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Rick Steves' Travel as a Political Act Blog

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Europe is dedicated to bringing its infrastructure up to snuff. After World War II, the United States invested in rebuilding Europe with the Marshall Plan. It was a smart policy designed to assure us strong and stable trading partners and allies. Recently, for essentially the same reasons, Europe has employed a kind of internal Marshall Plan — investing in roads, rail lines, communication, education, and other improvements to strengthen their union.

When a nation joins the European Union, it's either a “net contributor” or a “net receiver.” While there's lots of wrangling in Brussels about just who gives and gets what, Europeans know their economic union is only as strong as its weakest link. Therefore, wealthy countries give more than they get — willingly, if not always enthusiastically. That money bolsters the poorer countries until they develop to the point where, rather than weak links, they become net contributors as well.

Europe (led by France and Germany) is investing hundreds of billions of euros to build a transportation and communication infrastructure for the future. Travelers not only see this, they benefit from it.

Trains are faster than ever. On a recent visit to Munich, I was photographing trains pulling in to the station — with birds squished onto the windshields. Looking at those poor birds, I thought, “You'd wait all your life to see a bird squished onto a windshield of a train back in my hometown.”

A bullet train now zips under the English Channel, taking people from Paris to London in two and a half hours. Denmark and Sweden built a mammoth bridge connecting Copenhagen and Malmö, creating Scandinavia's largest metropolitan area. And cities throughout Europe seem to be forever dug up because they are constantly improving and expanding their underground transit systems.

Non-EU nations are investing, too. Norway, with fewer than five million people, is drilling some of the longest tunnels in the world to lace together isolated communities in the fjords. Istanbul has scraped together the money to build a massive train tunnel under the Bosphorus to connect Asia and Europe and grease its economic engine. And there's an effort underway to dig a tunnel connecting Spain and Morocco under the Strait of Gibraltar.

Savvy nations understand that infrastructure is the foundation for prosperity (and power). Hitler knew he couldn't take on Europe without a good highway system, so he built the autobahn. The United States undertook the massive investment in our interstate highway system in the 1950s, which helped our country truck itself into greater economic power. And in our generation, Europe is investing money it could be spending on its military on its infrastructure instead.

Exploring a continent with a level of affluence similar to the US's gives us a chance to see firsthand the result of allocating limited resources with different priorities. People everywhere hear the excuse “there's not enough money.” In actuality, there is enough money…just different priorities. New stadium, healthcare for all, faster trains, extravagant cathedral, subsidized education, tax cuts, next-generation bomber…each society makes different choices according to its priorities.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 31, 2009
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Today's Europe is striving to strike a comfortable work-life balance. The EU has about 500 million people, with an annual economy of around 13 trillion dollars. To put that into relative terms, the United States, with 300 million people, has an economy of approximately the same size. Proponents of the American system point out that Europeans don't make as much money as we do. It's true — with more people generating only the same gross economy, they earn less per person. But Western European workers make essentially the same per hour as ours do. They just choose to work fewer hours.

I was raised believing there was one good work ethic: you work hard. While we call this the work ethic, it's actually only a work ethic. Europeans have a different one. They choose to work roughly 25 percent fewer hours and willingly make roughly 25 percent less money. While this may not be good for business, it is good for life. Choosing to work less is part of “family values” in Europe; meanwhile, here in business-friendly America, working less is frowned upon…almost subversive.

A Greek friend of mine spent twenty years working in New York. Only after he retired and returned to Greece did he realize that not once in all those years in America did he take a nap. Back in Greece, if he's sleepy in the afternoon, he takes a snooze. Europeans marvel at how Americans seem willing, almost eager, to work themselves into an early grave. In many countries, European friends have told me proudly, “We don't live to work…we work to live.”

