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Let Me Be Your Guide to the Best of Europe

I’m heading off to Europe and I’m wearing plaid. I explain why in this video clip — along with a quick overview of Europe’s best 3,000 miles and three weeks (as I review the itinerary of the Rick Steves Europe Tours Best of Europe tour I’ll be leading), and a peek at how I rip up my guidebooks (part of the critical art of packing light). And I explain why, when people tell me, “Have a safe trip,” I say, “Have a safe stay-at-home.”

 

This is the first post of a three-week series as I’ll be packing you and the rest of my traveling blog and Facebook friends along. I’ve been traveling like there’s no tomorrow for the last few decades — making guidebooks, designing our tours, and producing TV shows. And for the next three weeks, I’m going back to my travel-teaching roots — personally guiding the granddaddy of our many tours: The Best of Europe in 21 Days. Please let your traveling friends know that we’ve got a fun series of 21 posts in 21 days coming your way starting right now.

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Video: Watch How We Turn Clatter and Din into Sweet Audio for Our New TV Shows

I’m really looking forward to the debut next month of Season 9 of Rick Steves’ Europe on public television stations across the USA. (To find out when you can you watch our 10 new shows, ranging from Hamburg to Romania and Cornwall to Bulgaria, contact your local public television station.)

There’s a lot more to producing each half-hour episode than the six days we spend in Europe filming it — and that includes about four hours in a recording booth for each show. Here’s a candid look at the process: I read the script one paragraph at a time trying to get just the right inflection and tone for the images. Eric Johnson, our sound editor at Clatter&Din recording studio in Seattle, cuts my audio into the video of the show (replacing the “scratch track” audio). And then he and producer Simon Griffith make sure it is a snug and tidy fit with the images. I’m so impressed with the technical ability we have now (with Eric and the gear at Clatter&Din) to get the sound just right. It seems like just a few years ago we recorded the soundtracks for the shows with me standing in the closets of European hotel rooms.

I say this with the release of every new series (every two years) but it’s never been more true: This new series gives you more travel thrills than ever. Stay tuned!

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Clinton vs. Trump: Your Blind “Issues Taste Test”

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When I ask Trump supporters why they’d vote for him they generally say it’s because they don’t like Hillary. I ask why and they say the same three reasons: “She’s dishonest, Benghazi (4 people died), and her email server.” But they avoid talking about the issues. The news coverage largely ignores the issues, too. Yet it is issues — not “who you like” — that impact each of us and our country. This election has consequences and the differences between Trump and Clinton are stark. There is not a right or wrong here, just personal politics. BTW, complaining about the candidates at this point is non-productive. One of them will be your president: Trump or Clinton. It’s most logical to ignore the personality stuff and the silliness on the news, and compare their stances on the issues to yours. Take this blind “issues taste test” and then make your choice:

30 Issues Candidate #1 Candidate #2
Climate change a hoax really important
National healthcare no (privatize it) yes (build on it)
Abortion pro life pro choice
Social Security more privatized status quo, public
Education privatize support public
Community colleges not free should be free
Environment fewer safeguards more safeguards
Energy friendlier to oil friendlier to renewables
International relations build walls build bridges
Immigration harder softer
United Nations bad good
Iran nuke deal no yes
Free trade more protectionist less protectionist
Corporations fewer restrictions more restrictions
Banks fewer restrictions more restrictions
Wall Street pro pro
Taxing the wealthy less more
Taxing corporations less more
Inheritance tax end it keep it
Labor unions should be weaker should be stronger
Minimum wage no raise raise it
Marijuana status quo reclassify from Schedule I to II
Supreme Court picks conservative liberal
Citizens United for against
Voter rights don’t expand expand
For-profit prisons allow end
Ban the Box (so ex-felons can get jobs) no yes
Experience in politics little lots
Experience in business lots little
Left or Right conservative liberal

 

I’m humble enough to care about endorsements. I believe organizations know more about the issues important to them than I do. And people who endorse a candidate shed light on the character of that candidate. Here’s what I learned by Googling endorsements for each candidate:

Major organizations favoring or endorsing Trump: NRA (gun rights)
Major organizations favoring or endorsing Clinton: National Organization for Women (NOW), Sierra Club (environment), AFL-CIO and many other labor unions, most gay rights groups

People endorsing Trump: Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Dan Quayle, Pat Buchanan, two heads of state (Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Hungary’s Viktor Orban), Ann Coulter, Rupert Murdoch, Rush Limbaugh, Jerry Falwell Jr., Tim Allen, Kirstie Alley, Clint Eastwood, Larry the Cable Guy, Chuck Norris, Dennis Rodman, two of Trump’s three wives, Wayne Newton, Ted Nugent, Kid Rock, Gene Simmons, The National Enquirer

People endorsing Clinton: Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Jimmy Carter, Jerry Brown, 13 heads of state, Snoop Dogg, Kanye West, 50 Cent, Paul McCartney, James Taylor, Oprah Winfrey, Howard Stern, Tom Hanks, Warren Buffett, the guy who ghost-wrote Trump’s “The Art of the Deal” book, Quentin Tarantino, Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, George Takei, Ellen DeGeneres, Hookers for Hillary, and Rick Steves.

