I’m sunburned — just home from an exciting football weekend in Indiana at Notre Dame, where our son (Andy, a junior there) proudly marched for his first game as part of the elite corps of scowling and intimidatingly tall “Irish Guard.” It was “praise the Lord and pass the football” for this Midwest ritual. (I find less culture shock between Europe and Seattle than between Seattle and South Bend.) With the disappointing score, the homily Sunday morning at Mass was appropriately on humility. Back in the office, the pressing order of business: Choose the theme for this season’s public television pledge special. (For simplicity, I like to say “PBS,” but that’s not really accurate. PBS is the biggest distributor of programming for public television, but my show is distributed by American Public Television — APT. So, I say public television.) In past years, I used to spend as much as 30 days visiting 30 different stations during the December and March pledge-drive seasons. Now I’m down to about 12 days in 12 cities, and rely on producing what’s called a “virtual pledge event” once or twice a year to help in the necessary fundraising. This is done in Portland at my “presenting station” (OPB). We do it live there, but we don’t ever say Portland or Oregon Public Broadcasting (to OPB’s disadvantage yet to the advantage of a hundred other stations who will run the show). I talk in general terms about “your public television station” and each station then puts its call letters and phone number on the screen. I love the efficiency of these “virtuals” — they free up time for me to make more TV shows in Europe while virtually “hosting” pledge events all over the country. Last year, I had my biggest single pledge break at WTTW in Chicago after running our “the making of” special that showed our film crew actually making the episode in Milano. I flew home realizing that this struck a chord with PTV viewers and potential supporters — seeing how small producers like us are scrambling to bring this programming to public television. For our next “virtual,” we plan to show this, then the actual Milan show, and round it out with a sneak preview of our new Burgundy show (shot two months ago, which I think is the best of our new series in the works). We’ve never shown an episode before the series as a whole debuted. But I’m excited to make this exception. The problem: What to call a special with no geographic focus. I brainstormed with my boss at OPB and we came up with a winner: “Rick Steves Insiders’ Europe.” While I’m thinking of TV, I need to start setting up the last six shows for our new series. We have seven shows shot and mostly produced in 2007. Six more shows will give us the standard 13 for our promised release date in October 2008. I suspect I’ll be really hot on Greece and Turkey after my next month’s trip there, so we’ll likely have shows on Athens with Delphi, the Peloponnese and Istanbul. That’ll be shot in the spring (fine weather, early enough to keep our editor busy back home) then we’ll need three more to shoot in summer — I’m thinking Copenhagen, Stockholm and Talinn/Estonia. But there is a world of options. Stay tuned. (And go Irish!)
Greek Flames and St. Peter
Thank goodness the flames are subsiding in Greece. The first thing I did after returning to my office last week was to sit down with my staff and crisis-manage this, since we have on-going tours there.
We have two tours going next week and our route takes us right through the hottest zones in the Peloponnese. We had visions of our bus heading south through burned-out hillsides with traumatized locals heading north. Lousy vacation.
The easy response would be to cancel the next two departures. But we have Greek friends who need the business, guides who need the work and (after an email survey) 49 out of 50 tour members who still want to go if possible. If we could do a good tour safely, we wanted to try.
The decision: Make a secondary itinerary, swapping out fire-zone days (like in the Mani Peninsula and around Olympia) with fire-free areas in the north (Metéora), get provisional hotel bookings and decide later when we know how things are going.
Anne and I are taking this same tour for our annual vacation in two weeks, so we have a personal interest in what’s going on.
I don’t think the news reports can convey the horror of this tragedy. What a sad and frightening thing for the people of Greece to go through. We’re all thankful that things seem to be getting under control.
From Greece, I fly to Rome to do a video about Peter for my church. When the Lutheran Church (ELCA) asks me to host a video and they are excited enough about the project to send copies of the video we’ll produce to all 12,000 ELCA churches in the USA, I say sure. I’m working with Tim Frakes (the one-man film production department for the ELCA) on the script now.
Someone asked about the availability of these videos. We have a single DVD that includes all five ELCA videos I’ve done so far (two hours of programming). It’s called “Faithful Travel with Rick Steves.” (We sell it for $19.95 and donate 100 percent of the proceeds to Lutheran World Relief. Or, the Luther program is available free at Youtube–search rick steves luther.)
