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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

The island of Hydra (two hours south of Athens by hydrofoil) has one town and no real roads. There are no cars and not even any bikes. Zippy taxi boats charge from the brisk little port to isolated beaches and tavernas.

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Beasts of burden climb stepped lanes sure-footedly — laden with everything from sandbags and bathtubs to bottled water. Behind each mule-train works a human pooper-scooper. I imagine picking up after your beast is required.

Locals like to tell of movie stars who make regular visits. Understandably, each evening ritzy yachts stern tie to concrete piers, off-loading their smartly dressed fun-seekers. The island is so quiet that, by midnight, they seem to be back on board watching movies. Sitting on a ferry cleat the size of a stool, I scan the harbor — with big flat screens flickering from every other yacht.

The island once had plenty of spring water. Then, about 200 years ago, an earthquake hit and the wells went dry…a bad day for Hydra. Today Hydra’s very hard water is shipped in from wetter islands. No wonder showering (lathering and rinsing) was such an odd frustration.

The island is a land of tiny cats, tired burros and roosters with big egos. While it’s generally quiet, dawn teaches visitors exactly the meaning of “cockcrow.” Cockcrow marks the end of night with more than a distant cock-a-doodle-doo. It’s a dissonant chorus of cat fights, burro honks and what sounds like roll call at an asylum for crazed roosters. With that out of the animal population’s system, the island slumbers a little longer.

While tourists wash ashore with the many boats — private and public — that come and go, few venture beyond the harborfront. Leaving our hotel, I was heading downhill. Anne diverted me uphill and our small detour became a delightful little odyssey.

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While I had no intention of anything more than a lazy stroll, one inviting lane after another drew us up, up and up to the top of the town. Here, poor shabby homes enjoyed grand views, tethering tired burros seemed unnecessary, and island life trudged on, oblivious to tourism.

Over the crest, we followed a paved riverbed, primed for the flash floods that fill village cisterns each winter, down to the remote harbor hamlet of Kamini — where 20 tough little fishing boats jostled within a breakwater. Children jumped fearlessly from rock to rock to the end of the jetty, ignoring an old man rhythmically casting his line.

Two rickety woven straw chairs and a tipsy little table were positioned just right, overlooking the harbor. The heavy reddening sun commanded “sit.” We did, sipping an ouzo and observing a sea busy with taxi boats, charging “flying dolphin” hydrofoils connecting this oasis with Athens, freighters — castles of rust lumbering slowly along the horizon — and a cruise ship anchored like it hasn’t moved in weeks.

Ouzo, my anise-flavored drink of choice on this trip, and my ziplock baggie of pistachios purchased back in town was a perfect compliment to the setting sun. Blue and white fishing boats jived with the chop. I’d swear the cats — small, numerous as the human residents of this island, and oh-so-feminine — were watching the setting sun with us.

My second glass of ouzo comes with someone’s big fat Greek lipstick. Wiping it off before sipping seems to connect me with the scene even more.

There’s a fun little tension between being “in the moment” and playing with my camera as the constantly changing scene calls for shot after shot. An old man flips his worry beads, backlit by golden glitter on the harbor. Three men walk by – each remind me of Spiro Agnew.

As darkness settles, our waiter — who returned here to his family’s homeland after spending 20 years in New Jersey, where he “never took a nap” — brings us a candle. The soft Greek lounge music tumbling out of the kitchen mixes everything like an audio swizzle stick. I glance over my shoulder to the coastal lane home…thankfully, it’s lamp lit.

Walking home under a ridge lined with derelict windmills, I try to envision Hydra before electricity, when springwater flowed and the community was powered by both wind and burros. At the edge of Hydra town, we pass the “Sunset Bar,” filled with noisy cruise-ship tourists and were thankful we took the uphill lane way back when.

The next night, a brisk 15-minute walk rewarded us with the same Kamini harbor magic from the same woven straw seats — worry beads, romantic cats, Greeks good at naps and the busy sea…golden at sunset.

Hydra — so close to Athens yet a world away — is a new favorite for me.

Posted by Rick Steves on September 30, 2007
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Halfway through our Best of Greece tour, we finally had our break-a-plate-on-the-wall night. Actually, no plates were tossed. But after serving grapes for dessert, the waitresses suddenly became belly dancers and the cook became Mr. DJ — sitting at an impressive musical command center.

We were pretty loosened up by the best red wine we’ve had yet. Then they threw napkins into the air and we all went crazy — enjoying a mix of “snap your fingers and shake your shoulders” Greek, disco, "Brick House," and old rock. "Born to Be Wild" got all 24 of us up and dancing — including two of our ladies, who joined the belly dancers literally on the bar. Clearly, we are a Steppenwolf-vintage group — tight as ever on the air guitars.

Real orange juice is rare for some reason in Greece...but oranges are not. Each night, I peel and section an orange — for a dry and crispy yet juicy treat upon waking.

Our driver, George, is a hit with the group. On free nights, he joins the gang and even though he speaks only a little English, the group loves his company. With him at the restaurant, they are sure to order the best food.

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Colin, our guide, is so interesting that I’m not getting good writing time on the bus. Nice problem.

Like a hunter finally spotting the illusive albino leopard, I found a grandmotherly woman in black with a cane stepping into the whitewashed church. I don’t like it when tourists photograph nuns in France “in their traditional costumes” in the same way I don’t feel right stalking the bent old women in mourning black dresses here in Greece. In Greece, the days of old women in black seem to be passing. While you still see them, they just don’t do miserable like they used to. And photographing them, you feel you're catching an anomaly, rather than the village norm.

