Rick Steves’ Europe Behind the Scenes: Surprising Bulgaria

Bulgaria is a total delight. If more people knew how beautiful, interesting, and welcoming Bulgaria is, it’d be overrun with tourists. But they don’t…so it isn’t. In the meantime, it sits just off the radar…one of Europe’s most underrated countries.

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Our crew was continually surprised by how altogether pleasant Bulgaria was. The original Rick Steves’ Europe show on this country — produced for Season 1, way back in 1999 — was actually titled “Surprising Bulgaria”…and that name still fits.  During the shoot, the “surprising” theme quickly became a running joke. “This place is amazing,” cameraman Karel would say. “I had no idea how rich the history would be here. It’s so… so…” “Surprising?” I’d finish his sentence, a bit too helpfully.

The success of our Bulgaria show was thanks to two very special local contacts. On my scouting trip, I traveled all over the country with Lyuba Boyanin. Good tour guides are enthusiastic about their subject matter, and I’ve never met one more enthusiastic than Lyuba — who fiercely and unrelentingly celebrated everything that’s beautiful about her homeland. Wherever we went — even to tiny villages far off the grid — everyone knew Lyuba…and everyone was thrilled she was there.CH15OctArbanasi_020

Sadly, Lyuba passed away before we returned to Bulgaria to film. We dedicated the episode to her memory, and we like to think of the show as one small part of her legacy: sharing Bulgaria with the world.

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Another part of Lyuba’s legacy is her successor, Stefan, who took over managing Lyuba’s company and guiding her tours. If anyone can come close to matching Lyuba’s passion for Bulgaria…it’s Stefan. Tirelessly optimistic and endlessly patient, Stefan was our guide and fixer throughout the shoot, and appeared on-camera as Rick’s sidekick.  Behind the scenes, Stefan (and his colleague in the office, Sirma) grappled with unwieldy Bulgarian bureaucracy to obtain all of the needed permissions. If you enjoy the new show, it’s largely thanks to Lyuba and Stefan.

With Stefan leading the way, our Bulgaria shoot went remarkably smoothly. Everything we filmed was gorgeous — even better than expected — and we began to worry we’d have too much great footage for one TV show (a good problem to have…but still a problem).

We could tell that Stefan was particularly excited to take us to his hometown, Kazanlak. Thanks to scheduling serendipity, we woke up in Kazanlak on the morning of the town’s annual Day of Slavic Culture parade. Stefan took us through the crowded streets to the schoolyard where local kids spun batons and waved banners featuring Cyril and Methodius — the ninth-century missionaries who converted many Slavs to Christianity and invented the Cyrillic alphabet still used today from Bulgaria to Russia. It was fun to film this small-town celebration — an intimate and endearing slice of Bulgarian life.

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We were also in Kazanlak at the right time to film the production of rose oil. First, Stefan drove us deep into the countryside — on rutted gravel roads — to a distillery. While a “rose oil distillery” might sound romantic, the reality is starkly practical: a concrete loading dock lined with huge, empty metal vats.

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When we arrived, the place was completely dead…just a couple of listless workers, sitting around waiting. “Soon, they will bring roses from the fields and begin to process them,” Stefan promised. Mindful of the many other bits we needed to film that day, we prodded him: “When, exactly?” He smiled and winked. “Soon.”

Making TV comes with lots of hurry up-wait. We know that. But after about a half-hour of waiting, we were growing impatient. Could we call someone to bring in some roses, just for our camera? Or maybe we should try to come back later?

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We were just about to give up when a rickety truck came peeling around the corner and skidded to a stop by the loading dock. Eight guys hopped out and begin unloading big plastic sacks full of delicate pink roses. Karel and Simon scurried around, filming like mad. Stefan and I hid under the loading dock like scared puppies, trying to avoid wandering into the shot.

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Stefan and I silently cheered and high-fived as we peeked out to see the camera capturing the entire procedure: Bags of roses being unloaded, weighed, and stacked next to the distillery. Then, workers executing their routine with precision: picking up each bag, holding it by its base, jamming its open mouth into the distillery hatch, and then, in one smooth and confident motion, shaking out all of the roses with one big, dramatic “whoppp!” When it was all done, a few broken pink petals were scattered across the loading dock, and the decadent aroma of rose hung heavy in the air.

