All-new season of Rick Steves' Europe is ready for take-off
By Rick Steves
I am very excited about this new season. In it I take you to great cities: from biking the back lanes of wonderful Copenhagen and waltzing through the Habsburg glory of Vienna to being tenderized by a burly masseuse under a Byzantine dome in Istanbul.
And this new series, two years in the making, transports us vividly into Europe's villages and countryside as never before. It's as if you're right there with me — slurping escargot in Burgundy, wandering through Salvador Dali's home as if he just stepped out and left you the keys, and hopping a zippy water taxi to the desolate side of a Greek isle for the perfect hike, beach, and sunset. We walk with geese in a land where foie gras is almost a religion, commune with Viking ghosts on Denmark's "ship-in-a-bottle" isle, and scamper through Delphi's dramatic ruins at the very spot that Zeus considered the center of the world.
Connecting with people who've found their niche in life carbonates any travel experience. In each new episode, my European friends — who dish up travel fun with a contagious joie de vivre — inspire us to live life to its fullest. We sample rich red wines with a Burgundian canal boat captain while navigating the locks and gliding by golden fields of sunflowers. With a Czech teacher, we try our best to appreciate the famously stinky cheese of Olomouc. And, with a Danish foodie, we strive to appreciate the art of explosive aquavit and pungent herring.
As always, I try to make history real and cultural differences crisp and meaningful. We sit with the muezzin at the base of a towering minaret as he calls Istanbul to prayer. We venture through a WWII-era fortress buried deep in the Swiss Alps. And we climb deep into a Mycenean tomb to marvel at the greatest dome of ancient Greece.
Enjoying more of the best of Europe, we're inspired by the pride of Barcelonan parents teaching their children to speak Catalan before they learn español, the passion of a French archaeologist walking us through the Sistine Chapel of the prehistoric world in the Dordogne River Valley, and the efficiency of an institutional plunge into a peat bath in a Czech spa town. A special episode on "Little Europe" explains the persistent pride and fascinating stories of Europe's tiniest countries.
After 18 years and more than a hundred episodes, I take my newest series to a thrilling and captivating finale — inviting you to join me on a personal journey of discovery in Iran as I try to demystify this rich and complex culture of 70 million people. From the 2,500-year-old ruins of Persepolis to the tomb of Khomeini, from the Keystone-Cop craziness of a motorcycle-taxi ride in Tehran to a Persian banquet in a private home, and from the US embassy to a martyrs' cemetery — this show offers a rare, candid, and humanizing look at a great if perplexing nation.
And as public television continues to be a leader in high-definition television (HDTV) broadcasting in America, this new Rick Steves' Europe series comes to you in vivid HD making it more clear than ever that a half hour exploring Europe with me continues to be your next best thing to a plane ticket.
Happy Travels!
For lots more information on all of Rick Steves' TV shows, don't miss the Rick on Public Television section of our website.