Retsina — the local two buck chuck with pine tar — is another victim of the new Greek affluence. While boutique retsina is made with subtler flavors, Greeks just can’t get their head around paying $8 for a bottle of retsina. It is supposed to be $2 per bottle rotgut. When you drink it one night, you smell it in your sweat the next day. I miss it. Tonight I plan to find a bottle and give our entire group a swig at dinner.

I was mourning the dearth of backgammon games too. I see the dusty old boxes in tavernas, but rarely anyone actually playing them. Then, in Gythio, Anne and I wandered to the far end of the harbor to a bar with the all-weather sofas overlooking the water and young people were enjoying a happy hour while playing backgammon. The happy chatter of tiny dice on wood brought back good memories of old-time Greece and Turkey as it still lives in my mind.

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Affluent and comfortable as the new Greece is, it still has its romantic/shabby patina. Peloponnese hotels can be a bit rough on the edges. Bathroom fans rattle noisily. The faucet on our sink has a tiny leak, so when I turn it on, a string of stray water arcs all the way to the shower. The spill is harmless, since bathrooms seem designed to flood. If shower curtains direct water at all, it’s often away from the actual shower stall. Each bathroom has a drain in the shower as well as a drain on the main floor.

In general in the Peloponnese, we’re asked not to put toilet paper into the toilets, but into the garbage can instead. Imagining dirty TP from previous guests finding its way into the bin, I find fumbling with the little plastic steps to open the garbage lids annoying.

A euro now costs over $1.40. Our smaller dollar has suffered a greater fall during this presidency than any other. I know what I think is the reason. I asked a Greek in a bar for his explanation. With a shrug that said “it’s elementary,” he answered, “The only people fighting President Bush’s war are the soldiers. You can’t pay for a war with tax cuts. With your growing deficit, nobody wants your dollar. So it is worth not so much these days.” He added that Greeks — like all Europeans — spend a tiny fraction of what Americans do for their military. Showing more attitude, he said that he believed that the wealthy Americans who profit from the war are those receiving the tax cuts and that this made no sense to him. He expected the dollar’s slide to continue.

He finished declaring that the American consumer now has about the same buying power as a Greek one. Then he paid for my ouzo. Greeks love talking politics. All over Europe, I find people are reluctant to bring up politics with a visiting American--out of politeness. But if you choose to start the conversation, you'll often get an earful. It can be offensive to find people as headstrong as we are--but whose opinions are shaped by different forces/perspectives/news/propaganda. These days, for an American, bar talk overseas can be particularly poignant.

Posted by Rick Steves on September 27, 2007
Comments (41)

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In late August, gale force winds were stoking and hurling fires all over a parched Greece. Sensational TV coverage wrongly reported that the museum at Olympia was in flames. The government, in "heck-of-a job Brownie" mode and with an election approaching in just days, was in disarray. The water dropped from planes and helicopters vaporized long before it reached any flames. While environmentalists argued against huge, military land movers cutting firebreaks, others wondered angrily where was the military? Adding to local frustration was news that the European Union had granted Greece 24 million euros ($35 million) for fire prevention purposes that had never been claimed.

Gale force winds, combined with a hot dry spell, caused the fires to dance crazily in unpredictable directions. Flames were literally blown off trees, leaving them looking like Vermont in the autumn, only to travel miles away in minutes and burn another area entirely to the ground.

There are all sorts of explanations for the many fires. One of the biggest theories was that they were started accidentally by the stove of a woman with Alzheimer’s. Or that developers--in order to circumvent local building codes--became arsonists. They started fires and since they suddenly had no forests that needed protecting were free to build. A dimwitted teenager seeing video coverage of planes bombing flaming forests with water wanted a closer look so he set a fire of his own — only adding to the disaster. It was a challenging time for Greece.

Back in Seattle, my key staff people and I huddled at my desk determining how we as a tour company would react to the horrible fires. We diverted two tours out of the southern end of the Peloponnese and hoped/assumed things would get under control for later departures.

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That “later departure” is the tour I’m on now. For lunch just the other day, our group sat on a chalet-like balcony deep in the mountains of the Peloponnese with a vast view of what should have been a green forest — all was brown, parched and burnt off. The family serving us clearly appreciated us putting up with the smell of wet ashes to enjoy their cooking and hospitality.

Driving through the charred wasteland, our lunch at the family-run hotel (which we were told was saved only by its swimming pool), and wandering under hills of blackened trees as we explored the ruins of Olympia has been a poignant part of our tour. I can feel the depth of the local heartache as we ride through the fire zone only indirectly...by the wide-eyed look of concern and sadness on our bus driver, George.

The Greeks are positive about their recovery, saying the only thing irreplaceable was the 63 lives lost. (The biggest loss of life came when 19 people from an engulfed village tried to flee by car and got stuck in a traffic jam. They died. Villagers who stayed survived.) Greeks recall that the island of Poros had a big fire five years ago. While pine trees take many years to grow back, today the olive trees are all green and making olives again. After a big post-fire shake-up, the new government promises fire fighting will be more effective. Airborne fire spotters are on a constant alert.