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Of course, the distillery was only one step. To make all of that great footage usable, we needed to show the rest of the story: Picking the roses. The harvest takes place just before dawn — when the essential oils had worked their way up into the freshly opened flower, but before they’re evaporated by the sun’s rays. Simon and Karel dutifully woke up at 4 a.m. and drove deep into the middle of nowhere, where workers plucked newly opened roses from the vine. Finally, to finish the story, we swung by a rose-products shop to film a customer sniffing rose oil. While all of this added up to a lot of work to produce just one minute of television, we all agreed: totally worth it. As it turns out, little Kazanlak gave us some of our most vivid memories…and some of the show’s best bits.

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Nearby was another favorite stop: The looming communist-era conference hall and monument called Buzludzha, which sits lonely and rotting atop a mountain range. A fascinating artifact of a failed system, Buzludzha is a popular stop for anyone seeking Europe’s offbeat sights.

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The building — like a UFO beached on a mountaintop — is fascinating from the outside, but I’d heard the interior was even more striking. Filming the exterior, we noticed several intrepid explorers squeezing through a makeshift hatch in the front door. Crawling in after them, we found a crumbling world of deteriorating mosaics, damp asbestos, and a rickety ceiling barely held up by its hammer and sickle. Rick has an ethic of never filming something that the general public doesn’t have access to — after all the purpose of our show is to make travel accessible to anyone. But on this one rare occasion, we made an exception and filmed a fine little sequence. (To be fair, anyone can go inside Buzludzha…if they dare.)

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We enjoyed mostly good weather until we were on our way to our final stop, Veliko Tarnovo, the medieval capital of Bulgaria. The weather report — and the gathering storm clouds — indicated that rain was imminent. Stefan and I navigated as Simon hurriedly drove us around the vertical townscape — pausing at several different viewpoints just long enough for Karel to hop out and shoot.

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The very moment we got the final establishing shot — the big-picture overview over the town and its castle — the skies opened up, and we scurried the camera back to the safety of the van. It rained the entire time we were in Veliko Tarnovo, but fortunately we got just enough sunny shots in those first few minutes to do the town justice.

The next day, filming street scenes under misty skies, we kept noticing that everyone had the same umbrella — making some of our footage unusable. Turns out a Viking riverboat cruise was docked on the Danube nearby, and everyone had come to Veliko Tarnovo toting cruise line-issued umbrellas, emblazoned with the Viking logo.

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The rain required just one change of plans: The folk dancing troupe that proudly performs for our Rick Steves Best of Bulgaria Tour was booked to do their thing for our camera in the serene garden courtyard of a historic stone mansion. We had to move the shoot indoors, filming in the troupe’s own theater. In retrospect, this may have been better anyway — no scenery to upstage the musicians, singers, dancers, and their colorful costumes.

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Filming a musical segment with a single camera is tricky. To allow Steve Cammarano — our editor back home — to cut together a smooth segment, we need to film the same performance several times, from different angles. First the troupe ran through a few songs for us to choose from. We made our selection, and they performed it three times: Once to film in a wide shot, and then twice more with Karel on stage weaving between performers — camera on his shoulder — to grab close-ups of the swarming dancers.

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Once filming was complete, the performers were curious to see what we’d shot. So Karel played back his footage on his camera’s tiny viewfinder screen, and the dancers all gathered round to watch and giggle.

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One great episode in the can, we woke up, said goodbye to Stefan, and piled into a rusty communist-era minivan to head north across the border and make one more: Romania. That’s next.


This is part five of my “Behind the Scenes” blog series about Rick Steves’ Europe Season 9 — now airing nationwide (check your local listings). You can also watch the Bulgaria and Romania episodes for free. And in case you’re in a gift-giving mode, the brand-new, 10-episode Season 9 DVD is currently on sale in our Travel Store.

Rick Steves’ Europe Behind the Scenes: Simon and Karel, the Crew of Two

Rick may be the writer, producer, and star of Rick Steves’ Europe. But behind the scenes, he works with a two-man crew that contributes just as mightily to the final result: producer Simon Griffith and cameraman Karel Bauer.

