I’m back home now after a great travel season. On the road for four months of the last five, I marvel at the experiences I enjoyed and am thankful for the work I was able to accomplish. I did my share to update our various guidebooks (with work in Italy, Hungary, Prague, Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Spain, and England) and produced the last three shows of our new series (Basque, North Spain, Helsinki/Tallinn), which debuts nationally next month.
Settling back into my office, I look ahead at an exhilarating year with my staff, designing our new content into usable material to help Americans travel smarter than ever.
I have a few random scraps in my blog notes file that must get their day in the sun:
In Vienna, if you die in the hospital you are automatically an organ donor. It’s like a wrecking yard of human bodies.
In Conwy in North Wales, the fisherman’s harbor was fixed up by EU money, but EU regulations require that fish must be transported in refrigerated trucks. Those trucks couldn’t fit through the gate to the new harbor, so they set up shop in the next town. Now Conwy has a fine fisherman’s harbor…with no fishermen.
Windsor, which is just under the landing path of planes coming into London’s Heathrow Airport, is a delightful town at night. It has inexpensive B&Bs (compared to London prices), a wonderful pedestrian zone along the Thames River and in the shadow of the hulking Windsor Castle, and an enticing array of small restaurants. Windsor gave me a peaceful and charming last night in England before flying out.
I am a sucker for old, historic, black-and-white photos. Many small and charming towns have no museums or organized way to let people know what they were like a century ago. But a few hotel lobbies, pubs, and cafés collect and display old photos, serving as a small history gallery for visitors. While it may sound weird, I find this is a plus when I consider recommending a place.
If this offends you, so will Blackpool. Enlarge photo |
Blackpool daze. Enlarge photo |
Backstage with Christopher, aka “Hope.” Enlarge photo |
For silly and personal reasons (which I won’t share), I included Blackpool in Europe’s Top 20 Destinations in the special edition Smithsonian magazine we recently produced with the wonderful people on that staff. Visiting Blackpool last month, I was hoping it would charm me in the gut-bomb, white-trash way only Blackpool can. But the place depressed me. Two men greeted me by showing me their new tattoos that still made their butt cheeks all red. And it went downhill from there.
I desperately needed a couple of good B&Bs to recommend in my Blackpool chapter. I found a great one, but the woman who runs it was furious at me for my industrial espionage methods of research. (I drop in and say I need a room. They show me a couple as if I’m a prospective customer. Then, once I’ve seen how they treat travelers without knowing who I am, I tell them I don’t really need a room and that I’m researching for a guidebook.) She just stopped talking with me, so I couldn’t complete my research interview to get the information on the hotel I needed to write up a new listing. It was strange to be essentially thrown out of a hotel that I’ll still write up and recommend and send lots of business to in the coming year via my guidebook.
Blackpool is a study in people watching. For a long time I observed a woman, in a carnival-like trance, digging dreamily into her piggy bank, dropping in coin after coin in hopes of winning a tiny teddy bear.
The people of Blackpool are so impressed by the goofy tableaux that line their main drag (big, garish, cartoon-like installations that are strewn with little electric lights). I can’t imagine that they were impressive, even back in the 1960s when they were set up. But then I went to the Funny Girls drag show, had a wonderful time, met one of the performers — a gorgeous Filipino named Christopher — who “absolutely loves my show.” And I remembered what Blackpool was all about: unbridled, unpretentious, lowbrow fun.
As I say in my guidebook, the Cumbrian Lake District in North England is beautiful, but its beauty is even more striking when coming from crass Blackpool. Keswick is my slam-dunk favorite home base for exploring the Lake District. Intending to freshen up my hotel and B&B listings, I spent a morning visiting new places. I toured a great guesthouse, thinking I was incognito. When I told Gillian (who ran the place) who I was, she said, “You’re not going to insult my carpet, are you?” Startled and confused, I asked what brought on that random comment. She said that her friend was in my book, and I described her place as “good in spite of the tired, kitschy carpet,” and she considered that insulting. It was funny to me because I didn’t even think she knew who I was, much less how I described the carpet in a competing B&B.
Now that I’m home, people ask where I’m heading next. I have no idea. While I’ve yet to give it a thought, I know I’ll spend next April, May, July, and August in Europe. But right now, I do know that until then, I’ll be home. I’ll be enjoying the challenges and rewards of my work and becoming something more than a temporary local — with gusto.
Rick, this was the funniest post I've seen from you in a long time. I agree that B&W photos are a plus and love to see the old history of towns too. (One reason I love to spend hours on Wikipedia.) The undercover hotel method is hilarious. Were I one of those people I think I'd be a bit more tolerant and good-humored about the whole thing. After all, that's the nature of the business they are in, and also they should realize a good nod from you in one of your books is worth a lot of inconvenience. Keep on doing what you do, and if the carpet is kitchy, don't be afraid to say it. After all, Milan Kundera wouldn't!
Rick Welcome home, and what a good season, we too have had our trips for the year and are going to enjoy our local attractions, starting this weekend with the Italian Festival!!!!