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Bottom line: for travelers and the economy, the fires are old news and locals — so reliant on tourism — need the business. Other than a few bleak drives through burnt landscape, there is no real impact from the fires on anything a tourist might want to see or do. The only major tourist attraction directly impacted was the sight of the ancient Olympic Games. While the trees around its fine museum are blackened, the actual museum was saved. Flames came to the edge of the site’s tourist village and hills surrounding the ruins were thoroughly burned. We’ve traveled through the hardest hit areas, and everything is once again wide open.

Posted by Rick Steves on September 26, 2007
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The Mani Peninsula, the southern tip of mainland Greece (in fact of the entire continent), feels like the end of the road in Europe. It’s stark and sparse — imagine Connemara in the bleak west of Ireland…after three centuries of drought. Also like Ireland, today’s Mani population is a tiny fraction of what it was as many of its former residents either fled the country for the promise of far away lands like America or were killed in the violent bickering that seems to be a local trait.

Only goats thrive here. Salads come with a slab of feta cheese the size of a paperback. While mountains striped with abandoned terraces hint that the Mani once grew much more, for two centuries olives have been the only Mani export. According to a museum display, historically the economy was based on three things: immigration, piracy, and brigandage.

People hid out tucked in the folds of the mountains far from the coast and marauding pirate ships of old. Ghostly barnacle-like hill towns serrating distant ridges are fortified for threats from both without and within. Cisterns which once sustained tough communities by catching pure rainwater are now mucky green puddles that would turn a goat’s stomach.

The bleak history and rugged landscape provides an evocative backdrop — making hedonism on the Mani coast all the more hedonistic. Stepping out of my room and onto the shady veranda, I bonked my head on a lemon. Then, strolling to the taverna on the beach, I enjoyed images of a long ago Mani dinner — settling my chair into the sand under a bare and dangling lamp at sunset.

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While squeezing lemon on my octopus, I enjoyed a faint but refreshing spritzing. Wondering from where the mist came, I looked over to see a tough young man in a swim suit the size of a rat’s hammock tenderizing someone else’s dinner by slamming it over and over on a rock.

Today, twenty years later, Anne and I settle in at Lela’s Taverna under a leafy canopy. Lights bulbs still swing in the breeze — but, no longer naked, they’re dressed in gourd lamp shades.

Lela, bent and cloaked in black, scurries as a fleeting rain storm drives a few people inside. We sit under an eave enjoying the view. Anne asks Lela’s son the difference between white wine and rosé. He says, “It’s the same but for the color.” I go for the ouzo — if only to watch it cloud over as I trickle in the water.

I love gazing into the misty Mediterranean, knowing the next land is Africa. Inky waves churn as a red sun sets. The light morphs as it does each evening from solar to incandescent.

In a land where “everybody’s grandma is the best cook,” ancient Lela is appreciated for the way she gives her tzatsiki a fun kick and how she marinates her olives.

I can’t get past “good morning” (kalimera) with this Greek language. You try it: ne, okh’i, parakalo, kalimera, poli kala (yes, no, please, good morning, very good). I attribute my problem to confusion caused by the three words I know in Hawaiian: King Kamehameha, Haleakala, and Mele Kalikimaka.

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A local guide explained that while the French keep their mouth shut when they talk, the Greeks keep it very open. While I’m tempted to keep my mouth shut while I don’t talk, I’m determined to get the basic Greek vocabulary down. Here, perhaps more than anywhere in Europe, saying just a couple of local words endears visitors to the people they meet. Mele Kalikimaka.

Posted by Rick Steves on September 24, 2007
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All over the world (whether in Mexico City, Dublin, Turkey or Egypt), before heading into the hinterland, it’s important to stop by the big museum in the capital city to see the art treasures dug up in the rural sights you’re heading out to see. The National Museum in Athens is no exception.

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There’s a new rule. Only in Greek museums is “posing with the art” explicitly forbidden. Tourists just can’t resist getting personally involved with the gods. Goofy as it is, I didn’t know how much I’d miss not being able to “pose” with Adonis or Aphrodite.

Actually being a participant in one of our tours, I’m reminded of how a well-organized tour takes all the time inefficiency out of travel. I’m also reminded of the value of connecting with great local guides. Our guide in Athens was a wealth of insights mixed with attitude: “Fay — like Faye Dunaway” explained, “We Greeks smoke, hate breakfast and just can’t get along with each other. But give us a common enemy and we become tight as a fist.”

Fay reminded me how a Greek trait is to think of things in terms of word history and analyze word origins: “Sanctuary” is a holy enclosure. “Democracy” is literally “people power.” She asked me if I — “so tall and blond” — was Scandinavian? I said yes and she responded “Then why are you Steves. You should be Nelson or something like that.”

Referring to the Acropolis and Agora (ancient market place) as uptown and downtown, she made the hot and dusty visit a delight, bringing meaning to the rubble with clever insights. Greek architecture is made of stone; Roman of stone, clay and brick; early Christian of only clay and brick. While ancient Egyptian wood survives, the wood of ancient Greek buildings is gone because of the humidity here.

Greeks designed on a human scale…appropriate for their democracy. When the Romans came, they added gigantism. As Romans didn’t have democracy, their leaders had a taste for grandeur — putting an “un-Greek” veneer of power on the Agora with pompous staircases, fancy pavement and oversized temples and statues. You can tell Roman statues from Greek ones by knowing that Roman ones are bigger-than-life, not freestanding (always propped on something), with “too much robe” and they come with inter-changeable heads. Masters of both imperial ego and efficiency, they reused stone bodies, economically replacing just the head with each new emperor. That’s why lots of Roman statues are headless with necks “scooped out.”

