Top Eureka Moments

Even after decades of visits, Europe still surprises me. Here are a few of my favorite “aha!” moments from my last trip.

Couple

A couple out for a romantic evening proved that in a place as dreamy as Venice, a few €1 boxes of red wine and a shrink-wrapped portion of prosciutto are all you need for a memorable canalside dinner.

Rick Steves and Ibn Battuta

I was having a quiet lunch at my hotel in Romania when I found myself on the restaurant’s wallpaper. And I met Ibn Battuta, who, 700 years ago, was “the Rick Steves of his days, roaming the world to tell everyone what they were missing.”

Boot knife

At a new exhibit in Normandy, I found a knife just like the one I treasured as a kid — sheath and all — strapped to the leg of a paratrooper ready to jump behind German lines the night before D-Day.

Rick Steves and Andy Steves

photo: The Travelphile

Coming home to find my son’s first guidebook, “Andy Steves’ Europe: City-Hopping on a Budget,” on my desk. (You can get your own copy of City-Hopping on a Budget on my website.)

Table with prosciutto and cheese

I never thought I could have too much fine prosciutto and pecorino cheese in Tuscany. But when the gentleman pig farmer laid out a table like this for the fifth day in a row, he confessed, “What I really dream of is a nice filet of fish.” And after yet another meal of so much pork and cheese, I thought, “Hmmm…fish does sound nice.”

Comments

2 Replies to “Top Eureka Moments”

  1. Hi from Florida,

    Andy is a chip off the old block as we say. I’m delighted he is following in your footsteps.

    Ciao,

    Tampa Twin

  2. Looks like your link to the City-Hopping book got hacked by some sort of spam – leads to an address beginning with protect-us.mimecast.

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