advertised everywhere we look. But for this trip someone told me about Ambien. "Take one and you sleep eight hours straight and wake up feeling sharp and crisp." When dealing with jetlag, for me, staying up on the first day isn't that tough. The problem is that I wake at about 4:00 the next morning and then I'm beat that next afternoon. So, on this trip, I popped one Ambien the first night and, on day two, I woke up after nearly eight hours to the memory of my alarm clock ringing. One point for pharmaceuticals.

I was "on camera" from the get go, and now our two week film shoot is over. No more wardrobe concerns. It's so great to spill on my shirt and not send out an SOS for fizzy water. (A great remedy for oil and sauce splatters--a fact of life in European restaurants for someone as well-mannered as me.) I can change my shirt whenever I like--rather than wearing the same one for five days in a row as I do when making a TV show (to minimize "continuity" concerns when filming). I don't care if I get a cold sore (I'm fever blister prone only when I'm over stressed and working too hard...which I only am and do when I'm filming). I don't care if it rains (which is a major headache when making a TV show, as sunshine brings out the colors and the people and simply carbonates whatever we are featuring). When filming in cloudy weather, we work twice as hard for half as long. I don't care if the schnapps pub is empty (last week, in Salzburg, it was, and I had to holler "free schnapps" to get those rustic faces laughing and twinkling around the bar). I don't care if street musicians are disturbing the peace (last week I had to politely pay a bad flute player to be silent...tough to do diplomatically...but every bad flautist has his price). Simon and Peter (my Biblical named film crew...director and cameraman) flew from Munich to Seattle with some precious carry-on baggage: about 20 hours of hi-definition video film from which two dynamite programs--Vienna and Salzburg/Austrian Alps--will be edited this month. (Our new series airs this September across the nation on PBS.)

As they flew to Seattle and I flew to Madrid, I felt thankful to be able to collaborate with such a talented, hard-working, and committed-to-quality team. Working hard with the right people is a joy. Next stop...Spain!

Posted by Rick Steves on July 22, 2006
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In the very early days of our tour company, a group once made a theme of mimicking me for saying "This is reeeeely great" (like the fat dork in Animal House) every time I'd park the 9-seater mini-bus at a new sight. I guess twenty years of trying to make people happy on your tours turns you into an almost annoyingly positive cheer leader for happy travels.

While a key to happy travels certainly is a positive attitude, I do have my pet peeves while traveling in Europe. Just between you and me, here are a few things that I don't find reeeely great:

Museums that show photocopies of documents and photos giving you the sensation of reading a book standing up while walking from page to page (as I just tried to enjoy in a Mozart museum in Salzburg today).

Americans who talk twice as loud as anyone else in a restaurant or public place in Europe and carry on oblivious to the peace they are destroying.

Concerts that charge $50 for a seat and then $2 for a program so you know who and what you're listening to.

Americans who complain about heat and no air-con (when Europeans believe the typical person from our southwest consumes more energy to stay cool in the summer than arctic Norwegians do to get warm in the winter).

Museums that post "don't do this" and "don't do that" signs in English, but provide no English descriptions of their exhibits (when half their paying public speaks English either as a first or second language and doesn't understand the displays).

Hotels that serve orange drink rather than orange juice and skimp on light bulb wattage to save a few bucks.

Over-earnest British people (especially on British Air) apologizing for something more than once and saying mind your head every time you near a low doorway.

People at security and check-in lines who recognize me from my guidebooks and TV show...and then say, "Can I see your ID?"

Seeing twice as many than necessary highly-trained TSA professionals (2) guarding each exit corridor at US airports.

People who tell me "I love your show on the Travel Channel."

Sweating all night in hotels that put rubber mats under the sheets to protect mattresses from getting stained.

The rumble of a herd of rolling suitcases crossing a tranquil cobbled village in the evening.

Getting one meal ahead of my needs when surrounded by a cruel abundance of fine food and not being hungry for days.

Sandwiches at places like airport and train station kiosks that are deceptively packed with lots of good stuff spilling over the bread crusts and almost nothing inside.