As usual, a local guide lets me affirm or shoot down my favorite lines. While I’ve done a lot of affirming during the first two days of our tour, I’ve had to humbly debunk myself too. For twenty years I’ve said, “The Treasury of Delos was so important that all the other islands were called the Cycladic Islands because they make a cycle or circle around that pivotal island of Delos.” Now I learn that while the word “Cycladic” does describe the circle of islands, the name predates the treasury by centuries. I always held that the origin of the word barbarian was from ancient Romans who considered everyone who didn’t speak Latin or Greek to be babbling like animals — you know…bar bar bar barians. Now I learn that, rather than Roman ethnocentricity, the word “barbarian” originated with ethnocentric Greeks (who, when hearing non-Greek speakers, labeled them barbarians for their crude-sounding language…bar bar bar). I’ve always said that Greek architects understood that a long straight base line on a building creates the illusion of sagging, therefore they bowed their temple floors up just a tad in the middle. Fay explained that was true — but only for the Parthenon in Athens.

The Greeks remain pissed-off at the British for swiping their Parthenon statues. In 1803, the Ottoman Turks, who controlled Greece, could care less about Greek cultural treasures. They were happy to take a bribe from Englishman Lord Elgin to let him make off with the finest of ancient Greek statuary.

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Athens’ massive new Museum of the Acropolis being built today at the foot of the Acropolis hill has a big and plush section designed to house the Elgin marbles now held in London’s British Museum. This will likely remain empty and the vision will likely never amount to more than wishful thinking because the British Museum knows if it returned the Greek treasures, every culture with treasures held hostage in London would be emboldened to make similar demands.

The guides who lead tours for me know I’m a sucker for touristic folk-dance shows. Last night, more than half our group joined me and Anne at a theater under the Acropolis and under that stars to see Medieval Greek flirting set to music. Just like male peacocks need to try harder to get a date, the male dancers — with pompoms on their slippers — seemed to do all the high kicking. The sweet girls just enjoyed the show — clucking in masse while checking out the guys like you’d look at horses’ teeth at a cattle market.

I found myself staring with my ears at the folk music — with its squawky flutes, crude fiddle, pipes and drums — hearing it as a kind of ethno trance music. Then, staring with my eyes at the bagpiper, I imagined the first time a Greek shepherd lashed a double reed flute to a goat skin, filled it with his breath and squeezed out a crude tune.

Posted by Rick Steves on September 22, 2007
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Flying from Seattle to Athens, we changed planes in bleak and rainy Amsterdam. I realized that miserable weather at a transfer city makes me wickedly happy. Let it rain in Holland…we’re flying to Greece for two weeks of virtually certain sunshine.

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On the plane, people asked, “Where are you going this time?” It was fun to answer, “I’m taking one of them Rick Steves' tours.”

I’m always impressed when planning to make a meeting halfway around the world with 15 minutes to spare, and I get there just as planned. Anne and I checked into Hotel Hera and joined our tour group on the rooftop — a view of the Acropolis and welcome drinks in hand. Last time I was on this rooftop, it was bare concrete with rickety plastic furniture. I was the driver/guide of a minibus tour…a true adventure, with the blind leading the blind.

Now, it’s a different Greece. Like the city itself, the hotel has enjoyed a complete makeover. It was still a Rick Steves’ tour…but with a plush and shady rooftop, a scholar guide (Colin Clement) and me on vacation with Anne.

I joked with Colin that it’s easy to be an impressive guide in Greece, because brilliance is relative and rare is the American tourists who has a clue about Greek history. Colin was worried I’d be bored. I was wondering what it would be like to be off-duty, with no real agenda other than to enjoy myself. My mom could never sit down and relax with company, and I struggle with my “mother-guide complex” (e.g., audio concerns when Colin was giving his intro talk).

Colin stressed punctuality, and how we will actually leave people behind who are late for the bus. Someone cracked, “What’s the difference between a tour member and a hitchhiker?” The answer: “Five minutes.”

Colin prepped us for the experience. If you ask for a “no smoking” section, they’ll sit you anywhere and remove the ashtray. Someone asked for a doggie bag on his last tour, and the waiter took the remains of their meal away, and brought it back in a sack, proudly announcing that he put other people’s leftovers in as well, so that the dog would have a real feast.

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Talking with members from our group, it was clear: retired people want longer trips, working people need shorter trips. Two retired couples were fresh off of our Turkey tour, combining that and our Greece tour for a month-long visit. And, for many, this two-week itinerary was a stretch.

The delightful pedestrian lane that now circles the Acropolis hill is symbolic of the great changes in Athens from the last decade or so. We strolled it with the local paseo crowd. They just had an election yesterday. I asked a local the results, and he said, “Good for owners, bad for workers.”

Wandering through the city, you still feel the heritage from the 2004 Olympic Games. And even from the Para-Olympics. A small industrial elevator riveted to the face of the Acropolis' cliff now makes that ultimate historic hilltop accessible to all.

While that’s great, I have to admit I have a problem with the grooved inlay cut into every sidewalk. In hopes of enabling people who can’t see to get around the city with their white canes, they cut up every sidewalk and inlaid grooves to guide the canes. In practice, crazy obstructions make following the grooves impossible. The result: a city painfully in need of charm has new sidewalks which happen to be the ugliest in Europe.