If you think this issues-based comparison might be helpful to others, please share it. If I wasn’t fair in my characterizations, please let me know. Thanks, vote thoughtfully, and GHA (God help America).

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Five Places in Europe That Stoke My Spirit

az110519xz-1059.jpgBasilica of Saint Francis of Assisi

As a Christian, I enjoy being open to spiritual experiences while on the road, and there’s no more spiritual experience than traveling to the developing world. To be with the world’s struggling and downtrodden is to be with Christ. My expertise as a writer and guide, however, is traveling through Europe, which also offers plenty of opportunities to get close to God. Here’s my guide to five places in Europe that stoke my spirit.

High in the Alps

As I walk high on a ridge in Switzerland, the Alps strike me as the greatest cathedral in Europe. Ride the rack-railway train from Wilderswil (near Interlaken) up to Schynige Platte, then hike along a ridge to Faulhorn, with its famous mountaintop hotel, and on to the perch called First. As you tightrope along the ridge, lakes stretch all the way to Germany on your left, and on your right is a row of cut-glass peaks — the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau. The long, legato tones of an alphorn announce that the helicopter-stocked mountain hut is open, it’s just around the corner…and the coffee-schnapps is on. It’s enough to have even a staid Lutheran raising his hands in praise.

Spain’s Camino de Santiago Pilgrimage Trail

There’s a reason pilgrims have hiked from France to the distant northwest of Spain for more than a thousand years. Trekking with people of all spiritual stripes — or none at all — across the vast expanses of Spain, it’s easy to be one with nature and get caught up in a private talk with your maker. Everyone’s heading for the same point: the Cathedral of St. James in the city of Santiago de Compostela. And to be there as well-worn and sunburned pilgrims step on the scallop-shell pavement stone in front of the towering cathedral, overwhelmed with jubilation to have reached their personal goal and succeeded in their quest, is a joy in itself.

Assisi, Italy

I have a personal ritual of sitting quietly on the rampart of a ruined castle high above Assisi, the town of St. Francis. I look down at the basilica dedicated to the saint, then into the valley — where a church stands strong in the hazy Italian plain that marks the place where Francis and his “Jugglers of God” started the Franciscan order, bringing the word of God to people in terms all could embrace. Hearing the same birdsong that inspired Francis, and tasting the same simple bread, cheese, and wine of Umbria that sustained him, I calm my 21st-century soul and ponder the message of a saint who made the spirit of God so accessible.

St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican

Worshiping upon the tomb of St. Peter under the towering dome of Michelangelo in the vast expanse of the greatest church in Christendom — where incense gives earthly substance to ethereal sunrays — I ponder the centuries of devotion and tradition that have gone into building both this magnificent church and the Catholic faith. Throwing out my Lutheran cynicism, I appreciate it all as a humble and noble quest by countless people through the ages to better understand and get close to our heavenly Father.

Taizé, France

In the wine country of Burgundy, just down the road from Cluny (where the greatest monastic order of the Middle Ages was born), a rough lane leads to the ecumenical monastic community of Taizé. It welcomes all to gather with no regard to culture, language, or denomination. With a perfectly ecumenical embrace, people come together at Taizé to celebrate diversity, tune in to God’s great creation and the family of humankind, and become comfortable with silence, praise, meditation, singing, and simple living. Taizé gets you close to God.

What tips do you have for getting closer to God in your travels?

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Video: Thanks for Joining Me for 100 Days of Europe

With this post, I wrap up my second big 2016 trip — two two-month European adventures filled with learning, experiences, life-long memories, and lots of fun. I’ll be bringing you a few more weeks of posts from Europe starting in mid-September, as I get back in the tour-guiding saddle and lead the granddaddy of all our tours: our Best of Europe in 21 Days itinerary (Amsterdam-Germany-Italy-Swiss Alps-Paris). Don’t miss it! It’s been fun packing you along here on my blog and over on the Rick Steves Facebook page for these last 100 days. Thanks for being my partner as we “keep on travelin’.”