So there...I just had to get that off my chest.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 20, 2006
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I'm in Salzburg, lying in bed about 100 meters from Mozart's dad. He's just outside my window in the graveyard of St. Sebastian church. When in town, I generally sleep within easy earshot of its bells. The bells of Salzburg ring with a joyful exuberance. They wouldn't if its citizens didn't like it that way.

Yesterday, in a tiny village church, I lingered, but it felt lifeless. Suddenly the dozen or so tourists loitering around me burst into a rich, Slavic hymn-—invigorating the church. They were a folk group from Slovakia who explained, "We can't be in a church without singing."

This morning here in Salzburg, I went to the 10 o'clock mass at the cathedral. As hoped, a choir and small orchestra filling the loft turned the back wall into a wall of sound. I was with my camera crew, in a dizzying perch, high on the side, enjoying a privileged birds-eye view of the musical action. Far below me a thousand people faced the altar. I faced the loft, where for 2 years of Sundays, Mozart served as organist: baroque scrolls, dancing cupids, conductors' batons, swirling the icing on a musical cake.

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On the 250th year of his birth, the musical genius of Mozart is still powering worship. Walking home, a woman on a bike artfully towed a tiny wagon under the spires. On it was a tall, triangular, black leather case. I said "Wow, only in Salzburg...a bike, towing a harp." She looked at me and added, "A Celtic harp." At the ATM a few minutes later I met a woman from a Sweet Adelines choir. She said "We traveled all the way from Pennsylvania to sing here in Salzburg...the people love us here."

Music seems to weather the storms of modernity very well. It wouldn't, if the citizens didn't like it that way.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 17, 2006
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I discovered many of my favorite "back doors" thirty years ago. Back in the 1970s, places like Hallstatt (south of Salzburg, the gem town on the gem lake in a region of Austria where lakes and Alps are shuffled together like a game of 52 card pick up) were truly "Back Doors"--untouristed. Today, many have become not only touristy...but economically addicted to tourism. I've noticed, more than ever, they appreciate the business my guidebooks generate. In Paris, the mayor of my favorite Rue Cler neighborhood threw me a party in the local palace--all the hoteliers, restaurateurs, and shop keepers were there...best macaroons ever. In the Cinque Terre this spring, I was hanging out on the Vernazza harbor-front listening to the town troubadour sing a folk song--not knowing I was in the lyrics. When my name came around he turned to me and cranked up the volume. In Reutte, just over the border from Bavaria's fairy tale castle of Neuschwanstein, I was recently invited into the local knighthood. (You must be present to be knighted...so it'll have to wait.) And yesterday, here in little Hallstatt, another of my headliner "discoveries," my friend who runs a restaurant there welcomed me with Hallstatt's standard "let me cook you a fish" greeting.

I sat under his wall full of big fish heads mounted like deer--gills spread like antlers. I stared at a tour group from Yokohama which filled a restaurant that once fed only locals. As the group headed out (they'll be in Vienna in 4 hours), the waiter--in his ancient lederhosen--(which always remind me of a permanent wedgie) said "Japanese groups are very big this year."

My challenge these days, along with finding untouristed places, is to find vivid cultural traditions that survive in places now well-discovered...like Hallstatt.

The next morning, as the sun rose late over the Alps towering above Hallstatt, the guy in the nearly rotten leather shorts took me for a spin in his classic boat. It was a 'fuhr,' a centuries-old boat design--made wide and flat for shipping heavy bushels of salt mined here across shallow waters. As he lunged rhythmically on the single oar, he said "an hour on the lake is like a day of vacation." I asked about the oar lock, which looked like a skinny dog chew doughnut. He said "it's made of the gut of a bull...not of cow...but a bull."