Athens, once so congested and polluted, has made huge strides. But it’s still intense and congested. It seems there’s about one blade of grass for each of the city’s 3 million cars.

For a taste-version of “pinch me I’m in Greece,” I needed two things: a souvlaki pita and a local yogurt. Wandering the old town under a floodlit Acropolis, munching my souvlaki rolled in greasy pita bread, is like a ritual for me. And to cap that, I drop by a dessert place for a yogurt, and patiently drizzle honey on it as if I'm scribbling “Yes, I’m in Greece!”

Posted by Rick Steves on September 20, 2007
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Flying to Greece to meet our "Best of Greece" tour, I anticipated big, noisy Athens followed by vivid village experiences.

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I started daydreaming about the fun I’ve had in Turkish villages (where I've had more experience) and how that offered an insight into that culture. Like little flip-floppy butterflies, I caught them somewhere over Greenland and lay them out here:

I was in Güzelyurt for everybody’s favorite festival of the year: a circumcision party! Locals call it “a wedding without the in-laws.” The little boy, dressed like a prince, rode his donkey through a commotion of friends and relatives to the house where a doctor was sharpening his knife.

Even with paper money pinned to his uniform and loved ones chanting calming, spiritual music, he must have been frightened. But the ritual snipping went off without a glitch — and a good time was had, at least by everyone else.

On another occasion in central Turkey, I was invited into a village home for tea, or chai. While my hostess prepared the chai, her little boy let me finger his ancient-looking eagle bone flute. While we played, I heard his father playing another flute from a hill above the village. The woman went about her day with the comforting sound of her husband tending their flock. He was away…yet they were somehow still together.

Turkish villages are ugly, with unfinished buildings bristling with rough rooflines of rusty concrete reinforcement bar. For years I assumed Turks just didn’t care how things looked. Then a friend told me, “In Turkey, rebar holds the family together.” In times of demoralizing inflation, rather than watch its value shrink in a bank, Turks invest any extra money in a family home. One wall, window, and roof at a time, they slowly construct a house bit by bit. Turkish parents strive to leave their children the security of their own home.

At the edge of town I came upon a school stadium filled with students thrusting their fists into the air and screaming in unison “We are a secular nation.” I asked my guide, "What’s going on — don’t they like God?" She explained, “No, we love God. But with the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism just across our borders, we Turks are concerned about the fragile 'separation of mosque and state' — which is guaranteed by the constitution the father of our nation, Ataturk, gave us.”

One evening, a village mayor invited us into his home. Children played squawky instruments and beat drums as all present danced in stocking feet on hand woven carpets. Dancing in Turkey is easy — just hold out your arms, snap your fingers, and wiggle your shoulders. I was dancing with the mayor’s wife. Between tunes, he wanted me to know I was completely welcome in his home. He pointed to the most sacred place in the house — the Quran bag which hung on the wall. He said, “In my Quran bag I keep a Quran, a Bible, and a copy of the Torah. It reminds me that Jews and Christians, like we Muslims are ‘people of the book’—we all worship the same God.”

Village artisans enjoy showing off. I visited a woodcarver famous for creating exquisite prayer niches. Every village in the region wanted one for their mosque. My friends and I observed while chips flew. Suddenly he stopped, held his chisel high to the sky, and declared “a man and his chisel, the greatest factory on earth.” I asked to buy one of his carvings. He gave it to me saying, “For a man my age, just to know that something I carved would be taken to America and appreciated…that’s payment enough. Please take this as my gift to you.”

As the sun prepared to set, we climbed to a roof top to observe a dervish whirl. Dervishes are a Muslim sect who follow the teachings of Mevlana. While tourists typically see the whirling dervishes as a kind of cruise-ship, shore-excursion entertainment, it is a meditative form of prayer and worship.

The dervish agreed to let us observe if we understood what the ritual meant. He explained that with one foot anchored in his home, the other foot steps 360 degrees around as if connecting to the entire world. One arm raised and the other lowered, as he turns he becomes a conduit, symbolically connecting the love of God with all of creation.

He spun himself into a trance. With his robe billowing out, his head cocked peacefully to the side, and his arms a tea kettle of divine love, the sun set on the village that offered such a rich insight into a world so far from my own.

Simple encounters in a remote village anywhere in the world remind me that other people don’t have the American dream. They have their own dream. Turkey, the size of California with 70 million people, has the Turkish dream. That doesn’t scare me. It doesn’t threaten me. It makes me thankful.

Posted by Rick Steves on September 18, 2007
Comments (8)

This summer while updating my Germany guidebook, people in the Würzburg tourist board asked me why I no longer recommended the Romantic Road (the bus route connecting the Rhine and Munich/Füssen with a stop in Rothenburg).

The Romantic Road was one of the 16 original “back doors” back in my 1980 first edition of Europe Through the Back Door (read the excerpt) and it slowly went downhill until I realized it was still in the book only because of my fond memories. They asked for my reasons. I gave them. And they responded impressively concerned and now I have hopes that the Romantic Road could once again be worth a day of your German vacation.