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You probably recognize Simon as the silent, bearded fellow who often joins Rick for dinner on the show. What you don’t realize is that he’s both the brains and the brawn behind more than a hundred episodes of Rick Steves’ Europe. Simon is an artist, who instantly grasps what does and doesn’t work on TV. He’s also built like a tank: To help keep the crew small and efficient, Simon volunteers to lug heavy gear all over Europe (a task usually relegated to an entry-level “grip”).

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It’s an impressive thing to watch: Simon stands — like an artist at his easel — next to Karel, offering gentle direction. Then, when the shots he needs are in the can, Simon quickly collapses the 50-pound tripod, perches it effortlessly on his shoulder, puts on a backpack filled with another 50 pounds of sound and lighting equipment, and walks it to the next shot — all while talking through the script with Rick. (By the way, some of my favorite turns of phrase in the Bulgaria and Romania scripts came not from me or from Rick…but from Simon: “Strips and strands of metal,” “a funnel of trade since ancient times,” and so on. For someone who doesn’t fancy himself a writer, Simon is one hell of a writer.)

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Simon is a gregarious Kiwi who’s generous with a laugh, a great conversationalist, a fantastic traveler, and an easygoing perfectionist (a paradox, I know, but somehow Simon pulls it off).  If Rick’s scriptwriting, on-screen performance, travel savvy, and enthusiasm are a frothy, churning sea of creativity, Simon is the steady rudder that keeps each episode pointed firmly at the horizon.

Rick and Simon work with a variety of talented camera operators (or “shooters”). It happens that I’ve worked only with the cameraman who’s filmed more shows than any other: Karel Bauer, who — like Simon — is equal parts artist and technician.

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Watching the show on TV, you’d assume that Rick is the most important person on the shoot. You’d be mistaken. The most important person is the one you never see: Karel…and, more to the point, Karel’s camera. If only one person is allowed inside a location — say, because of a red-tape snafu at the Romanian Parliament — guess who we’re sending? (Hint: It’s not Rick, who’ll be out sitting on the curb with the rest of us.)

Karel has a singleminded passion for getting the perfect shot. It helps to have a cameraman who thinks like a film editor — he knows just what editor Steve Cammarano will need, several weeks from now back in the home office, to cut together a smooth sequence. And then he squeezes off a few extra beauty shots, just to be safe. Like Simon, Karel is as physically gifted as a pro athlete — pirouetting through crowds and literally scaling walls to aim his weighty camera rig just right. For one particularly challenging-to-film sequence — which opened the whole Romania show — Karel literally hung out the side window of our van to film a smooth shot of Rick riding a horse cart…all while Simon held onto Karel’s belt with one arm, and steered the van with the other. These two will literally stand in traffic to get just the right shot.

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An avid still photographer, I’d assumed that a good shot on my camera would translate to a good shot for TV. But I forgot about the fourth dimension of video: motion. On a previous shoot with this crew (in 2009), I was excited to take them to a huge World War I mausoleum overlooking Slovenia’s scenic Soča Valley. When we arrived, I sensed letdown. What’s the problem? Finally, Karel explained: “It’s a cool building. It’s just…static.” Clean white lines against forested hills may be a striking photograph, but it’s simply boring on TV. They made it work by having Rick and his guide walk around the structure while the camera slowly panned up.

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That’s why, if you pay attention, you’ll notice that most shots include either motion (people, cars, boats, trees blowing in the wind), or, if it’s a truly static scene, camera moves — either pans or zooms. Motion helps keep the viewer engaged. When shooting a scenic landscape shot with a meandering rural road, we sit and wait…and wait…and wait…for a car to drive up that road. Only then is the shot complete. (If no car comes, Simon’s been known to hop in the car and drive into Karel’s shot himself. These types of scenes — often used to transition between destinations — are called “drive-bys.”)

In addition to operating the camera, Karel does double-duty as the sound engineer (just as Simon doubles as the grip). This lets a two-man crew do the work of (at least) four. This mighty duo is a finely oiled perpetual-motion TV-making machine. Even when they have an extra pair of hands (mine), there’s very little I can do to make things go faster or easier…just get out of the way, and try to keep up.