Europeans understand the trade-off. Because they choose to work less, most Europeans don't strive for the material affluence that their American counterparts do. European housing, cars, gadgets, and other "stuff" are modest compared to what an American with a similar job might own. It's a matter of priorities. Just as Europeans willingly pay higher taxes for a higher standard of service, they choose less pay (and less stuff) in exchange for more time off. Imagine this in your own life: Would you make do with a smaller car if you knew you didn't have to pay health insurance premiums and co-pays? Would you be willing to give up the luxury of a big flat-screen TV and live in a smaller house if you could cut back to 35 hours per workweek and get a few extra weeks of paid vacation? For most Americans, I imagine that the European idea of spending more time on vacation and with their family, instead of putting in hours of overtime, is appealing.

I have an American friend who runs a very small movement called Take Back Your Time (www.timeday.org). Its mission: to teach Americans that we have the shortest vacations in the rich world, and it's getting worse. His movement's national holiday is October 24th. That's because, by their estimates, if we accepted only the typical European workload, yet worked as long and hard as people do in the US, October 24th would be the last day of the year we'd have to go to work.

With the pressures of globalization, Europe is having to rethink some of its “live more, work less” ideals. For example, the Spanish government is funding incentives to keep workers from going home for a midday siesta, which most agree hurts productivity. And I have a theory that in Ireland (where sales of Guinness is down), the number of pubs is shrinking at the same rate that the number of cafés is increasing, because that society is ramping up its productivity. Drinkers of heavy stout are shifting to lighter lagers, and drinkers of lager are shifting to coffee. Replacing beer with caffeine is a symptom of our faster-paced, more competitive world.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 29, 2009
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In my previous entry, I explained some of the nuts and bolts of Europe's high-tax, high-expectations social system. But, while it provides for its citizens' needs, there's no doubt this system has its shortcomings. Here are just a few.

Europeans grumble about paying sky-high taxes as much as anyone, and tax evasion is a national pastime for many. Europeans love to complain about the heavy-handedness of big government. Cumbersome bureaucracy creeps into virtually all aspects of life. Strict health codes for restaurants dictate that cooked food must be frozen if it's not served within three hours. My Czech friend complained, “This makes many of our best dishes illegal.” (Czech specialties, often simmered, taste better the next day.) A Polish farmer I know gripes that, when Poland joined the EU, he had to get “passports” for his cows. And Italians chafed at having to wear helmets while riding their otherwise stylish motorinos.

While Europeans seem to find clever ways to get government on their backs, the American chorus has long been, “Get the government off our backs.” We don't want regulations — especially the extreme examples cited above. (While the financial crisis that erupted in 2008 brought attention to the problematic lack of regulations on both sides of the Atlantic, America has long had a less regulated business environment than Europe.)

On the other hand, in Europe, workers' protection, environmental protection, and what seems like an obsession for regulations in general make even surviving as a small employer tough. Europe is a challenging, even demoralizing environment for running a small business. While I appreciate the way Europe organizes much of its society, I'm thankful I run my business here rather than there. In Europe, I could never have the creative fun I enjoy as an entrepreneur in the USA.

Is the American approach "wrong" and Europe's approach "right?" As a taxpayer and a businessman, I see pros and cons to both systems. We can all benefit by comparing notes.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 27, 2009
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The benefits of Europe's social system are everywhere. A Slovenian friend of mine who had a baby was guaranteed a year's maternity leave at near-full pay...and was given a state-subsidized "starter kit" with all the essential gear she needed to care for her newborn. If anyone (even a foreign traveler) goes to a public hospital for urgent care in Europe, they often won't even see the bill. Higher education in Europe is subsidized. In many countries, it's entirely free, and students even get “pocket money” while they are learning. Hundreds of thousands of students and professors have traveled to other EU countries to study, teach, and build a sprawling network of intra-European relations through the EU-funded Erasmus Program.