This exchange of letters is kind of wonky, but anyone who loved this bus ride back in the 1970s and 1980s may find it nostalgic. And it does give an insight into how the general cultural environment has changed, making it more challenging to connect with charming slices of traditional cultures. (If you have any personal experience with the Romantic Road bus tour — then or recently — please share them with us on this blog. And hopefully, next year, we can share happy news about the new and improved Romantic Road bus tour.)

Dear Sir,

Thanks for asking my opinion on the Romantic Road. In my career as a travel writer I have seen it slowly slip from a fun-loving, economic peek at the best of Germany perfectly designed to fit a Eurail travelers needs to a greedy, lost opportunity trying to capitalize on a once upon a time good reputation among travelers. I used to consider it a key element to any best of Europe trip itinerary. Now I hardly mention it (except for drivers looking for a pretty route they can do themselves).

What do I miss? There used to be friendly bus drivers who knew the locals and had fun with the tourists on board. A famous driver named Charlie Brown used to stop and chat with locals, let dogs hop on the bus, and say goodbye to travelers at the end of the day as if they had a new friend. The ride used to be covered on the rail pass and bags used to be free to stow downstairs. There used to be good information in the form of a handout guide booklet.

I don't know the latest because I stopped paying attention. But the feedback I get from people is somewhere between disappointed and betrayed. I think it would be wonderful if there was a good economic and friendly and information-filled excuse to get off the trains for a day and explore the more characteristic slice of Germany by bus. Perhaps someday, the Romantic Road bus tour will offer just that.

Best wishes,
Rick Steves

Dear Mr. Steves,

According to the Würzburg tourist office, you no longer recommend our bus service on the Romantic Road because you believe the service is so bad. As General Manager of the Romantic Road, I have a great responsibility for this service and it is, therefore, a matter of great importance to me that any such problems should be cleared up.

The 'Europabus' line was opened with the founding of the Romantic Road in 1950, because people fortunately saw that, given the absence of a railway line, a bus route would be of considerable service to international guests. The buses were well-filled until the end of the eighties. Since the early nineties, the proportion of travelers using rented cars has increased continuously. And, since this time, the bus service has mainly been used by Asian guests. Thanks to my fatherly friend Charly Brown, someone who loves the Romantic Road with all his heart and with whom I am still in very close contact, I began my career in the tourist sector aged 16 as a guide on the Europabus service. And the Romantic Road has always been part of my professional life since this initial contact. Due to changing customer behaviour, it became necessary to make cuts so that only 2 of the German 'Europabuses' still serve the Romantic Road route. Moreover, they are only manned by a driver and no longer have a courier on board.

Nevertheless, our drivers do all they can to ensure the well-being of the passengers: they make warm beverages, serve wine and beer, organize accommodation, load bikes and luggage. Our longest serving driver, Köksal Baliki, has been plying the Romantic Road for almost 20 years and looks set to break Charly Brown's record mileage.

Every day, I hear at first hand about the personal services provided on the Romantic Road. Hence, I was very shocked to hear that you no longer recommend this line to your readers. Naturally, it is no longer possible to repeat Charly's little pranks. The small villages have changed. Virtually no dog is allowed to roam freely (incidentally, the little one from Wallerstein was called 'Struppi').

No longer do children pick flowers for the passengers or bring fruit on board the bus, something I was always proud to do as a child. After all, decades ago the Europabuses were our gateway to the big wide world and filled with fascinating people from far away. Today, our visitors are no longer so exotic to attract local children with flowers and the statutory regulations governing bus personnel are so strict that much of what the drivers do for the guests cannot be published officially: unfortunate but a sign of the times.

Nevertheless, we are looking forward very much to 2008 when the Romantic Road Europabus line will be re-launched with a new route. You are the first travel journalist to be told about this and I hope you will pass on the following information to your readers:

Our bus will leave Frankfurt at 8 a.m. and drive directly to Würzburg, then past the 'Residenz' and the vineyards along the River Main to Rothenburg. The bus stop there is within walking distance of the Town Hall. The route continues via Dinkelsbühl (lunch break), Nördlingen and Augsburg, each with a photo stop of a good 30 minutes, to Munich (arriving at 4.25 p.m.). From there, the same bus continues to Ettal, where passengers have time to visit the monastery, before continuing to Schwangau and Füssen with photo stops in Oberammergau, Echelsbacher Brücke and the Church in the Meadow. Bus 2 travels in the opposite direction.

Thanks to the new routing, guests will be able to travel rapidly from Frankfurt to Munich along the Romantic Road or, if they continue to Füssen, view some of the highlights of any journey through Southern Germany - in our opinion, a great enrichment for all travelers.

I would very much like to present this new route to you personally and cordially invite you to join me on board the new Europabus along the Romantic Road. Charly Brown would also like to join us on this journey, which would give us the chance to relive common memories, to take stock of the many changes and to see once again what a wonderful part of Germany is waiting to be discovered between the River Main and the Alps.

I look forward to hearing from you again and very much hope you will be able to find time to visit the Romantic Road.

With best personal regards,
Jürgen Wünschenmeyer
General Manager
Romantic Road Tourist Association

Posted by Rick Steves on September 17, 2007
Comments (17)

Once upon a time, I was in Japan staying at a Kyoto ryokan in January. It was so c-c-c-cold I could see my breath. There was no central heating (as is often the case there). In the middle of the night, I needed to go down the hall to the toilet. I put on my kimono, which was about the size of a lady’s medium. It was comically tight. I slipped into my hallway slippers with the heels hanging over the edge. Dark and very cold. I shuffled on creaky floorboards down the hall and past balsa-wood-like walls. I didn’t want to wake anyone. It was really cold. When I reached the bathroom, I slipped out of hallway slippers and into the awaiting bathroom slippers. Just as small. Dreading the frigid toilet seat, I jockeyed my big body into position. I could still see my breath. Sat down gingerly. The toilet seat…was heated. I love the way different cultures can surprise us...whether in Europe or beyond.

