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Rick Steves’ Travel Blog

Here you can browse through my blog posts prior to February 2022. Currently I'm sharing my travel experiences, candid opinions, and what's on my mind solely on my Facebook page. — Rick

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Video: Dig These Bones — Cimitero delle Fontanelle

Follow me in this clip as I venture deep into Naples, far from the throngs of tourists piling off our cruise ship. I discovered an amazing quarry filled with human bones when I was here in the spring, and I just had to come back with my TV crew to film it.

 

Here’s how I wrote it up for the next edition of the Rick Steves Italy guidebook:

Cemetery of the Fountains (Cimitero delle Fontanelle)

A thousand years ago, cut into the hills at the high end of Napoli, was a quarry. In the 16th century, churches with crowded cemeteries began moving the bones of their long dead here to make room for the newly dead. Later, it housed the bones of plague victims and the city’s paupers. In the 19th century, many churches emptied their cemeteries, adding even more skulls to this vast ossuary. Then, a cult of people appeared whose members adopted skulls. They named them, put them in little houses, brought them flowers, and asked them for favors from the next life. And today, the quirky caves — stacked with human bones and dotted with chapels — are open to the public. Located in a sketchy-feeling neighborhood at the top end of Sanità (via Fontanelle 80, tel. 081.795.6160, 10:00-17:00 daily, tips accepted). To get there, hop in a taxi, ride the subway to the Materdei stop and follow the brown signs for ten minutes, or hike ten minutes up Via Sanità from the Basilica of Santa Maria della Sanità).

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Video: From a Vesuvius Sunrise to the Bella Chaos of Naples

My TV crew and I are on a Mediterranean cruise, filming a special that will air on public television in January 2019. Some of my favorite moments so far have been “sail-ins.” Each morning, I get up and — even before I brush my teeth — I enjoy the view from my balcony. This morning, the sun was peeking its hot head over the volcano of Vesuvius. I just had to share it with you. (Forgive me, I didn’t dress for this clip.)

Thanks for all the comments, both here and on Facebook. They are fun to read. I’ve noticed many of you think cruises are too crowded. Sure, there can be 3,000 people on your ship. But very often, like here in Naples, you dock right in a city center. And, as you’ll see in this clip, you can be deep in the neighborhood fun of the city within a few minutes of getting off the ship.

I visited Naples earlier this year and discovered the amazing district of Sanità. And I just had to bring my TV crew back. We filmed a segment here about how a cruise can feel like an adult summer camp (filled with people hell-bent on seeing the clichés), or you can use it as a springboard for your own series of little adventures. A cruise can be La-La Land or reality…or a little of both.

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Video: Public Television at Your Service!

My TV crew and I are on a Mediterranean cruise, filming a special that will air on public television across the country in January 2019. Today, after an exhilarating (but, frankly, brutal) day of shooting on hot and arid Santorini, we caught the last tender back to our ship. When the security guard scanned my ID card, I was literally the last person to check back in out of the 3,000 travel mates I’m sharing this ship with. (You scan in and out of the ship so they know at any moment exactly who is on board and who is on shore. When you scan, they see a mug shot of you on their screen to make positive identification.)

The sun was low and the caldera of Santorini (with the lip of its crater lined with dazzling whitewashed buildings) was injecting my crew with a little more steam — and I had a notion it would be fun to whip out my iPhone and capture the process. Take a moment with this clip to see my producer Simon Griffith and cameraman Karel Bauer at work. I’ve worked with these two for 20 years now. (I must have spent 800 days filming with Simon, as he’s been with me for every moment of shooting in Europe.)

Also, take a moment to appreciate how public television works. There is no big advertiser shaping our content. This will be the only piece of travel journalism you’ll ever see that shows cruising in a frank, honest, and consumer-oriented way (with no agenda pro or con…simply driven by a passion for helping our viewers know their options and travel smarter, more economically, and with more meaning).

Forgive my little pledge pitch here, but this can only happen with your support. There are so many ways public television helps us live more open and enriching lives, with a positive and outward-looking spirit rather than a fearful and inward-looking one. If you recognize that, you know it’s more important than ever to keep public broadcasting alive and well in our community.

(To see more of me, Simon, and Karel at work, watch The Making of Rick Steves’ Europe.)

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Video: Summiting the Greek Island of Delos

I’m old enough now to take particular joy in revisiting places I experienced as a teenage vagabond. I’ll never forget hiking to the summit of Delos as a 19-year-old and learning how important — and literally central — to the Greek islands this now-uninhabited little island (a half-hour from Mykonos) once was.

I’ve returned now with our local Mykonos guide Antonis Pothitos, after having caught an early-morning tender from my cruise ship. And I’ve affirmed my notion that — even with 3,000 tourists on my ship, and even with four such ships in port this morning in Mykonos — if you get an early start and reach for the back lanes or rocky summits, you can be all alone with the wonders of the Mediterranean (and be back on your ship by sunset for a cocktail and a little dancing poolside in your loafers).

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Video: A Quiet Moment on the Little Island of Malta

Malta is a hot and windy rock between Sicily and Africa with a distinct culture and language (Maltese is actually a Semitic tongue), a rich and fascinating history, and delightful people still living within some of the most imposing fortified walls in Europe.

I’m here with my TV crew, filming a special about Mediterranean cruising that will air on public television in the fall of 2018. It’s so hot and windy, and our crew is working with such focus, that I didn’t take any videos on my phone while we were outside. But in a quiet moment inside the Cathedral of St. John, I was inspired to share a little of what I discovered and learned today on this once-upon-a-time formidable island.