Returning to the weathered timber boat house, we passed a teenage boy rhythmically grabbing trout from the fishermen's pen and killing them one by one with a stern whack to the noggin. Another guy carried them to the tiny fishery where they were gutted by a guy who, forty years ago, did the stern whacking. A cat waits outside the door, confident his breakfast will be a good one. And restaurateurs and home-makers alike--whose dining rooms are decorated with trophies of big ones that didn't get away--line up to buy fresh trout to feed the hungry tourists, and a good fish to cook for a special friend.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 16, 2006
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I know it's bad form for a travel writer (or anyone) to generalize about entire nationalities, but doing so intrigues me--like People Magazine intrigues many Americans. Finishing up our TV shoot in Vienna, I had lunch with a woman from the tourist board. She has her finger on the pulse of Vienna's tourism industry. I quizzed her on her take of the main national groups who visit. Here's how she sees these groups of tourists:

Americans--fast visits...never really arriving; Russians--great shoppers; Italians--big families, loud; Japanese--wild about classical music, taking millions of photos; and the French--well informed, sophisticated (for example, coming all the way here for special art exhibits). East Europeans: In the 1990s, they were infamous for coming in on a long overnight bus ride, munching sausages from home, and leaving on the same bus without spending a penny on a hotel or restaurant. Today, Poles, Russians, Hungarians, and other Eastern Europeans spend serious money and are a major part of Vienna's tourism economy. I didn't ask her to generalize about travel writers.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 14, 2006
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I was in Demel's, in the fanciest cafe in Vienna, today filming. They said we were welcome to work there until noon when "a famous person was coming by." Everyone wondered who it would be...The Rolling Stones are in town and so are The Who. I thought I might be in for a rock 'n roll treat. We were out by noon, when George Lucas dropped by for a Sacher Tort and a Coffee.

The Viennese--so finished with imperial excess--are still talking about the visit of George W. Bush last week. They're not that fond of our president over here. Newspapers say he is greeted with all "the warmth of a legal deposition." The president and Laura didn't come by Demel's. (Demels--once the Hapsburg Emperor's favorite bakery--still has its marzipan statue bust of an edible Bill Clinton in its window...a souvenir of a happier visit.)

Speaking of the Rolling Stones: Mick Jagger booked the presidential suite in the Imperial Hotel--Vienna's palace of hotels--a year in advance for a performance here. When President Bush and his entourage decided to visit, they wanted in at the Imperial. The Imperial asked the Stones if they would be willing to switch. The Stones said no way. Later, Keith Richards fell out of a coconut tree in Fiji, hurt his head, and they cancelled their Vienna concert. According to a now popular local legend (likely not true), the Bush party asked if they could have the room then. Mick--old, but still a bad boy--said they'd keep the reservation even if they weren't coming.

The Bush party (locals say over 200 strong) ended up in the ugly Intercontinental Hotel. According to my local guide: "They booked four floors so no one would know which room the president was in. They flew in thirty big American cars. And they even brought with them all the president's food along with a cook. Any cars of local people still parked along the route the president took from the airport to his hotel were towed away. They were so worried about bombs...even bicycles were removed. Entire sections of the old center of town had to be closed down when the first lady decided to do a little shopping. It was a very bad day for merchants."

Posted by Rick Steves on July 12, 2006
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Working with my film crew here in Vienna, I'm trying to get the straight story on so much history. I keep remembering Napoleon's quote: "What is history but a legend agreed upon."

This afternoon, I dropped into a famous cafe with my cameraman. My hope: to find its rare surviving example of the Vienna coffee menu with a dozen or so shades of brown for customers to order exactly the milkiness of the coffee they desired. The waiter laughed in a snide way, saying some stupid travel writer cooked up that legend decades ago and journalists like you keep coming here looking for a color-coded menu that never existed.

To make my point, I too often accept false history and flat out wrong "factoids." And, my worst fear is adding to the mess.

For centuries, French was Europe's common language. I just assumed the term for common language, linguafranca, was literally "French Language." For a decade that's what I've been "teaching," and suddenly someone emails me the truth: 'franca' is Latin for free or common. The French were named for a gang of barbarians who called themselves "free people" or Franks.

