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Chin Up — The Economic Crisis Could Be Much Worse

I’m one week into my spring trip and things are going great. Things seem a bit slow in restaurants, and I saw a poster that claimed the Portuguese are eating 10 percent more chicken and 10 percent less beef. But both Lisbon and Madrid seem to have spent all the money they borrowed well, as the cities seem more people-friendly and enjoyable than ever. My Lisbon guide, who recently returned from a trip to the States, mentioned how striking it was to see “so many old Americans still working” — and agreed that Europeans have it pretty good, even though they now have to work a little longer before retirement.

As usual, April in Iberia is chilly and a bit wet. While I was in line to rent a bike, the women in front of me decided not to rent one because it was starting to rain. Knowing April is known here as the “month of a thousand rains,” I rented the bike anyway, and within minutes the rain had stopped and the sun struggled to peek out. All day long the weather flip-flops.

Marveling at how exhilarating I found the little quirky cultural differences in Lisbon, my Portuguese guide recalled the highlights of her visit to America (when she came to our guides’ summit last winter): seeing skyscrapers, riding in a yellow school bus we’d hired for a city tour (she knew our school buses from so many American TV shows), and buying an actual baseball glove.

Brazilians are not the favorite clients of Portuguese guides. The Portuguese get lots of tourists from Brazil and have plenty of connections with their former colony. They are gearing up for lots of Brazil, as that country will host the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. Most of the Brazilians with enough money to vacation in Portugal are the higher-class elites, and they live with lots of servants. Because Brazil is a “culture of servitude,” guides here find that Brazilians treat them like “the help.”

Upon arrival in Madrid, when I pulled out my old mobile phone to buy a Spanish SIM card, the lady in the shop commented on its age by saying, “That’s from before the war” (that is, it’s old as the hills  — it’s a reference used by older Spaniards who recall their Civil War).

To stay up on the news while in Europe I no longer need the International Herald Tribune — long the traveler’s best newspaper. Instead I enjoy a few minutes every day in the hotel with my iPhone functioning as an iPad (in airplane mode with the Wi-Fi on to avoid any costs) and listen to headlines and my choice of Morning Edition and All Things Considered stories with my wonderful NPR app — just as I do at home.

I find that more and more I’m enjoying YouTube video clips while on the road to bring my sightseeing to life. In Madrid the main square, Puerta del Sol, is jammed on New Year’s Eve. In Lisbon’s salty Alfama district, there’s an insane bike race from the castle down through the steep Alfama streets to the riverfront. In Switzerland I reviewed other people’s videos of the Via Ferrata near Mürren, after my near heart attack experience inching across that same cliff. And in Pamplona I enjoyed seeing lots of bulls run.

But the only place to see photos of the poor matador who took the bullfighting equivalent of a left hook to the chin is the bullfighting bar on Madrid’s Plaza Mayor. (He survived…but I bet his mother made him promise to stay out of the ring after that.)

 

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Economic Crisis in Portugal: In Cod We Trust

 

Back in Lisbon, the first thing I eat (with my wonderful guide, Cristina Duarte): barnacles. I love barnacles.

On my last visit to Lisbon, people were scampering to finish projects funded by the European Union. There was scaffolding everywhere as the buzz was, “This is the end of the easy money — use it or lose it, quickly!”

I should have known then, but there’s no free lunch — even in the European Union. Today, Portugal has come to its day of reckoning. The money has dried up, and the interest due on the debt is crushing the local workforce. Portugal’s 11 million people produce about $240 billion annually — nearly the same as Louisiana. But Portugal has about 14 percent unemployment. It once exported dried cod; now its top export is people.

Major projects in Portugal are not just stalled. They are stopped. The TGV-style bullet train from Madrid to Lisbon, Lisbon’s new airport, planned freeway expansion…all nice ideas…all stopped.

Last night, as we walked the newly pedestrianized streets of the Barrio Alto district, things were relatively quiet, even though 50,000 locals were packing the Lisbon stadium for the big, crosstown-rivals soccer match. During our stroll, my friend told me, “In pre-euro days, with the escudo as our currency rather than that deutsche mark in disguise, when there was no money for chocolate milk, we just made due with white milk. Until 1974, when we won our freedom from Salazar (Portugal’s Fascist dictator was overthrown in the “Revolution of the Carnations”), we were on the donkey system. Then we got the fever. With the EU, dazzled by German standards, we were encouraged to have faith in debt. Portugal was made drunk economically by those cheap European loans.”

Today Brussels sends the Portuguese not money but the “Troika,” a trio of managers from the EU, IMF, and European Central Bank who enforce austerity measures to get things on a sustainable track. That means higher tolls on more highways, a new 23 percent tax put on all restaurants, higher deductibles for hospital visits, and cutbacks in health care. Utilities such as electricity are being privatized. Retirement was just raised from 65 to 67 years. And the Troika made the government rescind a worker-friendly scheme of the revolution which took a year’s wages and broke it into 14 “months” rather than 12 to give workers a “bonus” each summer and Christmas. Now workers making over €650 (about $800 a month) get only 12 months’ pay. As this was never really a bonus but just a forced savings account, this amounts to about an 18 percent cut in pay.

Local politicians are fighting despair. To the Troika, the Portuguese, compared to the Greeks, are considered very quiet workers with a nice reputation and good behavior; they’re willing to take their medicine responsibly.

As for the traveler, despite the economic downturn, it’s wonderful to be prowling the streets of Lisbon after dark. Trendy and stylish little bars and restaurants are working hard for their customers. On my first evening in Europe, I’m already back in my research groove.