I'm heading off to Greece and Turkey tomorrow...anticipating lots of fun and, I hope, a few hot toilet seats. Anne and I will actually be on vacation (but I'm sneaking along my laptop).

(By the way, I’ve enjoyed writing this blog far more than I imagined. I enjoy the community of travelers that is part of our conversation. I’m thankful we’re not all in agreement on things that I write about here. I try not to get involved in the back and forth, but I need to respond to some people on the last entry. Before you say that I favor children smoking pot, take a moment to understand my position, and the thinking behind it. When I try to inject European-style pragmatism into an issue we find controversial in our country, I do my best to share my thinking on my website. Simply go to the Social Activism corner and snoop around.)

Posted by Rick Steves on September 15, 2007
Comments (10)

A priest professor at El Salvador's prestigious University of Central America once told me “when I hear the word democracy, my bowels move.”

They drink sangria in Spain. Ireland is the Emerald Isle because it rains a lot. The people there are friendly. Foie gras, while outlawed in Chicago, is the primary reason so many Brits travel to the Dordogne in France.

For a travel writer, can you imagine which ideas are most challenging and rewarding to share? When I travel, I’m hungry for experiences and lessons that challenge us...that confront us. This politicizes my writing. It makes it much more fun for me. And, lately, it’s getting me more media exposure than ever. I’m giving a talk tonight at Seattle’s Town Hall called “Travel as a Political Act.” I’ve had several TV, radio and newspaper interviews leading up to this event.

Yesterday, the Seattle Times ran a feature story on me with Mark Rahner. Mark wrote that “Travel as a Political Act” may sound about as bourgeois as Yachting for Peace. It was a fun-loving, Colbert-esque interview which caught me by surprise time after time.

He pointed out that I’ve cultivated a trademark Winkerbean look...which somehow led to discussing famous rock stars hanging babies out windows in Berlin. With questions like “When you bring up ‘travel as a political act,’ won’t you be talking exclusively to prospective shoe-bombers,” I had no choice but to get into uncharted waters. Read Mark’s interview here: Travel Guru Speaks his Mind on Foreign Policy

Posted by Rick Steves on September 13, 2007
Comments (41)

Regardless of my “celebrity,” I love it when other well-known people who I enjoy or respect travel and use my books.

Bette Midler came to town recently. She has no idea who I am. But her trumpeter (the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy) is an absolute fan…he just loves my books. He contacted my office and gave me tickets to see Bette’s show. It was great. Afterwards, backstage, I joined the groupies waiting to say hi to “the Divine Miss M” and this groupie had a groupie of his own to chat with while he waited. Fun.

My publisher was just bought out by a bigger publisher. In a typical consolidation thing, everyone was nervous. Thankfully, our new, bigger, parent publisher really likes our line of books. In fact, just last week I received a call from the CEO, who used my book in Ireland with his family and had an absolute blast. That made my day.

When I go to political gatherings here in Washington State, it's so strange to jockey myself up to Maria Cantwell or Patty Murray with health care, civil liberties, or FCC concerns on my mind — and end up talking my shop (Europe) rather than theirs.

At a dinner before the last election, my congressman, Jay Inslee, invited me to a dinner he threw for then-Ohio state congressman Ted Strickland, who was running for the governorship of Ohio. Jay sat me next to Ted…so we could talk travel. While Ted won, and is currently the popular governor of Ohio, he still travels through the Back Door.

My wife just got back from a Garrison Keillor cruise through Norway’s fjords. Anne, my biggest fan, got me on the cell phone with Garrison (who didn’t know my books). But Garrison’s PHC sidekick, the talented Tim Russell, couldn’t stop talking with Anne about the fun he’d had traveling "through the back door.”

It’s funny to me how “celebrities” are so busy being celebrities that we are routinely oblivious to what other “celebrities” are up to. Thank goodness for the Annes, sidekicks and Boogie Woogie Bugle Boys to clue us in on what’s going on out there!

Posted by Rick Steves on September 09, 2007
Comments (12)

I’ll be in Greece at the Oracle of Delphi next week. But today, in a sense, I was already there.

My tour department managers and I had breakfast with a “tour organizer consultant.” Talking to him was the modern-day equivalent for a tour organizer of going to the Oracle of Delphi. Two thousand five hundred years ago, movers and shakers from throughout the ancient world went to Delphi to get advice from the Delphi priests. The priests weren’t in cahoots with the gods. They just interviewed everyone who came to them, thinking that they were. Because of that, the priests knew what the competition was up to (politically, militarily and so on) and could give divine-quality advice.

Our consultant is like the Oracle of Delphi — he's smart because everyone thinks he’s smart and brings their situation to him. As a result, he knows everyone’s situation and can give excellent advice to competing tour companies.

He's brilliant as a sounding board. We tell him our dreams of where we could or should be going as a tour company and he tells us how we can sell more tours. We consider his ideas and incorporate only those that don't violate our vision of who we are as a tour company. Here’s a bit of what I learned between the omelet and the English muffin:

We lose lots of people by not promising baggage handling. (We make people carry their own bags to their hotel rooms.)