For twenty years I called Paolo, the big never-smiling grumpy man who ran my favorite guest house in the Cinque Terra, Sr. Sorriso. His place was, after all, "Pension Sorriso." I must have introduced a hundred tour groups to Paolo Sorriso at check-in time. Then Paolo died, and I read his death notice: Paolo Favetta. I ask his brother, "what's the deal? Favetta? You never told me. All these years I called your brother Sr. Sorriso. He never corrected me!" What's with Sorriso? His brother, just as grim as Paolo, explained Sorriso means smile. All that time I was sleeping at Pension Smile.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 11, 2006
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I'm beginning a fifty day research trip to bolster my teaching. I love to teach. The only jobs I've ever had are teaching what I love: music (piano teacher) and travel (tour guide/writer). Crossing a border they ask me my profession. I say teacher. But much as I try, I teach falsehoods. I try to be unbaised...but, like any teacher or journalist, my reporting is seen through my lens and is therefore distorted. With more readers, I get more friendly scrutiny.

In keeping with the global perspective I like to nurture, I want to think God and Allah are the same creator--but today I'm reminded firmly via email that the Christian God is "triune" (three-in-one--father, son and holy spirit) and Allah is just one.

When my boy Andy was just 3 or 4 I taught him to finish table prayers by putting his hands straight out, bobbing them up an down and saying "Allah, Allah, Allah"...just to freak out his ethno-centric grandpa. Now I realize I may have been mixing up my Gods. Oops.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 10, 2006
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Tonight I'm happy to include something extremely European in the Vienna TV show we're shooting. At twilight, the park in front of the city hall here is filled with thousands of people enjoying a food circus of 24 simple stalls. There's not a paper plate of plastic cup anywhere--just real plates and glasses, as Vienna wants the quality of eating to be as high as the music that's about to begin. A kid on a tiny green truck toddles by, reminding me this is a multi-generational scene.

A sixty foot wide TV screen up against the neo-Gothic facade of the city hall is blank, but already people are settling into the 3,000 folding chairs. Then, darkness falls, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra strikes up, and a performance of the Vienna State Opera begins (Donizetti's Love Potion). Since 1991, the city has paid for this event for sixty summer nights each year (offering sixty different performances). Why? To promote culture. A year ago the original live performance of tonight's film was sold out...much of the audience is people who couldn't get tickets. Officials know the City Hall Music Festival is mostly a "meat market" where young people come to hook up. But they believe that many of these people will develop a little appreciation of classical music and high culture on the side. It's the end of my third day in Europe. Tomorrow morning at 8:00 we're all alone with Rubens, Durer, Raphael, and the best of the Hapsburg art collection.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 08, 2006
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Slipping off my shoes and unpacking my lap top, I make my way through thousands standing around (TSA). While there's nothing in my soles, the small Swiss army knife and little box cutter (which I've tucked away on each flight since 9/11) seems to concern no one. On the TV at my departure gate, our president reminds me via Larry King how terrorism has changed everything. Larry and Laura both nod.

In 12 hours I'll be in Vienna. It was a super-power itself once--until a terrorist (from a Muslim land, living under a Christian emperor) killed its prince, leading to a war that ended Austria's dominance. Today in Vienna the pressure's off. The world spins without Hapsburg guidance, and the once powerful people of Austria savor their impotence...enjoying among the shortest work weeks and longest lifespans in the world...not to mention the most glorious church services and the best chocolate cake anywhere.

Somewhere in there is the key to why Vienna charms me so. Traveling--especially traveling alone--causes you to have strange thoughts and...sometimes...do strange things.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 07, 2006
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I'm in Vienna kicking off part two of my 2006 travels. This time I'm trying something new--I'm taking along whoever wants to join me via a blog. My son blogged his trip last year (and is in the midst of another blog venture this year) and I guess I just want to follow in his footsteps. I'll be stopping by for a casual chat almost daily between now and late August as I produce TV shows in Austria, update guidebooks in Spain, Scandinavia and Estonia, and holiday with my family in Ireland.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 07, 2006
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