I’ve long wondered if royalty makes any sense in the 21st century and how modern Spaniards could embrace a king in 2016. Here, with my Madrid guide, Cristina, I share a few lessons she taught me.
This is Day 6 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.
Every young child knows that it’s nice to share. But grown-up travelers find it fun, cost-effective, and educational, too.
One of my favorite travel splurges is hiring a local guide to show me their hometown. I find that a private guide helps me make the most of my time while enhancing my appreciation of a place. I recommend the best of these guides in my books. But I realize that not everybody can afford to hire their own guide for the day.
That’s why, a few years ago, I had the brainstorm to work with great guides to assemble “shared tours” for groups of my readers — letting good travelers split the cost of a great tour, and giving a great guide more work.
The first place I tried this was in Sevilla, Spain, where Concepción Delgao and I worked together to come up with the perfect two-hour walking tour. For the last several years, Rick Steves readers have been happy to show up each morning at 10:30 (except Sundays…Concepción’s day off) and chip €15 apiece into the communal hat in exchange for a top-notch tour. Thousands of my readers have taken advantage of this…and Concepción couldn’t be happier.
Later, I teamed up with Annie Adair — an American expat married to an Italian — in the Tuscan hill town of Volterra. We created a similar tour that lets Annie and her colleague Claudia show off the best one-hour walk of Volterra for just €10 a head (meets Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings at 6:00 p.m., and Wednesday mornings at 12:30).When I was in Volterra last summer, I just had to check out how the tour was working. I met up with Claudia, as we explain in our book. It was a slow night, so we waited to see if the required-minimum three Rick Steves travelers would show up. Sure enough, at the stroke of 6, a family arrived for the tour…and we all enjoyed a great guided walk together.
Vincenzo, an ambitious entrepreneur based in Naples, runs Mondo Guide. I have long regretted that Naples, Pompeii, and the Amalfi Coast — three of Southern Italy’s best experiences — were so challenging to see on your own, but so expensive to do with a private guide. Vincenzo and I hatched a plan to offer shared tours, tailored for my readers, for these three itineraries. Vincenzo designed a website to make signing up easy, and for the last two years, thousands of my readers have had a better (and more cost-effective) experience in this part of Italy. New for 2016, Mondo has added two more shared tours for my readers: A private boat trip from Sorrento to the Isle of Capri (a romantic and efficient alternative to the crowded public ferries); and thoughtfully designed shore excursions for cruise passengers arriving in Naples and Salerno.
In each of these cases, shared tours are a win-win-win. My readers are happy because they get to split the cost of a talented local guide’s personal attention. The guides are happy because they get more business (and, they tell me, they find my readers great to work with). And I’m happy because everyone else is happy.
Helping travelers maximize their experience in Europe, while minimizing the cost, is our mission. Shared tours like these are just one of many ways we enjoy our work at Rick Steves’ Europe. Happy travels!
I love sunsets. They can be a vivid and romantic capper for a beautiful day on the road. Here are a few dramatic and memorable sunsets that come to mind:
1. On the Greek isle of Santorini, nursing a drink with a single flower in a vase on my table, as I sit on the lip of the crater high above the glittering Aegean Sea.
2. On the Nile, just across from Luxor, as the sun sets, the temperature drops, and villages come alive. As I’m poled along the shore in a classic felucca boat, children frolic, long-legged birds strike a pose, and I glide like a silent voyeur through the reeds.
3. On Denmark’s Aerø Island, warming myself by a beach fire while children splash in the shallow waters of the bay, and parents sit peacefully on the porches of tiny beach cabins.
The sun sets on Denmark’s Aerø Island. (Photo: Dominic Arizona Bonuccelli)
4. In Granada, Spain, joining the “Gypsies and hippies” at the St. Nicholas viewpoint as the setting sun makes the Alhambra glow red, evoking the tumult of its violent history.
5. On a ferry charging across the Greek sea, with dolphins — who seem to come out for the sunset — playfully loping ahead of the ship’s bow.
6. In England’s Cumbrian Lake District, sitting pensively on a stone at the Castlerigg Stone Circle just outside of Keswick, savoring a moment which inspires anyone to poetry…especially as sheep stir up the fragrance of the wild grass and the scent comes with a whiff of mystical druids, who once used these stones for their worship, dancing in the long shadows.
7. In Paris, sitting on the steps of the Sacré-Cœur atop Montmartre, surrounded by backpackers, buskers, and local lovers as Paris spreads out before me and slowly the sky grows dark and the City of Light is turned on.
8. On a Norwegian fjord, taking my dessert of ice cream and fresh berries out of my hotel’s dining room and sitting along at the end of the pier. The water is glassy and frightfully deep, black rock cliffs rocket into the sky above me, and the sun dips too early behind the peaks.
9. In Assisi, on the rampart of a ruined castle, with olive groves at my feet leading to a vast and lush Umbrian vista; imagining the age when each town was its own little state, and enjoying the same birdsong that inspired St. Francis.
10. And my favorite sunset: from my deck back home, on the Puget Sound just north of Seattle, as a golden path of sparkles leads across the bay to snowcapped Olympics. The sun settles behind the latest in a series of chosen peaks, and the ferries ply silently across as the water begins to glow like floating lanterns.
What is your favorite sunset far from home?
From time to time we share a random video clip to fuel your travel dreams. Join us today in Burgos, which is positioned along Spain’s Camino de Santiago. An awe-inspiring Gothic cathedral dominates the city.
(Watch my complete episode about Northern Spain and the Camino de Santiago online for free.)
My visit to Barcelona coincided with a particularly crowded and lively time: Holy Week and Easter. I enjoyed getting a Catalan take on this holiday.
Barcelona is one of the darlings of European tourism lately. It’s the biggest cruise port in Europe and one of the biggest in the world (as a starting or ending point for a huge portion of all Mediterranean cruises). It’s trendy for its Gaudí “Modernisme”— Catalunya’s answer to Art Nouveau. Catalunya is feeling its nationalist spirit. It’s well served by discount airlines. And vacationers — both Spanish and foreign — fill its streets, especially during its many festivals. I happened to be here over Easter weekend, and the boulevards were often human traffic jams.
Easter is a huge deal in Spain, especially in the south. Semana Santa (Holy Week) is one of the busiest and most festive times in Andalucía. But here in Catalunya, I found that Easter isn’t quite such a big deal. Catalans seem less religious, and the main duty of godfathers is to buy their godchildren overpriced decorative chocolate creations that fill shop windows. There was a Semana Santa-style parade, with teams of people trudging slowing down the street in tight formation, hidden under the huge religious floats they carried. But locals told me Catalans would never do this; these celebrants were from Andalucía, and travel each year to Barcelona to share their Easter traditions. While the churches may not have been overwhelmed with crowds, the Easter parade certainly jammed the streets.