A flipside of this system is that Europe doesn't have the ethic of individual charitable giving that we have in the US. We go to auctions and bake sales to support a good cause. We help our children raise money to subsidize school projects. Our local orchestras wouldn't exist without financial gifts from donors committed to that slice of culture. And public television is only possible with generous support from viewers like you. You don't see that so much in Europe. Europeans expect the government to care for the needy and fund the arts, youth groups, and foreign study opportunities. Europe's tax-funded alternative to charity auctions, pledge drives, and school car washes works for them.

In our system, the thinking is that, after we all get wealthy, we'll be sure to make charitable contributions to the places where the fabric of our society is frayed. But rather than a thousand points of light emanating from generous community members who care, Europeans prefer one compassionate, well-organized searchlight from their entire society as orchestrated by elected officials. While we care individually, they care collectively. What's perceived as good for the fabric of their community (such as having bike lanes, heroin maintenance clinics, public broadcasting, after-school childcare for working parents, paid maternity and paternity leave, and freeway art) trumps business interests.

This represents another major philosophical difference. In America we believe in government by and for the people through the corporations that we own. We want to have a good business environment so we can all share in the affluence. I was raised with the business mantra, “What's good for GM is good for America.”

Europeans strive for government by the people and for the people sometimes regardless of the interests of their corporations. Consequently, Europe is willing to make laws that are (at least in the narrow view) bad for business. While in Europe, the notion of paying for a car's disposal when you first buy the car makes sense, it would be dismissed in the US as bad for the economy. Because carbon taxes would be considered good for the environment but bad for business, I expect to see them in Europe before the US.

Philosophically, most Europeans seem to accept that when it comes to taxes, the necessity outweighs the evil. European politicians don't have to promise tax cuts to win elections. As of this writing, the president of Finland, Tarja Kaarina, was well into her second six-year term leading one of the most highly taxed countries in Europe, and she has about a 75 percent approval rating. Like many Europeans, Finns support high taxes and big government because they like what they get in return.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 24, 2009
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While Europe has its share of economic woes, there's no denying that Europeans have created a vast free trade zone that's become competitive with the United States and the emerging economic giants of China and India. With the unification of Europe, hundreds of millions of people now have the same euro coins jingling in their pockets...and the value of those euros has skyrocketed.

While in past years it seems Americans have been given two options (big, bad government or little, good government), Europeans are more likely to strive for a third option: big, good government.

In American politics, "socialism" is often perceived as an all-or-none bogeyman, evoking the stifling Soviet system of the Cold War. This thinking, which fixates on a Stalin-style oppression that has nothing to do with today's European socialism, ignores the reality that socialism is a spectrum. Every society on earth — including our own — includes some socialistic elements (such as our progressive taxation).

Like us, Europe is enthusiastically capitalistic. Europeans are just more comfortable with a higher degree of socialism. Most Europeans continue to favor their existing high tax rates because they believe that collectively creating the society of their dreams is more important than allowing individuals to create the personal empire of their dreams.

While American culture tends to be individualistic — inspired by “up by the bootstraps” and “rags to riches” stories — Europe is more focused on community. While we are more religious, Europe is more humanistic. In Scandinavia — the most highly taxed, socialistic, and humanistic corner of Europe — you don't find a church with a spire on the main square. You find a city hall with a bell tower. Inside, a secular nave leads not to a pulpit, but to a lectern. Behind that lectern, a grand mosaic tells epic stories — not from the Bible, but celebrating heroic individuals who contributed mightily to their community.

Europeans pay high taxes to buy big, good government...and expect results. Those results include an extensive social-welfare network that puts the financial burden of childcare, healthcare, education, and retirement on the collective shoulders of society, rather than on individuals. I once asked Olle, my Swiss friend, "How can you Swiss people be so docile about paying such high taxes?" Without missing a beat, he replied, "Well, what's it worth to live in a society where there is no homelessness, no hunger, and where everybody enjoys equal access to quality healthcare and education?"

Posted by Rick Steves on July 22, 2009
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While I dabble in the rest of the world, my true love is Europe. Since my first trip there in 1969, I've enjoyed gaining an appreciation for Europe's history, art, culture, cuisine, music...and politics.