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The other impressive thing about Simon and Karel: they’re two of the smiley-est people I know. I’m not talking fakey grins — I mean, big, toothy, genuine smiles. They love what they do, and it shows. And it helps, too — if we’re trying to make something happen (for example, get permission to film a museum on the fly), Simon and Karel’s big smiles instantly defuse any tension. This was particularly handy for our Romania show, where we wanted to cut together a montage of Romanians from all walks of life. To build up enough material, we set aside a few minutes each day to film as many people as possible. Karel would set up his camera, and Simon would go looking for random people willing to stare into our camera for a few seconds. That seems like it’d be a hard sell. But thanks to Simon and Karel’s lovable, upbeat nature, most people were instantly at ease and agreeable to be filmed.

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And finally, I’m impressed by what great travelers Simon and Karel both are. They don’t just work hard — they are fully present and completely engaged in the experience of traveling. After shooting footage for the show, they pause for a moment or two just take in the beauty around them (and, often, pull out their iPhones to snap a photo for their own personal reel). And when Rick finishes interviewing a local guide for the camera, ever-inquisitive Simon and Karel quiz the guide with follow-up questions. If anyone has earned the right to be jaded travelers, it’s these two. But amazingly, they still bring an almost childlike enthusiasm for travel to every shot of every show. In my mind, that’s the secret ingredient of what makes Rick Steves’ Europe so special.


This is part four of my “Behind the Scenes” blog series about Rick Steves’ Europe Season 9 — now airing nationwide (check your local listings). You can also watch the Bulgaria and Romania episodes for free. And in case you’re in a gift-giving mode, the brand-new, 10-episode Season 9 DVD is currently on sale in our Travel Store.

Rick Steves’ Europe Behind the Scenes: On Location

Script completed and permissions obtained, it’s time to film our new TV shows on Bulgaria and Romania. Rick, producer Simon, cameraman Karel, and I touch down in Sofia, zip to our hotel, unpack the gear, and — all too aware that our sunny afternoon could easily turn into a rainy evening — immediately head out to “cover the script”…jet lag be damned.

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Filming a TV show is all about “covering the script” — making sure that every landmark, every idea, every word that’s mentioned is supported by visuals. One big concern is whether a shot “reads”: Does it effectively illustrate what’s being described? For example, we wanted to shoot Sofia’s yellow brick road. But we needed to find a shot with just the right angle, light, and glare to ensure it would “read” as yellow bricks…not just faded concrete.

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Sometimes, whether or not a shot “reads” determines whether it makes the final cut. Scouting the script in Bucharest, I was struck by how many passersby, when walking in front of a Romanian Orthodox Church, would pause to make the sign of the cross. But trying to film that little slice of life just didn’t work. Shooting on a busy street corner in front of a church, we found the gesture too subtle for our camera. (“Did you get that one, Karelster?” Simon would ask. “Nah,” Karel would say, squinting into his viewfinder. “Doesn’t read.”)

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And so we bailed on that part of the script. We call that “killing your babies” — being willing to give up on your pet ideas when it turns out they aren’t right for the show. It’s a gruesome metaphor, but apt. If we’re sweeping through the script to tighten things up, we start calling each other “King Herod.”

The other end of the spectrum is positive serendipity: Capturing a magic moment that’s far more compelling than you expected. Keeping the script flexible keeps us wide-open, allowing the best show to present itself to our camera. For example, our Bulgaria script included a throwaway line about artful graffiti in Plovdiv’s trendy “Mousetrap” neighborhood. Scouting the scene, we were totally tickled by the playful visuals. So we wrote and shot, on the fly, an insightful segment explaining how local authorities — who realize that buildings are going to be tagged anyway — actually pay the best street artists to create art rather than eyesores.

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Visually, the foundation of a TV show consists of “b-roll”: establishing shots, general scenery, slice-of-life scenes, and so on. While Rick attends to other matters (working on the script, dealing with business concerns from the home office, and so on), Simon and Karel run around filming b-roll.

