Production News

Behind the Camera

Here's a look at making the series:

Rick Steves' Europe: 2006

Rick Steves' Europe: 2003

Rick Steves' Europe: 2001

Travels In Europe: 1999

Travels In Europe: 1997

Rick's Take on Production

New Rick Steves' Europe Season 7 launches October 2012

I'm happy to announce that the seventh season of my Rick Steves' Europe TV series — 14 new episodes — debuts on public television stations all across the USA beginning in October. Two years in the making, this season's theme is: Europe's greatest cities and how to fully enjoy them.

This fall you'll see three new shows on Rome, two on Venice, a pair on Florence and Tuscany, two on Paris, one on London, and a show on North England's Lake District — plus an all-new, three-part Travel Skills Special.

This season we'll show you how travel can be a great teacher. Resurrecting the rubble of ancient Rome and marveling at the empire's exquisite art provides a deeper appreciation for a city eternally bursting with Baroque and busy with life. In Renaissance Florence, looking into the eyes of Michelangelo's David, climbing Brunelleschi's dome, and eating like a Medici helps us understand how Florentine pride remains strong to this day. And the sights of Paris — from Napoleon's tomb and the majestic Louvre to thunderous pipe organs and cemeteries filled with celebrities from every generation — stir the historian and Francophile hiding in so many travelers.

Wherever you travel, the key is to connect with locals. In each city, my crew and I made it a point to take our camera into rustic neighborhoods. They caught me taste-testing the last cookie bakery in Rome's Trastevere, and peering over the shoulder of an artisan pounding gold leaf onto a halo in Florence's Oltrarno. We joined a beret-capped student in his vintage 2CV for a midnight joyride through floodlit Paris, waded through the crypt of a flooding church at high tide in Venice, and celebrated the mother of all revolutions with a big, patriotic Bastille Day bang in Paris.

The philosophy behind all my travel shows is: you can do this. Our ethic is to never film anything that viewers can't do themselves. So, armed with the basic skills and a determination to travel smart, everything you see in Rick Steves' Europe is within your reach. I've packed these fundamental travel skills into the final three episodes of the season, following my favorite all-star loop through Europe (Amsterdam, the Rhine, Bavaria, Venice, Siena, Cinque Terre, the Swiss Alps, Paris, and London) as a colorful classroom in which to teach the practical skills any good traveler needs: planning a smart itinerary, eating and sleeping well, packing light, and (the most rewarding skill of all) connecting with the locals.

Join me for my new season of Rick Steves' Europe — and let's keep on traveling.

Rick Steves' Europe Season 7 Shows

Many of Rick's new, high definition Season 7 shows replace ones that were filmed in standard definition more than a decade ago. In the list below, "old" refers to the original shows, which will no longer be broadcast.

Rick Steves' Europe Seasons 1-7

View a season-by-season list of Rick's TV shows.