The big news in Europe these days is unification. Hosting two world wars within one lifetime inspired European nations to understand the necessity of working together. With the advent of the European Union (EU), its 27 (and counting) member nations have succeeded in attaining their two key goals: avoiding intra-European war and integrating their economies. Now they're moving on to new challenges: forming a common foreign policy and an integrated legal system. Of course, it's dangerous to generalize about "Europe," and many Europeans are not in step with the EU. These "Euroskeptics" mock the EU's high-minded ideals in light of its obvious failings. But despite foot-dragging in certain quarters, Europe as a whole is moving forward.

Europe is the part of the world most similar to the USA. That's why I consider it the wading pool for world exploration. Americans and Europeans are both affluent, well-educated peoples who love their freedom. But, while we have much in common, we also have fundamental differences. I learn a lot about America by studying Europe. Europe does some things better than we do. Some things, they do worse. And most things are open to debate. Considering innovative European approaches to persistent challenges that vex our own nation can be constructive.

The next several blog entries are designed to showcase some of my favorite examples of the Europe-America divide. You'll probably find some of these ideas appealing, and others appalling. I'll state the obvious: Europe doesn't have all the answers. But I wonder if Europe is "out-innovating" us when it comes to finding clever new solutions.

When I encourage Americans to take a look at a European approach to a problem that is befuddling us, some critics accuse me of “America-bashing” — “If you love Europe so much, why don't you just move there?” Short answer: I love America more. And because I care about our society, I challenge us to do better. Particularly in difficult times, we should be open to considering all the solutions we can.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 20, 2009
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At the humble waterfront town of Perast, on Montenegro's Bay of Kotor, young guys in swim trunks edged their boats near the dock, jockeying to motor tourists out to the island in the middle of the bay. According to legend, fishermen saw the Virgin Mary in the reef and began a ritual of dropping a stone on the spot every time they sailed by. Eventually the island we see today was created, and upon that island the people of the Bay of Kotor built a fine little church.

I hired a guy with a dinghy to ferry me out and was met by a young woman who gave me a tour. In the sacristy hung a piece of embroidery — a 25-year-long labor of love made by a local parishioner 200 years ago. It was as exquisite as possible, lovingly made with the finest materials available: silk and the woman's own hair. I could trace her laborious progress through the line of cherubs that ornamented the border. As the years went by, the hair of the angels (like the hair of their devout artist) turned from dark brown to white. Humble and anonymous as she was, she had faith that her work was worthwhile and would be appreciated — as it is, two centuries later, by a steady parade of travelers from distant lands.

I've been at my work for over 25 years now. I also have a faith that it (my work, if not my hair) will be appreciated. That's perhaps less humble than the woman was, but her work reassured me that we live on through our deeds. Her devotion to her creation (as well as her creator) is an inspiration to do both good and lasting work. While traveling, I'm often struck by how people give meaning to life by producing and contributing.

I didn't take a photograph of the embroidery. For some reason, I didn't even take notes. At the moment, I didn't realize I was experiencing the highlight of my day. The impression of the woman's tenderly created embroidery needed — like a good red wine — time to breathe. That was a lesson for me. I was already mentally on to the next thing. When the power of the impression opened up, it was rich and full-bodied...but I was long gone. If travel is going to have the impact on you that it should, you have to climb into those little dinghies and reach for those experiences — the best ones won't come to you. And you have to let them breathe.

Back in town, I had a bela kava ("white coffee," as a latte is called here) and watched kids coming home from school. Two older girls walked by happily spinning the same kind of batons my sisters spun when I was a tyke. And then a sweet younger girl walked by all alone — lost in thought, carrying a tattered violin case.

Even in a country without its own currency, in a land where humble is everything's middle name, parents can find an old violin and manage to give their little girls grace and culture. Letting that impression breathe, it made me happier than I imagined it would.