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Of course, you also have to establish the host on location: Rick walking down the street, exploring a museum, interacting with locals, and so on. In addition to the camera-mounted mic, Rick always wears a hidden microphone (taped under his shirt). If the scene involves dialogue with someone else — like our Bulgarian local guide, Stefan, or a market vendor Rick is buying something from — we have to take a few minutes to mic up that person, as well.

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A meal sequence only adds to the complexity. To show off the local cuisine, we scout a restaurant with atmosphere and food that are equally telegenic. For our viewers back home, it’s more important for the food to look good than to taste good. (A few years back, we filmed a gorgeous dinner of Bosnian cuisine in Mostar  — at a restaurant known for having terrible food, but the best views in town.) Because it’s a little sad to show Rick at an empty table, he’s usually joined by Simon and/or a local guide — and sometimes, the more the merrier. In our Romanian dining sequence, we realized only halfway through the meal that we accidentally wound up with a table full of dudes: Rick, Simon, me, local guide Teo, and fixer Iulian. Unfortunately, our location — a remote farmhouse we had all to ourselves — made it impossible to scare up some women to give the scene a little balance.

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Speaking of that empty farmhouse, it was an unusual case: It’s much better to film at a restaurant that’s full of other diners, who help provide atmosphere. But restaurants — anxious to ensure everything’s perfect — often want to close down the whole place for our convenience. It can take some convincing to pretend it’s just a normal night. (Simon and Karel always make the rounds before we shoot, making sure the other diners are OK appearing on TV.)

If you look closely at a meal sequence, you may notice an extra chair at the table. While Rick and his dining companions theatrically linger over the meal, Karel scurries around with his camera. He shoots the kitchen, the food coming out, Rick or the guide explaining each dish, close-ups of each item being piled on a plate, gregarious conversation, and, of course, eating. Karel takes very occasional, very brief breaks to pull up a chair and choke down our leftovers.

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Another type of Rick segment is the “on-camera” (or OC for short). That’s where Rick talks directly into the camera — sitting at a scenic café, or walking down a busy street, or in front of a great piece of art. On-cameras are typically used to address a topic that’s hard to convey visually, such as dense historical exposition. While most on-cameras are in the shooting script, they’re rewritten and carefully wordsmithed on the fly (since, once filmed, they can’t be changed — unlike the voice-over, or VO, which can be endlessly revised until it’s recorded later). Rick is a master at putting each on-camera into exactly the words he wants, and then memorizing those words on the spot. He’ll sit cross-legged in a quiet corner, muttering the lines to himself, while Simon and Karel set up the shot. By the time they’re ready, usually he is, too. (They do carry a teleprompter, just in case, but almost never use it.)

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When filming an on-camera, they do as many takes as necessary — making sure that Rick’s performance, the audio, the background, the light, and everything else is just perfect. If there are shadows on Rick’s face, Simon pulls out a lightweight LED lighting unit, or a giant, collapsible reflector disc, and aims it just so — often standing on tiptoes, holding his arms in the air (“like a mighty tree trunk,” he jokes) — as long as it takes to get it right.

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Background noise is a big concern. One evening, with the sun low in the sky, we found the perfect Bulgarian wheat field where Rick could stand to describe the ancient Thracians. The catch: It was next to a road where big trucks intermittently rumbled past. The challenge: Could Rick deliver his lines in the gap between trucks? (Yes, he did…eventually.) On another occasion, I had to go ask a jackhammer crew to take their break a bit early.

The outtakes at the end of each episode are rife with examples of flubbed lines, badly timed background noise, or passersby looking awkwardly at the camera. With so many potential screw-ups, these on-cameras are the most time-consuming bits to film. One 15-second on-camera can take just a few minutes to shoot, if all goes well…or closer to an hour, if it doesn’t.

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When filming, your two biggest concerns are time and weather. You’re always racing to maximize the best light and minimize disruption caused by rain. Two expressions are used liberally by the crew to describe this dynamic: If a spell of sunny weather helps you get ahead of the game, you are “in a commanding position.” Killing time waiting for the rain to clear up is, in the parlance of a frustrated film crew, “getting boned by the weather.” These two sentiments often flow into each other: “Looks like a beautiful day. If we hustle and work ahead in covering the script, we’ll be in a commanding position. That way, if we get boned by the weather tomorrow…it’s no big deal.”

