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August 12, 2015August 12, 2015

Pointless Grooveways

All over Europe, well-meaning grooved lanes, designed to help guide the canes of blind people, slice through sidewalks. But invariably, these paths are blocked by bollards, public art, giant potted plants, café tables, parked cars, dumpsters, and all manner of other barriers — making them pointless. And in all of my travels, I’ve never actually seen anyone using these grooved lanes.

Accessibility is an important dimension of a caring society. But breaking up a sidewalk for a grooved path no one will use seems to me a feel-good token measure with no honest interest in actually helping those who can’t see. I’ve observed this across Europe, but it bothers me the most in drab urban zones like Athens, Glasgow, Naples, and here in Cardiff — where a stretch of nice, clean, uninterrupted sidewalk would be a calming visual relief.

How is it that towns in painful need of visual charm cut up their sidewalks at great expense, lay down these grooveways, and then — realizing no one is using them anyway — ignore them? What drives this waste of public funds? Can someone give me the backstory on these? Have you ever seen anyone actually using these grooves? Or please set me straight if I just don’t understand how these are really helpful. Thoughts?

August 11, 2015December 28, 2017

Coastal England’s Climate Is Changing – And That’s Not All

In my travels, I keep seeing examples of how our aggressive, high-powered, corporate-driven society is just accepting the reality that the climate is changing. Flood gates (like this one in Portsmouth) are being built on streets that never needed them before, in anticipation of storm surges becoming more common and more damaging.

Last month, Germany — a land with very little air-conditioning because, until now, it hasn’t been needed — suffered through record-breaking heat. It’s been sticking around: They’ve had 30 days in a row of 90-to 100-degree weather. I’ve been told that river cruise travelers are angered that, with rivers so low in Germany, they are abandoning parked boats and bussing three hours to promised sights. Gardens in Italy are being ripped up by freak hailstorms. In my personal world, the Iditarod dog race in Alaska that my sister participates in has become an annual rocky slog — even with a course that has been relocated to find some snow. And my family’s cabin retreat in Washington’s Cascade Mountains is threatened by persistent forest fires.

When it comes to global climate change, we travelers — who burn fossil fuels with every intercontinental flight and bus tour — are contributing to the problem. I am determined to grapple with the consequences of climate change by finding a way to make those who travel with Rick Steves’ Europe Tours in 2016 carbon-neutral…or better.

Assuming you care about climate change, how can a jet-setting traveler explore the world in a carbon-neutral way? I’d love some advice.

August 10, 2015January 5, 2018

Old Friends Help Make Bath Special for My Readers

I’m in the glorious Georgian town of Bath, in England. While this town offers some fine sightseeing by day, it also boasts some fun evening entertainment — and an easy opportunity to get out of the city to explore the countryside.

In England, street theater is a fun option after your pub dinner. There are cheesy ghost tours in many towns. But the best hour and a half of laughs I’ve enjoyed anywhere in Britain is in the otherwise sedate town of Bath: the Bizarre Bath Comedy Walk by Noel Britten and his partners. A ritual for me with each visit is to join Noel for what he promises includes “absolutely no history or culture” as we wander the back lanes of Bath. Listening to Noel tell the same old jokes, but spiced up with his sharp ad-lib wit playing off the international crowd gathered, makes this £9 and 90 minutes very well spent.

I met Maddy Thomas 20 years ago when she was just starting her Mad Max minibus tours. Her vision was the perfect example of “find a need and fill it”: She offered train travelers a memory- and experience-packed day of touring outside Bath — hitting the highlights that are tough to reach without a car, like stone circles and charming Cotswold villages. As Maddy helped me suss out restaurants in Bath last night, we stumbled upon Noel Britten heading out to meet his Bizarre Bath group for his night’s work. Noel’s Bizarre Bath Street Theatre Walk and Maddy’s Mad Max Tours have, for nearly two decades, helped make my guidebook readers really thankful for my England guidebook. And I’m thankful for the hard work of Maddy and Noel.

August 9, 2015August 10, 2015

The Castles and Manors of South England and South Wales

The English countryside is studded with all manner of manor homes, castles, and palaces. Here are a few particularly memorable ones from my current swing through South England and South Wales.

In Victorian times, massive faux-castles were being built all over Britain by ridiculously rich nobles and aristocrats. Visiting Arundel Castle (just outside of Brighton, on England’s south coast), it occurred to me that many of our favorite castles are built on historic locations, but are mostly the 19th-century palaces of England’s “one percent.” And today, given the crippling taxes on both income and inheritances, many of these over-the-top properties can be maintained only by becoming part of the National Trust and charging a hefty entrance fee (around $25) for people to wander through their lavish private apartments.

This is Cardiff Castle’s original motte-and-bailey (keep on a mound). Arundel has the same kind of historic core. In both cases, the 11th-century original fort is almost like a garden ornament for a much bigger and more fanciful 19th-century Neo-Gothic palace.

One of my favorite noble manor houses to visit is Stanway House, in the Cotswolds. Like so many other rural mansions, it’s open to the public to help pay the bills. I’ve become friends with the lord here. For a decade I knew him as Lord Neidpath. Then he inherited a different title, and now he’s the Earl of Wemyss. (I never know exactly what to call him.) He’s fascinating to chat with; he always has creative projects in the works and cares deeply (in a nobleman’s way) for England.

About 15 years ago, I filmed the Earl of Wemyss on a shoot in the Cotswolds, and he ended up having a pretty big part in one of our shows. He had never seen the show. But now, each and every one of my more than 100 TV shows is available to view, free and in its entirety, on my website. You can watch them any time, any place…even in a decaying old manor house deep in England’s Cotswolds. So I had the joy of showing the Earl of Wemyss his charming performance, that you can watch here.

If an English girl’s soldier was coming home from World War I and she wanted to get her hair curled, she’d head on down to “Curl Up & Dye” — the Brits love to name their shops with goofy puns — and climb into this contraption (which I saw in a museum in Chepstow, in the Cotswolds).

August 8, 2015January 5, 2018

Forty Years Ago, I Became a Travel Writer Here, in Southwest England

Stumbling upon evocative and offbeat corners of Europe as a teenaged vagabond, I realized my niche in life: discovering, and then sharing, the best of Europe. And now, 40 years later, it’s fun to go back and revisit to some of these early oh-wow travel moments. It’s thought-provoking to consider how places — and I — both change and stay the same. Here, on a blustery rock just off the coast of Cornwall, is Tintagel Castle, the legendary birthplace of King Arthur. I’ve changed a lot more than the door and the view…but I still get the same charge out of the breathtaking setting.