Two of my favorite productions ever are one filmed in Papua New Guinea (where I got to share my ideas on “reading the Bible through Third World eyes” and the harsh realities of the gap between the rich and poor world) and another in Germany — the Story of Martin Luther.
The Luther show was probably the toughest script challenge I’ve ever tackled and the most gratifying…giving our church an update over the melodramatic old black and white 1960s-era Sunday school videos that I grew up with, of Luther pounding his thesis onto the door of that church in Wittenberg.
Editing a hard copy of this St. Peter script with a pen, rather than my standard pencil, I realized why I love my pencil. I must do the majority of my hard-copy editing and note-taking on a sofa or on the bed. Pens don’t work upside down.
Blog Addiction…Somebody Stop Me
Two years ago my son did a blog for his first European adventure without parents. It was nostalgic for me because he was 18 and heading out with his best buddy the day after high school graduation, exactly as I did back in the “Europe on Five Dollars a Day” era.
I bribed him (with a Eurailpass) to write a blog for our website, not realizing I would become the avid blog reader — traveling with him…checking in every couple of days…anxious — even upset — if he didn’t have a new entry. I was reliving the best trip of my life (1973) while stowing away with my son via his blog.
Inspired by the fun I had following Andy, last year I blogged my own trip. I couldn’t believe how writing it complicated an already filled-to-the-brim schedule — and I enjoyed the added responsibility immensely. It’s just fun to share. It’s a joy for me to have an excuse to write more casually than for a guidebook, TV script or newspaper column. And it’s fun to see the gang of travelers responding to my quirky insights.
This year I pledged to do a “100 days blog.” It actually stretched to five months — April through August. Last years entries totaled 16,000 words. This year’s totaled 45,000 words. All of you blog readers were my late night conversation partners…and I was chatty. (I’m distilling those 45,000 words into a 64-page printed booklet — Dancing with Europa II— which we’ll give out free at my talks and so on as we did with last year’s blog. Talk about old school…going from blog to print!)
I’ve been trying to shut the book on this year’s blog…but it’s hard to do. I’ll be in Greece (a two-week tour with my wife), Rome (filming a video on the life of St. Peter for my church), and in Istanbul (breaking in our new Istanbul guide) next month and I know I’ll want to report via a blog.
Lots of you are asking for a continuation. My staff thinks it would be good business. And I enjoy it. My concern is that I won’t have the time (I didn’t in Europe either) or interesting experiences (Edmonds vs. Istanbul…). But each day, my desk is a ping pong table of little opportunities and challenges. Perhaps they’ll be interesting to share.
I appreciate travelers enjoying our TV, radio and guidebooks, and I enjoy taking them, as friends, candidly behind the scenes a bit. So, I will continue my blog. While my goal is an entry every two days while on the road, I’ll shoot for two entries a week while at home.
Thanks for staying with me. Keep your comments coming. I enjoy reading them as much as I hope you enjoy reading mine. Happy travels, Rick
Killing Copenhagen Babies
My trip itinerary was so intense and fast-paced that I never had a chance to completely finish up many of the guidebook chapters I researched. I’ve spent the last two days doing exactly that.
I just finished editing my chapter on Copenhagen. It’s important for good writers to diligently “kill your babies.” That means don’t force your favorite little factoids into a chapter or article if they don’t fit. No matter how much you like them, throw them out rather than mucking up a well-designed bit of writing.
I had to kill a little stack of Copenhagen babies. Then the happy thought hit me: I can blog them back to life by sharing them with you. Here are a few Copenhagen factoids that will not be in the new edition of my Scandinavia book:
The Danish weather blows through. Don’t be fooled by sun in morning. Leave your hotel prepared to layer it.
Copenhagen ruled Scandinavia essentially from 1397-1523. During that time, it put the three Nordic crowns on its seals. Even today, it still clings to the three crowns notion as you’ll see the three crown emblem all over town. During its golden age, Copenhagen bottled up Baltic Sea trade.
Copenhagen suffered lots of 18th century fires. That’s why the city center is distinctly 18th century: no timber, only bricks, lots of neoclassical blocks, wider streets and corners snipped off so fire trucks could zip around in a hurry when necessary. Modern buildings keep the snipped-corners motif to this day.
Prostitution is legal, so most prostitutes are now off the streets and work as call girls. The only prostitutes remaining on the streets are drug addicts and immigrants, mostly Slavic.