Traveling in war-torn former Yugoslavia, I see how little triumphs can be big ones. I see hardscrabble nations with big aspirations. And I see the value of history in understanding our travels, and the value of travel in understanding our history.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 17, 2009
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In the mountains high above Montenegro's Bay of Kotor, I arrived at Cetinje, which the road sign proclaimed as the “Old Royal Capital.” I'm nostalgic about this town, a classic mountain kingdom established as the capital in the 15th century. Cetinje was taken by the Ottomans several times. The rampaging Ottomans would generally move in and enjoy a little raping, pillaging, and plundering. But, quickly realizing there was little hedonism to enjoy in Cetinje, they basically just destroyed the place and moved out. With the way clear, the rugged and proud residents filtered back into the ruins of their town and rebuilt.

Today Cetinje is a workaday, two-story town with barely a hint of its old royal status. The museums are generally closed. The economy is flat. A shoe factory and a refrigerator factory were abandoned with Yugoslavia's break-up. (They were part of Tito's economic vision for Yugoslavia — where, in the name of efficiency, individual products were made in one place in huge quantities to supply the entire country.) Kids on bikes rolled like tumbleweeds down the main street past old-timers with hard memories.

At the edge of town is the St. Peter of Cetinje Orthodox monastery — the still-beating spiritual heart of the country. I stepped in. An Orthodox monk — black robe and beard halfway to his waist — nodded a welcome. A service was in progress. Flames flickered on gilded icons, incense created an otherworldly ambience, and the chanting was almost hypnotic.

I stood (as everyone does in Orthodox worship) in the back. People — mostly teenagers in sporty track suits — were trickling in...kissing everything in sight. Seeing these rough and casual teens bending respectfully at the waist as they kissed icons, bibles, and the hands of monks was mesmerizing. If you saw them on the streets, you'd never dream that they'd be here standing through a long Orthodox service.

For the first time I understood what the iconostasis (called a "rood screen" in Western Europe) is all about. Used long ago in Catholic churches, and still today in Orthodox churches, the screen separates the common worshippers from the zone where the priests do all the religious "heavy lifting." Behind the screen — which, like a holy lattice, provides privacy but still lets you peek through — I could see busy priests in fancy robes, and above it all the outstretched arms of Jesus. I knew he was on the cross, but I only saw his arms. As the candlelight flickered, I felt they were happy arms...wanting and eager to give everyone present a big, Slavic bear hug.

Standing through an Eastern Orthodox service there, in a humble church in the forgotten historic capital of a mountain kingdom, I was thankful I had zigzagged to that remote corner of Europe. All those switchbacks on the road up from the coast had earned me the chance to witness a vibrant and time-honored tradition surviving the storms of globalization and modernization.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 15, 2009
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During my travels through the former Yugoslavia, my punch-drunk passport would be stamped and stamped and stamped. While the unification of Europe has made most border crossings feel archaic, the break-up of Yugoslavia has kept them in vogue. Every time the country splintered, another border was set up. The poorer the country, it seems, the more ornate the border formalities. And by European standards, Montenegro is about as poor as it gets. They don't even have their own currency. With just 600,000 people, they decided, heck, let's just use euros.

For me, Montenegro, whose name means "Black Mountain," has always evoked the fratricidal chaos of a bygone age. I think of a time when fathers in the Balkans taught their sons “your neighbor's neighbor is your friend” in anticipation of future sectarian struggles. When, for generation after generation, so-and-so-ovich was pounding on so-and-so-ovich (in Slavic names, “-ovich” means "son," like Johnson), a mountain stronghold was worth the misery.

My recent visit showed me that this image is now dated, the country is on an upward trajectory, and many expect to see Montenegro emerging as a sunny new hotspot on the Adriatic coastline.