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RailAid

Each year we get a bunch of bonus Eurail passes as a reward for selling so many. And each year we give these free to travelers who donate a specific amount to Bread for the World. In doing so, we raise about $30,000 annually (that’s more than a quarter of a million dollars over the years) to empower its important work. I’m happy to say that we’re finished with this year’s fund-raiser — we met our goal and handed out all the bonus passes.

Apparently we are “in crisis” as a nation to such a degree that we cannot afford to provide a safety net for the desperate among us. Bread for the World advocates very effectively in Washington DC for the needs of the hungry and homeless in our country. That’s important since, in the last decade, the US seems to be on an exciting-to-some roll — streaking up the list of nations with the biggest gap between rich and poor.

While almost nothing is sacred as our government looks for ways to trim its budget, BFTW and other charities are drawing what they call “a circle of protection” around our nation’s most vulnerable. And they are doing a heroic job of it.

I’m writing this in the Frankfurt airport, excited to be embarking upon my spring research trip. I’ll be in Lisbon in a couple hours eating barnacles, searching out the best Brazilian restaurant, and peeking in on Fado shows. I’m going to stay out late on my first night in Europe — refusing to wear to the fuzzy shroud Lady Jet Lag tries to lay on me.

For the next six weeks I’ll be in Lisbon, Madrid, Toledo, Barcelona, Cinque Terre, Verona, Padua, and Venice. The last two weeks will be with our TV crew making a couple new shows on Venice and the lagoon. Stay tuned!

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To Celebrate Our Pocket Guides, I’m Sharing Some Tips on Rome, Paris, and London

My publisher tells us that our new Pocket Guides to London, Paris, and Rome are doing great–not cannibalizing sales of our full-size guidebooks to those cities but getting in on the thriving market for smaller, more colorful, and more portable “best of” and “top ten” guidebooks. To celebrate their success, here’s a fun Q&A for people anticipating trips to my three favorite big cities in Europe:

Best photo op in each city?
Rome: The old ladies on their folding chairs as they hang out in the Jewish Quarter; rays of sunlight cutting through St. Peter’s Basilica; the scene on Via del Corso in the early evening when it’s closed to traffic, and the community is out for the passeggiata.
Paris: The city from top of Montparnasse Tower (you don’t have to look at the Montparnasse Tower); the neighborhood action on a street like rue Montorgueil; the honey-colored tones of freshly baked bread and pastries at just about any corner bakery.
London: Different angles on the Millennium Bridge; the pageantry during the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace; Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament from the top of the London Eye.

Best free yet enriching experience in each town?
Rome: Going to a late Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica (most days at 5 p.m.); being all alone in the Pantheon very early or very late; exploring the back streets of Trastevere.
Paris: Being in the organ loft at St. Sulpice Church as Daniel Roth plays a short concert between Masses on Sunday; sitting on the steps of Sacré-Cœur in Montmartre as darkness settles on the City of Light.
London: Enjoying the many wonderful and free galleries and museums–especially the British Museum and the British Library; taking in Speakers’ Corner at Hyde Park on Sunday; viewing the legal action in the Old Bailey courtrooms.

Favorite single museum and why in each town?
Rome: The Borghese Gallery–It must be the most sumptuous palace in Italy even without its many Bernini masterpieces, including my favorite statue anywhere, Apollo and Daphne.
Paris: The Louvre–It shows off the greatest collection of art in Europe in what was its biggest palace.
London: The British Museum–It’s the chronicle of our Western civilization.

What guilty pleasure do you indulge in each city?
Rome: Staying in the decadent Hotel Nazionale and dining at my favorite restaurant, Il Gabriello.
Paris: Pigging out on macarons at Ladurée on the Champs-Elysees.
London: Riding in the big black taxis just to talk with the cabbies; wandering through the parks, browsing from obscure monument to obscure monument, while people watching.

Biggest mistake time-strapped travelers make in each city, and how to avoid it?
Rome: Going to sights like St. Peter’s and the Colosseum when there is a long line. Rather than waiting an hour to get in, you can be all alone at the greatest church in Christendom if you simply go early or late. And the line for the Colosseum is actually a line to buy a ticket, which is a combo-ticket that includes the neighboring Palatine Hill. Simply pick up your ticket at the Palatine Hill entrance a short walk away, and stroll right past the long line waiting for tickets at the Colosseum.
Paris: Waiting in long lines for the Louvre, Orsay Museum, Sainte-Chapelle, and Versailles. All can be avoided simply by purchasing the Paris Museum Pass (sold at any city museum).
London: Going to a play when you’re suffering from jet lag–that’s one expensive nap. That’s why, if I’m touring England, I go from the airport directly to Bath (a relaxing, smaller town) to get over jet lag. I finish my tour in London when I’m fully adjusted to local time. And that way, nothing will be anticlimactic since I end up in exciting London. It’s the best finale for a trip around Britain.

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Samantha Brown and Rick Steves: Wishing You Happy Travels

One of the joys of my work is to go to travel shows and meet other travel writers and travel TV hosts. I go to travel shows in New York, Los Angeles, the Bay Area, and other cities where the sponsors try to book whatever well-known travel celebrities they can. These days, there aren’t many who can bring out a crowd. But Samantha Brown sure can. While she’s taking a break from her work at the Travel Channel, there’s a rumor that she’ll be back on in the future…so stay tuned. She is every bit as delightful in person as she is on TV.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.