Thank goodness the flames are subsiding in Greece. The first thing I did after returning to my office last week was to sit down with my staff and crisis-manage this, since we have on-going tours there.
We have two tours going next week and our route takes us right through the hottest zones in the Peloponnese. We had visions of our bus heading south through burned-out hillsides with traumatized locals heading north. Lousy vacation.
The easy response would be to cancel the next two departures. But we have Greek friends who need the business, guides who need the work and (after an email survey) 49 out of 50 tour members who still want to go if possible. If we could do a good tour safely, we wanted to try.
The decision: Make a secondary itinerary, swapping out fire-zone days (like in the Mani Peninsula and around Olympia) with fire-free areas in the north (Metéora), get provisional hotel bookings and decide later when we know how things are going.
Anne and I are taking this same tour for our annual vacation in two weeks, so we have a personal interest in what’s going on.
I don’t think the news reports can convey the horror of this tragedy. What a sad and frightening thing for the people of Greece to go through. We’re all thankful that things seem to be getting under control.
From Greece, I fly to Rome to do a video about Peter for my church. When the Lutheran Church (ELCA) asks me to host a video and they are excited enough about the project to send copies of the video we’ll produce to all 12,000 ELCA churches in the USA, I say sure. I’m working with Tim Frakes (the one-man film production department for the ELCA) on the script now.
Someone asked about the availability of these videos. We have a single DVD that includes all five ELCA videos I’ve done so far (two hours of programming). It’s called “Faithful Travel with Rick Steves.” (We sell it for $19.95 and donate 100 percent of the proceeds to Lutheran World Relief. Or, the Luther program is available free at Youtube–search rick steves luther.)
Two of my favorite productions ever are one filmed in Papua New Guinea (where I got to share my ideas on “reading the Bible through Third World eyes” and the harsh realities of the gap between the rich and poor world) and another in Germany — the Story of Martin Luther.
The Luther show was probably the toughest script challenge I’ve ever tackled and the most gratifying…giving our church an update over the melodramatic old black and white 1960s-era Sunday school videos that I grew up with, of Luther pounding his thesis onto the door of that church in Wittenberg.
Editing a hard copy of this St. Peter script with a pen, rather than my standard pencil, I realized why I love my pencil. I must do the majority of my hard-copy editing and note-taking on a sofa or on the bed. Pens don’t work upside down.
Rick, is there any legitimate way to help the Greek people who are in such dire straits? I am thinking that the people taking the next tours of Greece will be in the enviable position of seeing the country and relating to the Greek people in their time of need (and possibly being able to help?) I read today that many of the displaced rely on the production of olive oil as their livlihood and that it takes 15 years for olive vines to reach productivity. Papua, New Guinea brings Margaret Mead to mind and her famous quote about a small group of people being able to change the world.
I look forward to getting your St. Peter video in my home (ELCA) church. I was in St. Peters for the first time in June and being near the bones gave me a chill.
I just watched your video about Martin Luther last week with my 18 year old son. It was very informative and I look forward to seeing your St. Peter video when it’s completed.
Hey, I have an idea. While you and Anne are on your trip to Greece, why not have her blog so we can see things through her eyes? Eventually, we’ll get your whole family to blog!
Have a safe trip to Greece. Hope all turns out okay over there. Such a tragedy about the fires!
I just watched “Faithful Travel with Rick Steves” on YouTube, and want to thank you, Rick, for your thoughts. I saw my parensts struggle as 1st generation immigrants, but we have become “comfortable Americans” with all the materialistic tendencies of our society. I am very thankful for what I have been blessed with, and your video reminded me of the responsibilities that come with the blessings. My husband and I are going to Italy in Nov, and we will definitely enjoy the sights, food and even shopping! But we will also be discussing what “being a good steward” means to us.
We toured Greece and Turkey last September and Delphi was a great experience. I noticed that you didn’t mention that location. Hope you can go, it was one of our very best trips! Judy
Rick, I wouldn’t suppose you need any suggestions for travel destinations, but to add to the suggestion of Delfi, noted above, I would add the Metéoro Monasteries. There are huge columns of rock, with monasteries built on the top.
Google it, it is most amazing building site I have ever seen
I was on the first of the season RS tour of Greece last year, and was devastated to read about the fires. It’s clearly going to take years for the area to recover, and it was so poor to begin with. And I have beautiful photos of Olympia with the trees covered in spring blossoms…. Maybe a contribution to the Red Cross could help? In addition to Meteora, I spent some time in Northern Greece, and can highly recommend Ioanina, and Kastoria, which gets very few foreign tourists, and the surrounding countryside.
You should get a Fisher Space Pen — you can write upside down (and underwater, if you’re so inclined). It’ll also do just fine with changing pressures (think airplane cabins and high altitudes). It’s a great travel pen since it’s very compact and writes on just about any surface — I used it this summer to journal my trip to Greece as well as jot down phone numbers and addresses on whatever scrap I could find nearby.
Regarding the fires, please remember that moments of greatest confusion are moments of greatest opportunity. Study the 1988 Yellowstone fire. Our 1989 visit was especially pleasant because the crowds were smaller. Not as much was destroyed as at first feared. Vistas were revealed. The Greek locals undoubtedly need to see tour buses coming their way. Especially, tour buses containing small groups of people who respect the land and culture, who can carry their own bags and settle quite happily into quirky, Greek style FEMA trailers. Those visitors will be rewarded with views revealed possibly for the first time since the ancient ruins were built. Big fires occur on multi-century cycles. Review your ancient artworks for hints of poorly explained fires in the backgrounds. Arson in that area goes back several millenia. A few might have gotten seriously out of hand and been recorded by artists of the times.