Most tourists stick to Montenegro's scenic and increasingly glitzy Bay of Kotor, where the Adriatic cuts into the steep mountains like a Norwegian fjord. But I was eager to get off the beaten path, and headed deep into the rugged interior of the "Black Mountain."

I climbed 25 switchbacks — someone painted numbers on each one — ascending from the Montenegrin coast with its breezy palm trees, popular ice cream stands, and romantic harbor promenades into a world of lonely goats, scrub brush, and desolate, seemingly deserted farmhouses. At switchback #4, I passed a Gypsy encampment. At #18, I pulled out for a grand view of the Bay of Kotor and, pulling on my sweater, marveled at how the vegetation, climate, and ambience were completely different just a few twists in the road above sea level.

At #24, I noticed the “old road” — little more than an overgrown donkey path — that was once the mountain kingdom's umbilical cord to the Adriatic. The most vivid thing I remember about my last visit, decades ago, was that a grand piano had literally been carried up the mountain so some big-shot nobleman could let it go slowly out of tune in his palace.

As I crested the ridge, the sea disappeared and before me stretched a basin defined by a ring of black mountains — Montenegro's heartland. Desolate farmhouses claim to sell smoked ham, mountain cheese, and medovina (honey brandy), but I didn't see a soul. Up here, the Cyrillic alphabet survives better than on the coast. Every hundred yards or so, the local towing company had spray-painted on a rock, “Auto Slep 067-838-555.” You had a feeling they were in the bushes praying for a mishap.

Exploring the poorest corner of any European country can be eye-opening — but Montenegro's is more evocative than most.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 13, 2009
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Learning from a local friend who actually lived through the war of the mid-1990s made my Mostar visit a particularly rich experience. Thankful for the lessons I learned in Mostar, I considered the value of firsthand accounts in my travels over the years.

When I was a gawky 14-year-old, my parents took me to Europe. In a dusty village on the border of Austria and Hungary, a family friend introduced me to a sage old man with bread crumbs in his cartoonish white handlebar moustache. As the man spread lard on rustic bread, he shared his eyewitness account of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914. I was thrilled by history as never before.

In Prague, my Czech friend Honza took me on the walk he had taken night after night in 1989 with 100,000 of his countrymen as they demanded freedom from their Soviet overlords. The walk culminated in front of a grand building, where Honza said, “Night after night we assembled here, pulled out our key chains, and all jingled them at the President's window, saying, ‘It's time for you to go now.' Then one night we gathered...and he was gone. We had won our freedom.” Hearing Honza tell that story as we walked that same route drilled into me the jubilation of a small country winning its freedom.

My Norwegian uncle Thor gave me a similarly powerful experience in Oslo. Gazing at mosaic murals in the Oslo City Hall that celebrate the heroics of locals who stood strong against German occupation, Thor told me stories of growing up in a Nazi-ruled Norway. He woke up one morning to find his beloved royal family in exile and German soldiers on every corner. Norway's resistance fighters took to the snowy mountains coordinating with brave children smugglers in the towns. Even with the vastly stronger occupying force, Thor told how his country's national spirit remained strong until that glorious day when the king returned and Norwegian flags flew happily again. As Thor brought the mural to life, I wondered what I would do to win back a freedom lost.

In Northern Ireland, my guide Stephen was determined to make his country's struggles vivid. In Belfast, he introduced me to the Felons' Club — where membership is limited to those who've spent at least a year and a day in a British prison for political crimes. Hearing heroic stories of Irish resistance while sharing a Guinness with a celebrity felon gives you an affinity for their struggles. Walking the next day through the green-trimmed gravesites of his prison-mates who starved themselves to death for the cause of Irish independence capped the experience powerfully.

El Salvador's history is so tragic and fascinating that anyone you talk to becomes a tour guide. My Salvadoran guides with the greatest impact were the “Mothers of the Disappeared,” who told me their story while leafing through humble scrapbooks showing photographs of their sons' bodies — mutilated and decapitated. Learning of a cruel government's actions with those sad mothers left me with lifetime souvenirs: a cynicism about many governments (you can tell by their actions who they really represent) and an empathy for underdogs courageously standing up to their governments when necessary.