Denmark is a beer-drinking nation. As late as 1921, state schools started the student’s day with a nutritious glass of beer. Until recently, Swedes came to Denmark to get drunk. But with Swedish membership in the EU, their beer is now cheaper. These days, it’s the Norwegians coming to get drunk on relatively cheap Danish beer.
There, I feel like my babies dodged a bullet.
A Few Answers to Your Questions
This summer I’ve enjoyed posting my submissions and then staying out of the conversation, letting all of you toss your ideas around. As a silent observer, I’ve learned lots and enjoyed the discussion. Here are a few questions asked via the blog that I think deserved a thoughtful response.
Question:You have talked about preparing for a trip, but how do you decompress from one? How do you make the adjustment back to your “other routine” in the States?
Answer:My big concern is not getting swept up in the home-front priorities before I can follow through on all my writing and get all my notes cleanly shuffled into the grey matter of Europe Through the Back Door. (With the glut of data plaguing our society lately, I am really into “design” of travel information these days.) My wife runs the show when I’m gone, and it’s an adjustment for her and me to be a partnership again, rather than two autocrats under one roof. I settle reluctantly from an active life to a more sedentary one — promising to keep in shape as I am in Europe…but never following through. My body agrees to stay healthy for the intense 60 consecutive days of work on the condition that I take it easy for awhile once home. If I cheat, I get sick.
Question:Regarding the girl in Bosnia who wanted you to pay her to take a photo: Did you give the scarved young lady the euro she requested? What is your policy on paying the locals for the privilege of taking their photos?
Answer:She was dressed up and positioned for the purpose of tourists taking her photo. I took her photo because she looked great — and happily paid her the euro. If I’m just grabbing a candid shot of a local, I never pay.
Question:Does it ever get old traveling?
Answer:For me, travel is accelerated living. I live and learn triple each day on the road what I’d experience at home. If I wasn’t assured of going home, I might think differently, but for me, travel is as fresh as ever. I still fly home pondering my next trip.
Question:You have wonderful descriptions of towns and cities in your books and blogs, with a mix of modern and historical significance, but I wondered if you could comment more on the area’s natural histories, its parks and preserves? Is there any wilderness left in Europe?
Answer:I report on what I am personally enthusiastic about: history, contemporary issues, efficient travel, art, culture, cities. For an enthusiastic rundown on flora, fauna, geology, folk tales and myths, adventure sports, and shopping — topics that, while perfectly legit, just aren’t that interesting to me — you’ll do better with another travel writer. I have a particularly bad attitude about geology. I know it’s silly to think this, but to me geology is “anti-history” or maybe “history without people.” As a tour guide, I recognized my shortcoming here and once offered a geologist on my bus the microphone for five minutes a day as we drove to discuss the geology of the regions we were traveling through. I tried to enjoy his rocks and ridges moments — but it was absolutely dreadful…one of the biggest mistakes of my tour guiding career.
Question:As a Swiss fan of yours, I struck by how negative your blog became while in Switzerland. I am not particularly patriotic, and I know that you are a very critical traveler, but I get the impression that (except for your favorite alpine village of Gimmelwald) you do not particularly like Switzerland. Why? Is it too sterile? Not friendly? Too expensive? Is it because of the banking industry? And please note that my family has been eating cheese fondue in summer for generations.
Answer:Sometimes I fear I’ll stutter with superlatives about the wonders of Europe. I try to hold back on the giddiness sometimes. Maybe for me, Switzerland is like the kid at high school who’s a great athlete, has perfect hair, the best girl friend and who all the teachers love. Sometimes you just want to see him trip or get a pimple. Switzerland’s cities are great — and the tourist board is expert at shaping their image. While I like the cities, I find that there are more real travel thrills per mile, minute and dollar up in the mountains. Perhaps my agenda for Switzerland was to find flaws. (It’s the opposite of humble Olomouc in Moravia, which has so little beyond its rough charm going for it.) About fondue: I’ll stand by my belief that it’s a winter meal. If it wasn’t for tourists, I think most fondue restaurants in Switzerland would shut down in the summer. Having said all this, we did bring home a show that I’m thrilled about, which makes the great Swiss cities look absolutely wonderful. Stay tuned.
[Drop by in a couple days…and we’ll sum things up.]