Rick Steves, you're a novelist. I've been watching your shows for five years – and I've benefited from each season, guidebook and even merchandise when traveling – but somehow, I didn't realize until reading today's blog just how suited you are to the life of a fiction writer. What you remember today about your time in Vienna, North Wales, Blackpool this summer – all ripe for novelization. Thanks for being you; we're all the better for it.
Rick, you may be interested to know that the soccer team from Blackpool earned a spot in the top division this year…the English Premier League. This is (arguably) the best soccer league in the world, and it has been more than 40 years since the "Tangerine Army" of Blackpool had qualified. The season is only a month old, but they have become the darlings of the league. They are doing surprisingly well on the field, and off the field the antics of their fans are giving everyone a chuckle.
Rick, Enjoy your blog. Your guidebooks are the best! Last year my husband and I spent 2 weeks in Italy – Lake Como, Milan and Cinque Terre using your Italy Guidebook. This year we bought the Paris, Provence & French Riviera guidebooks and spent 3 weeks in France -Paris, Avignon/Provence Area then Nice. Used the TGV, bus, underground – excellent transportation in France – the people were great and your hotel recommendations were spot on. May '11 back to Lake Como, Venice and Cinque Terre – our favorites. Look forward to your new shows and thank you for all your work.
Great job! I can't wait to see the show.
Thanks for the "heads-up" (or should I say "butts-up"?) about Blackpool. I'll remember not to go there.
Blackpool looks and sounds dreadful. Thanks for the warning!
Big *grin* to new adventures in Blackpool. Happy, fun(ny) travels!
Glad to read that you've finally seen the light about Blackpool! It's rather like telling visitors to the US to visit Myrtle Beach, only more so.
Maybe it's just that places like Blackpool play better in memory than in real time. You've often commented how your kids loved Blackpool and maybe that's the thrill you were remembering. Or maybe it's that Blackpool was built for locals and not necessarily for tourists. Perhaps it enjoys not having the pizzazz of a place like Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. By the way, I can't wait to see your next set of DVDs!
Interesting that you mention the Conwy/EU debacle, Rick. I think it perfectly illustrates the folly of unneeded government regulations, overweening government and government from afar as manifested in the EU. Does this make you rethink in any way your statist leanings? I mention this because I love your show and books but the occasional pro-big-government editorials contained in them are sometimes a bit tiresome.
Rick, you are probably too young to have ever heard of Stanley Holloway (try a google search when you have a minute). My dad used to recite his monologues about the Lion and Albert, and a visit to the zoo in Blackpool. Just reading the reference in your blog brought back a flood of memories…
Bill, I agree with your comment but if you think an old leftist-leaning liberal named Rick Steve's is going to re-think ANY of his political leanings, then you will have to wait for a cold day in hell.
Great blog Rick! Just checking in, been on vacation and visting relatives in England[INVALID]King's Sutton actually, between London and Oxford. Interestingly enough, one of my cousins here has had issue with a collasped lung a few months ago. She required a chest tube twice, then had to get operated on in Oxford. Then she needed another procedure to get all the fluid from her lung. Overall, for all of this, my Uncle and Auntie paid the grand sum of zero pounds, zero pence. Had she been in the States everything probably would have set her parents back $15,000-$20,000 without insurance, probably $6,000 with insurance. Bottom line, Britons here don't mind paying into NHS just for circumstances like this. My aunt and uncle (who both work and work hard) sure don't. So to jd and Bill, who paint universal healthcare or quote/unquote Big Government wholesale as the devil, consider something else: the leading cause for families in the States filing bankruptcy far and away[INVALID]are medical expenses. I'm not optimistic the watered-down capitulated compromised health care reform that passed will change that. Cheerio!
Alfran: The large costs associated with proper medical treatment are why one should maintain proper medical insurance. This can usually be obtained in the United States for the price of a monthly cell phone or cable bill. So, the vast majority of those who are uninsured in the US are simply making a decision to risk being uninsured to save money and/or have other priorities (for example the young are far less likely to be insured because they gamble, usually correctly, that they will not become ill). As for the "free" healthcare system in Britain, I would point out that of course it is not free. First, Britons pay higher taxes and get subpar treatment in return. They are less likely to get needed MRIs than Americans and more likely to die of cancer than are Americans, for example. New treatments and medicines are also not developed in the sort of environment where there is no reward for achievement or for inventiveness. So, the totality of the evidence does not support your propositions. Finally, as a bankruptcy attorney, I can promise you that "the leading cause of filing bankruptcy far and away are medical expenses". This is simply not true. From my experience, perhaps 2-3% of Bankruptcy filers do so because of medical bills. The vast majority of people file because (1) they lost their job and cannot pay their debts, (2) they are overextended with debt and cannot pay it off in a reasonable period of time, (3) they have gone through divorce and cannot sustain two households and pay off their debt, or (4) they bought a home at the height of the market and now want to unload it through Bankruptcy. So, nice try but you are barking up the wrong tree with the Bankruptcy reference.
I meant to say in the above post that: "I can promise you that 'the leading cause of filing bankruptcy far and away are medical expenses' is simply not true." Sorry for the type-o.