Tourists can go to Prague, Norway, Ireland, and Central America and learn nothing of a people's struggles. Or they can seek out opportunities to connect with people (whether professional guides or accidental guides) who can share perspective-changing stories.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 10, 2009
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At lunchtime in Mostar, I stopped at a tiny grocery store, where I was happy to see a woman I had befriended the day before. She was a gorgeous person, sad to be living in a frustrating economy, and stiff with a piece of shrapnel in her back that doctors decided was safer left in. She made me a hearty ham sandwich and helped me gather the ingredients of what would be a fine picnic meal. Stooping to pick up items on shelves lower than she could bend to reach, I considered how this woman's life will be forever marred by that war.

Crossing the street, I stepped over patched mortar craters in the pavement. In Sarajevo, they've filled these scars with red concrete to make them memorials. They call them "Sarajevo roses." Here the roses were black like the rest of the street — but after my Mostar experience, they showed up red in my mind.

The sentiment I hear from locals when I visit the former Yugoslavia is, “I don't know how we could have been so stupid to wage that unnecessary war.” I've never met anyone here who called the war anything but a tragic mistake. The lesson I learned from their mistake is the importance of taking pluralism within your society seriously. While Bosnian sectarianism is extreme, every society has groups that could come to blows. And failing to find a way to live peacefully together — as the people of Mostar learned — means everybody loses.

That night in Mostar, as the teenagers ripped it up at their dance halls, I lay in bed sorting out my impressions. Until the wee hours, a birthday party raged in the restaurant outside my window. For hours they sang songs. At first I was annoyed. Then I realized that a Bosniak "Beach Boys" party beats a night of shelling. In two hours of sing-alongs, everyone seemed to know all the words...and I didn't recognize a single tune. In spite of all its challenges and setbacks, I have no doubt that this Bosnian culture will rage on.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 08, 2009
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Walking with my new Bosnian friend Alen through the streets of Mostar, we came upon a small cemetery congested with more than a hundred white-marble Muslim tombstones. Alen pointed out the dates: Everyone died in 1993, 1994, or 1995. Before 1993, this was a park. When the war heated up, snipers were a constant concern — they'd pick off anyone they saw walking down the street. Because of the ongoing danger, bodies were left for weeks, rotting on the main boulevard, which had become the front line. Mostar's cemeteries were too exposed to be used, but this tree-filled park was relatively safe from snipers. People buried their neighbors here...under the cover of darkness.

Weaving slowly through the tombstones, Alen explained, "In those years, night was the time when we lived. We didn't walk...we ran. And we dressed in black. There was no electricity. If the Croats didn't kill us with their bullets, they killed us with their music.” That politically charged, rabble-rousing Croatian pop music, used — apparently effectively — as a kind of psychological torture, was blasting constantly from the Croat side of town.

As we wandered through town, the sectarian symbolism of the conflict was powerful. Ten minarets pierced Mostar's skyline like proud Muslim exclamation points. Across the river, twice as high as the tallest minaret, stood the Croats' new Catholic church spire. Standing on the reconstructed Old Bridge, I looked at the hilltop high above the town, with its single, bold, and strongly floodlit cross. Alen said, "We Muslims believe that cross marks the spot from where they shelled this bridge. They built it there, and floodlight it each night...like a celebration."

The next day, I popped into a small theater where 30 Slovenes (from a part of the former Yugoslavia that avoided the terrible destruction of the war) were watching a short film about the Old Bridge, its destruction, and its rebuilding. The persistent shelling of the venerable bridge, so rich in symbolism, seemed to go on and on. The Slovenes knew the story well. But when the video reached the moment the bridge finally fell, I heard a sad collective gasp. It reminded me of how Americans feel, even well after 9/11, when watching video of the World Trade Center disappearing into a column of ash. It helped me, if not feel, at least appreciate another country's pain.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 06, 2009
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Despite the setbacks to the Bosnian peace process, visitors find signs of progress in Mostar. In fact, as I explored the workaday streets of the town, it seemed that — despite the war damage — Mostar was downright thriving.