It takes six days to film a 30-minute TV show. That may sound like a lot…but, considering how many different variables have to fall into place to make it all works, it feels rushed.

Up next, I’ll introduce you to Rick’s highly talented “crew of two”: producer Simon and cameraman Karel.


This is part three of my “Behind the Scenes” blog series about Rick Steves’ Europe Season 9 — now airing nationwide (check your local listings). You can also watch the Bulgaria and Romania episodes for free. And in case you’re in a gift-giving mode, the brand-new, 10-episode Season 9 DVD is currently on sale in our Travel Store.

Rick Steves’ Europe Behind the Scenes: Scouting, Scriptwriting, and Pre-Production

When you’re making travel TV, months of work have to be done before you can shoot a single frame of film. Here’s an (unapologetically wonky) inside look at how an episode of Rick Steves’ Europe is conceived, researched, and pre-produced.

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Most episodes of Rick Steves’ Europe are loosely based on our guidebooks. Rick is constantly traveling to update and improve the books. When he gets home from each trip, he weaves his favorite experiences into TV scripts. But every so often, we want to expand our horizons by filming destinations that aren’t covered in our guidebooks — such as Bulgaria and Romania. And since I’m “the Eastern Europe Guy” around our office, Rick sent me to do some TV scouting and scriptwriting in these new destinations.

Researching Europe — whether for guidebooks or for TV — sounds like fun. And it can be. But between those fun moments is a tedious slog. You work long hours, chase down iffy leads, and wind up kissing a lot of frogs in the hopes of revealing a prince or two.

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The biggest challenge is being selective. A 30-minute episode of Rick Steves’ Europe starts with a 3,200-word script. And from our past travels in Bulgaria and Romania, Rick and I already knew about 90 percent of what was going to make the cut for each show. My job was, first and foremost, to gather the information we needed to film that 90 percent, and only secondarily to scout possibilities for the remaining 10 percent.

Everywhere I went, I worked with great local guides, who were extremely helpful…usually. But sometimes their unbridled enthusiasm made things challenging — flipping that 90/10 ratio upside-down. A passionate Bulgaria booster or an avid Romaniac can’t fathom that every single sight in their homeland isn’t perfect for American airwaves. And my guides found it even harder than I did to keep within our 30-minute, 3,200-word budget. They always wanted to show me just ooooone more thing. I spent countless hours visiting minor sights that were just fine…but not right for TV. Some simply weren’t visually engaging. Others required too much weighty context to make meaningful. And a few felt redundant with material in other shows.

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Sometimes those cuts are especially tough. For example, I spent two days scouting Bucovina, the northeast region of Romania famous for its rugged hills and breathtaking painted monasteries. Rick — still nostalgic from a trip there many decades ago — has a strong personal affection for Bucovina. And while there scouting, I met an excellent local guide, Chip Siemco of Hello Bucovina, whose insights brought those vivid frescoes to dramatic life. This was shaping up to be a great segment.

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After two and a half weeks of 14-hour days (and much frog-kissing), I returned home from my scouting trip. Weighing options carefully with Rick, I put everything I’d learned into a centrifuge and distilled it down to the best 3,200 words on each country. Bulgaria fell into place easily. But Romania was a challenge — our script was already overweight at more than 4,000 words…before I’d even started writing about those painted monasteries in Bucovina. We briefly considered two episodes on Romania instead of one. But deep down, our viewers want us to be selective — and we want to respect their time by not testing their attention span. We agreed: One tight, “best of” show was the smart strategy. That meant we had to cut some strong material. Bucovina would take a lot of time to shoot, for a relatively short segment in the show. And its painted monasteries felt similar to Rila Monastery, which we knew we’d cover with gusto in the Bulgaria show. So, much as it pained us, we swallowed hard and cut Bucovina. (Sorry, Chip!)

The “shooting script” is a helpful blueprint, but only a rough one. Until the final voice track is recorded — weeks or even months after the episode is shot — the script is a living, evolving organism. As we film, we continually reconsider, refine, and rewrite virtually every word. But at least the first draft of the script lets us begin scheduling the shoot.