We advertise peak-season prices and discounted off-season prices. It would be smarter marketing to advertise the off-season prices and charge a supplement to go during popular times.

Americans travelers want to pay extra for a single supplement. A “twin bed” in Europe is often single mattresses sharing the same frame…too cozy for many Americans.

The huge new influx of Chinese and Indian tourists (there are 200,000 people in India with enough money to consider traveling in Europe and their tour organizers love to negotiate) is making hotel booking more difficult (and expensive) for American tour organizers.

To get into the Vatican museum during the 90-minute, groups-only window (each morning from 8:30 to 10:00) you must fax your request exactly one month in advance (literally within a 20 minute window of when you want an appointment). Otherwise, you'll wait with the masses for up to several hours in the general admission line.

When competing with the bigger tour companies, we need to stress our undeniable strengths. We claim to have excellent guides…but every company can claim that. Examples of ways we have a distinct advantage are small groups (28 people max — versus the standard 40 to 50) and centrally located hotels (other moderately price tour companies are being driven far from the city center for hotels within their budget).

Many midrange tour companies are using the term “deluxe” — so the real deluxe companies are no longer using the term. They just take out the superlatives and rely on their reputation. A key perceived value for top-end clients with a top-end tour organizer is the assumption that the bus will be filled with a more sophisticated crowd...not the low-end riffraff. The caliber of our clientele is golden.

Print and Web promotions feed on each other. For instance, even Amazon.com (the king of Internet commerce) sends out a print catalog.

We’ve had such a huge success with our “family-friendly” tours. How else can we grow? Rather than scraping the barrel for new destinations, we might do well to offer “free and easy” tours for more “mature” travelers. The fact is…many have traveled with us for a decade and would like to continue. But our pace is faster than they want. Grand Circle Tours grosses $700 million a year by catering to this market. Many of their customers would travel with us if we offered a less physically demanding tour.

People of different generations get along better. Therefore, if contemplating a tour for older travelers, advertise young guides…not older, more empathetic guides.

Cruise companies are more popular then ever — even on Europe's rivers. The comparative cost to organizers is better, since hotel costs have skyrocketed. Tourists like the "one hotel" concept of not having to pack and change every day or two.

A seven-day tour is no big deal from the East Coast. But from the West Coast of the US, a seven-day jaunt to Europe is too short.

Oh well. Enough marketing. I need to tune into my own travel dreams. Next week Anne and I get a vacation together — we're taking one of them Rick Steves Tours...to Greece. Can I go and just relax? We'll see.

Posted by Rick Steves on September 06, 2007
Comments (37)

I’m sunburned — just home from an exciting football weekend in Indiana at Notre Dame, where our son (Andy, a junior there) proudly marched for his first game as part of the elite corps of scowling and intimidatingly tall “Irish Guard.” It was “praise the Lord and pass the football” for this Midwest ritual. (I find less culture shock between Europe and Seattle than between Seattle and South Bend.) With the disappointing score, the homily Sunday morning at Mass was appropriately on humility.

Back in the office, the pressing order of business: Choose the theme for this season’s public television pledge special. (For simplicity, I like to say "PBS," but that’s not really accurate. PBS is the biggest distributor of programming for public television, but my show is distributed by American Public Television — APT. So, I say public television.)

In past years, I used to spend as much as 30 days visiting 30 different stations during the December and March pledge-drive seasons. Now I’m down to about 12 days in 12 cities, and rely on producing what’s called a “virtual pledge event” once or twice a year to help in the necessary fundraising. This is done in Portland at my “presenting station” (OPB).

We do it live there, but we don’t ever say Portland or Oregon Public Broadcasting (to OPB’s disadvantage yet to the advantage of a hundred other stations who will run the show). I talk in general terms about “your public television station” and each station then puts its call letters and phone number on the screen. I love the efficiency of these “virtuals” — they free up time for me to make more TV shows in Europe while virtually “hosting” pledge events all over the country.

Last year, I had my biggest single pledge break at WTTW in Chicago after running our “the making of” special that showed our film crew actually making the episode in Milano. I flew home realizing that this struck a chord with PTV viewers and potential supporters — seeing how small producers like us are scrambling to bring this programming to public television.

For our next “virtual,” we plan to show this, then the actual Milan show, and round it out with a sneak preview of our new Burgundy show (shot two months ago, which I think is the best of our new series in the works). We’ve never shown an episode before the series as a whole debuted. But I’m excited to make this exception. The problem: What to call a special with no geographic focus. I brainstormed with my boss at OPB and we came up with a winner: “Rick Steves Insiders’ Europe.”

While I’m thinking of TV, I need to start setting up the last six shows for our new series. We have seven shows shot and mostly produced in 2007. Six more shows will give us the standard 13 for our promised release date in October 2008.

I suspect I’ll be really hot on Greece and Turkey after my next month’s trip there, so we’ll likely have shows on Athens with Delphi, the Peloponnese and Istanbul. That’ll be shot in the spring (fine weather, early enough to keep our editor busy back home) then we’ll need three more to shoot in summer — I’m thinking Copenhagen, Stockholm and Talinn/Estonia. But there is a world of options.

Stay tuned. (And go Irish!)

Posted by Rick Steves on September 03, 2007
Comments (49)