Masala Square (literally “Place for Prayer” square) is designed for big gatherings. Muslim groups meet at the square before departing for Mecca on their pilgrimage, or Hajj. But on the night of my visit, there was not a hint of prayer. It was prom night. The kids were out...Bosnian hormones were raging. Being young and sexy is a great equalizer. With a beer, loud music, desirability, twinkling stars...and no war...your family's income and your country's GDP hardly matter. Today's 18-year-old Mostarian was a toddler during the war. Looking at these kids and their dried-apple grandparents in dusty black warming benches on the “Place for Prayer” square, I imagined that there must be quite a generation gap.

I was swirling in a snow globe of teenagers, and through the commotion, a thirtysomething local came at me with a huge smile: Alen from Orlando. Actually, he's from Mostar, but fled to Florida during the war and now spends summers with his family here. A fan of my public television series, he immediately offered to show me around his hometown.

Alen's local perspective gave Mostar meaning. There were blackened ruins from the war everywhere. When I asked why — after nearly two decades — the ruins had not been touched, Alen explained, “There's confusion about who owns what. Surviving companies have no money. The Bank of Yugoslavia, which held the mortgages, is now gone. No one will invest until it's clear who owns the buildings." I had never considered the financial confusion that follows the breakup of a country, and how it could stunt a society's redevelopment.

Then Alen pointed to a fig tree growing out of a small minaret. Seeming to speak as much about Mostar's people as its vegetation, he said, "It's a strange thing in nature...figs can grow with almost no soil."

Posted by Rick Steves on July 03, 2009
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The city of Mostar, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, once symbolized East and West coming together peacefully, then symbolized just the opposite, and today seems to be enjoying a tentative new spirit of peaceful coexistence.

Mostar represents the best and the worst of Yugoslavia. During the Tito years, it was an idyllic mingling of cultures — Catholic Croats, Orthodox Serbs, and Muslim Bosniaks living together in relative harmony, their differences spanned by an Old Bridge that symbolized an optimistic vision of a Yugoslavia where ethnicity didn't matter. And yet, as the country unraveled in the early 1990s, Mostar was gripped by a gory three-way war among those same groups. Not so many years before my visit, the people I encountered here — those who set me up at a computer terminal in the cybercafé, stopped for me when I jaywalked, showed off their paintings, and directed the church choir — had been killing each other.

Mostar's 400-year-old, Turkish-style stone bridge — with its elegant, single-pointed arch — was symbolic of the town's status as the place were East met West in Europe. Then, during the 1990s, Mostar became the tragic poster child of the Bosnian war. Across the world, people felt the town's pain when its beloved bridge — bombarded from the hilltop above — finally collapsed into the river.

The scars of war are still evident. The Serbs who once lived here have fled deeper into the countryside, into the Republika Srpska. The two groups who still live in Mostar are effectively segregated along the front line that divided them during wartime: The Muslims on the east side, and the Croats on the west.

While the two groups are making some efforts at reintegration, progress is slow. In 2005, some young Mostarians unveiled a statue of Bruce Lee, who they saw as symbolizing the fight for positive values that all sides could identify with. Lee, who fought against ethnic divisions between Chinese and Americans, represented to the people of Mostar an inspirational bridging of cultures. Sadly, two days after the unveiling, the statue was vandalized.

But things are improving. Mostar's stately Old Bridge has been rebuilt, and the city is gradually putting itself back together. Exploring Mostar — with its vibrant humanity and the persistent reminders of its recent and terrible war — is both exhilarating and exhausting.

Posted by Rick Steves on July 01, 2009
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