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Destination: France

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Season 8 Bloopers: France and Italy

This week, we’re giving you a peek into some of the fun we had filming Season 8 of Rick Steves’ Europe. Hopefully watching all of my on-camera screw-ups will brighten your day just a little bit.

We’re starting off today with a series of clips from France and Italy. You’ll see how much fun it is to travel with Steve Smith, how we sometimes have to beat up our sidekicks a bit to get just the right soundbite (“in the Cinque Terre, when you know the weather…you don’t need no weatherman”), and how the enthusiasm can bubble over into giggles. You’ll see how — when there are too many gawkers (as in the shot from Versailles) — we sometimes just invite everyone in to help out on camera. And you’ll see how, when a drunk wants to sing as you’re trying to explain grappa, sometimes you just have to play along. By the way, I posted a photo of the crazy student searching for an American girlfriend here on my Facebook page…and it actually worked.

Watching all of these, I can’t help but smile. I’m so thankful for how Simon Griffith (our producer/director) and Karel Bauer and Peter Rummel (our cameramen) make it both gratifying and enjoyable to bring home the wonders of Europe. I can’t wait to join them again later this month to continue filming Season 9. Thank you for traveling — and laughing — along with us.

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Floodlit Paris Uber Tour Lets the Party Roll On

(Sorry, I’m a little tipsy again…but Europe is just too much fun!)

I’m all about providing travel tips, and this video clip shows you one of my all-time favorites: hire a taxi after dinner for your own private, tailor-made tour of a floodlit Paris. In our Paris guidebook we include a hit list of the great floodlit monuments and a rip-out map for your cabbie to follow. Now, in the age of Uber, the whole party just got a lot more fun and about 50 percent less expensive.

Jump in the Uber car with us for a peek at the good time we had. It was a great little gig for our driver — who really got into the fun (and kept the map as a souvenir). We hopped out at each stop to shoot goofy selfies and celebrate the magnificent floodlit monuments — so emblematic of the “City of Light.” A highlight was singing the Champs-Elysées song with our driver (even without most of the lyrics) as we approached the Paris Ferris Wheel, all lit up fancy. What a fine way to cap the day — and especially fun after a tasty dinner and another bottle of Haut-Médoc. (Thanks to Trish Feaster for editing this together.) The price for our Uber ride: €36 for a 75-minute party all over Paris — for 3 people that’s about $15 each. Uber doesn’t work in much of Europe, but where it does, it’s great. Stay thirsty my friends.

This is Day 41 of my 100 Days in Europe series. As I research my guidebooks and make new TV shows, I’m reporting on my experiences and lessons learned in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Bulgaria, Romania, and beyond. Find more at blog.ricksteves.com.

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A Fun Dining Discovery in Dinan

When researching our guidebooks for the best-value restaurants, the last thing I want to do is follow the crowd to a top listing on a crowd-sourcing website. My co-author Steve Smith and I get recommendations from locals we trust — locals who know what works for tourists in their towns, and from locals who simply share with us their favorite spots. Then we always visit the restaurants in person to be sure they fit our style of traveler. Here’s an example of a place my guide mentioned to me that turned out to be our favorite discovery here in Dinan, in Brittany. It’s a very popular place with locals and yet our readers would still feel welcome. Everyone was friendly. The woman at the bar was just back from New York City. A good list of wines was about $3 a glass and our meal (with wine) cost us about $12 each.

Here’s the write-up: Le Nez Rouge (The Red Nose) is Dinan’s down-and-dirty Celtic watering hole serving cheap wine, local draft beer, and tasty tartine dishes (big slices of rustic toast with a variety of toppings — like a local pizza) in a raucous but welcoming setting. It has great outdoor seating on a small square, but inside is where the action is. Work your way up to the counter, order a glass of €2.50 wine while you wait for a seat to open up, and meet a stranger (€7 tartines with salad, 4 Rue de l’Ecole, tel. 02 96 85 94 44).

This is Day 40 of my 100 Days in Europe series. As I research my guidebooks and make new TV shows, I’m reporting on my experiences and lessons learned in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Bulgaria, Romania, and beyond. Find more at blog.ricksteves.com.

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Mont St-Michel Is an Island Once More

It’s great to get back to Mont St-Michel to celebrate the long-awaited new bridge connecting it to the mainland. The previous causeway, built more than a century ago to let pilgrims reach the abbey regardless of the tide, altered the bay’s water circulation and caused the mud flats around the fabled island to silt up. Eventually, Mont St-Michel was no longer an island. Now, with the old causeway replaced by a gracefully arcing bridge, the water flows freely and Mont St-Michel is an island again — at least at high tide. After hiking all the way to the top of the island, here’s a monk’s-eye view.

This is Day 39 of my 100 Days in Europe series. As I research my guidebooks and make new TV shows, I’m reporting on my experiences and lessons learned in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Bulgaria, Romania, and beyond. Find more at blog.ricksteves.com.

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An Illuminating Visit to Mont St-Michel

I love the image of monks, 800 years ago, hunched over sacred manuscripts while painstakingly transcribing them. In other words, hand copying entire books using quills or whatever they had for pens. When we travel, such images are given physical context, as is the case here in the abbey atop Mont St-Michel. I’m with my guide, Jessica, in a room that was purpose-built for this job. Imagine, way back then, someone designed this room with big-as-possible windows facing north so that the monks would have gentle, even light for their tedious task. Come step into the light with me at Mont St-Michel in Normandy.

This is Day 38 of my 100 Days in Europe series. As I research my guidebooks and make new TV shows, I’m reporting on my experiences and lessons learned in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Bulgaria, Romania, and beyond. Find more at blog.ricksteves.com.