We spent the spring arranging details from the office in Edmonds. We got in touch with our favorite local guides and booked our preferred hotels — that part was easy. But the real challenge was the red tape. You can’t just show up with a giant camera and start filming. You need written permission, arranged months in advance.

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Usually museums and other sights understand what we’re doing, and work hard to accommodate us. Sometimes they ask us to pay for the privilege of filming (which is a little frustrating — after all, we are essentially producing a nationally aired infomercial for their attraction, at no cost to them). And, on rare occasion, they simply aren’t interested. The abbot at Bulgaria’s Rila Monastery generously invited us to film the stunning courtyard. But, understandably, he wasn’t comfortable letting our camera disrupt the sanctity of the church interior. When we suggested that a generous donation might grease the skids, our guide patiently reminded us that, for monks who’ve taken a vow of poverty, money doesn’t talk.

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Both Bulgaria and Romania — former communist countries that are still behind the European curve in terms of both bureaucracy and corruption — made permissions tricky. It took a lot of persistence to get the paperwork we needed (often leaving us greatly indebted to our hardworking local friends). But at the end of the day, we were legal, scripted, and ready to fly. Next up: The shoot.

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This is part two of my “Behind the Scenes” blog series about Rick Steves’ Europe Season 9 — now airing nationwide (check your local listings). You can also watch the Bulgaria and Romania episodes for free. And in case you’re in a gift-giving mode, the brand-new, 10-episode Season 9 DVD is currently on sale in our Travel Store.

Behind the Scenes: Rick Steves’ Europe Season 9

We’re in the middle of nowhere. Or, more specifically, in Maramureș — Romania’s impossibly remote northwest corner, where horse carts outnumber cars and Ukraine sits just across the river. We’ve come all this way to film a TV show, but it’s been pouring rain for two days straight. So, even though we fly home to Seattle in 24 hours, we’re just killing time. First we shot everything we could indoors. Then we shot everything we could under umbrellas, tiptoeing through six inches of mud and goat dung. And now we’re “scrubbing the script” while we pray for sun.

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In a simple hotel room, Rick Steves sprawls on the bed, propped up against the headboard, laptop on his belly. Simon, Karel, and I sit in a semicircle around the bed, squirming in our wooden chairs, as Rick rolls words around in his mouth. Were the Hungarians “rulers” or “overlords” of Transylvania? Was Vlad Țepeș a prince or a duke? And, to describe Nicolae Ceaușescu, what’s another word for “megalomaniac”? We’ve used that one twice already…

The clacking of the keys ceases for a moment. And suddenly, in the silence, the same awareness dawns on all four of us at once: No more raindrops. We look to the window, where a sunbeam tries to punch through a layer of clouds as dense and as dark as a Maramureș peasant’s felt vest.  Buoyed by adrenaline (and an immovable deadline), we scramble to load up our gear and chase down some sunshine. We’ve got a TV show to finish.

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I’ve been a fan of Rick’s TV shows since I was a teenager. But this summer, I got to tag along with Rick and his film crew through Europe. Rick Steves’ Europe Season 9 is premiering on public television stations across the USA as we speak. And for this season, I helped Rick with scouting, writing, and field-producing two episodes: Bulgaria and Romania. Now I’m kicking off a series of “behind the scenes” blog posts. If you’re a fan of the show, hop in my rucksack and come along to see how it’s made.

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By the way, that rain did eventually clear, allowing us to spend a very busy afternoon scrambling around Maramureș to get glorious footage of Europe’s “Amish Country” in all its splendor. The final shot we filmed was one of the first you’ll see in the show: A new generation of hardworking farmers as they lovingly shape a stout haystack, as their ancestors have since biblical times. Capturing precious, ephemeral moments like this — and sharing them with our TV audience — make the grind of TV production extremely rewarding.


This is the first part of my “Behind the Scenes” blog series about Rick Steves’ Europe Season 9 — now airing nationwide (check your local listings). You can also watch the Bulgaria and Romania episodes for free. And in case you’re in a gift-giving mode, the brand-new, 10-episode Season 9 DVD is currently on sale in our Travel Store.