I’m taking a quick break from our Best of Europe in 21 Days tour, while leaving our group in the good care of guides Ben and Trish, to join my film crew in Munich to film Oktoberfest — the final festival for our “Europe’s Top Ten Festivals” special that will air on public television in 2017. An hour before the tents open, our guide Georg Reichlmayr shows off his fancy lederhosen and introduces us to his favorite white sausages and sauerkraut.
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
Video: Take a Peek at Our Fun-Filled Visit to Arnhem’s Open-Air Museum
The Arnhem Open-Air Museum, about halfway to Germany from Amsterdam, is like a fun dose of Dutch culture on a lazy Susan for busy travelers. Here’s a bit of the fun our Best of Europe in 21 Days tour group had here. Thanks to Trish Feaster (The Travelphile) for shooting and assembling the clip before we say “tot ziens” to the Netherlands and “Guten Tag” to Germany.
(Thanks for following along here on my blog and on Facebook as I guide our Best of Europe in 21 Days Tour.)
To a Robot, the Cinque Terre Is “Chicken Patty” or even “Gym Daddy”
We have a vast selection of travel talks posted on YouTube and at ricksteves.com/travel-talks. YouTube likes everything to be captioned, so they use voice-recognition software that does an amazing job of automating that laborious transcription process. But occasionally, what I say and what their robotic ears hear are quite different…amusingly different. My assistant Skyla Sorensen has been busy proofreading YouTube’s automated work and found some crazy mistakes that we are thankful she caught. Here are some actual examples of how a voice-recognition robot can mangle a phrase in a Rick Steves travel lecture:
- Visit places like the beautiful Italian villages of “Gym Daddy”…or is it “Chicken Patty”… (Cinque Terre)
- On the coast of Portugal, eat some delicious “burning coals” (barnacles)
- Taste some local “Vietnamese hookers” in the Italian countryside (Vignoles)
- Check out the pietà Michelangelo made in his “girly” 20s (early)
- Travel to the best place to go in Poland, “crack house” (Kraków)
- Warsaw is the capital, “butt-crack houses” the university (but Kraków has the university)
- If you don’t know what to order in Provence, just “do your best” (get bouillabaisse)
- Two hours north of Rome, visit the beautiful “Chiquita banana Rachel” (Civita di Bagnoregio)
- Look at the Armory where Venetians would take potential enemies to say, “Don’t mess with Dennis” (Venice)
- Go to the Uffizi and see “peanut butter and jelly” (Venus by Botticelli)
- If you venture to the Holy Land, be sure to notice the “terrorist” settlements, the “terrorist” hills, and the “terrorist” vineyards (terraced settlements, hills, and vineyards)
- Sample the gastronomic “papas” in Spain (tapas)
- Throughout northern Europe you’ll see coastal towns with an “antibiotic” heritage (Hanseatic)
- Try doing “man-licking” in the high Alps, it’s very accessible for all ages (Männlichen)
- In France, don’t miss the exciting city of “Blah!” (Blois)
- Get “beat stupid” in Eastern Europe. It’s a local favorite (beet stew)
- In Iran, you’ll hear religious sayings ingrained in their culture, like “enchilada” (insha’Allah)
- Another cultural aspect of the Middle East is that “veterans” eat camels (Bedouins)
- If you want to make a difference without leaving your house, donate to “Bred for the Road,” my favorite charity (Bread for the World)
- For more information on my travel philosophy, check out my “Travel As a Blood Clot” talk (Travel As a Political Act)
- And finally, don’t forget to try out the local language. When you meet a German, greet him by saying “Good dog!” (Guten Tag)
Video: Absorbing Dutch History Out in the Open
A tour guide is a teacher of culture, and in Europe, each country’s open-air folk museum provides the perfect classroom — a sprawling park filled with historic and traditional buildings from every corner of the country for visitors to stroll through and travel back in time as they pop into homes, farms, pharmacies, schoolhouses, medicinal herb gardens, and various mills. On our fast “best of” swing through Europe, a few hours at the Netherlands Open-Air Folk Museum in Arnhem gives us an unforgettable dose of the Dutch countryside from centuries past. Join me on this little video clip as I crash a grade-school party just as the kids are settling into their tasty cones of hot fries.
(Thanks for following along here on my blog and on Facebook as I guide our Best of Europe in 21 Days Tour. Stay tuned tomorrow for a look at what our tour group did and saw in the park.)
With This Spotify Playlist, You Too Can Be a Tour-Guide DJ
Photo: The Travelphile
When I was a small boy, my dad and I “invented” something we called “stereo ears” — if you cup your ears at a concert, you hear a much broader array of sounds and more vivid highs.
If you like music, it can be a great part of your travels. For this tour, Trish and I collected fun and instructive cuts of music, organized them to match our Best of Europe in 21 Days tour itinerary, and posted a playlist titled “Rick Steves Europe Tour” on Spotify. All along the way we’re plugging our iPhones into our big bus’ sound system and enjoying our expanded roles as tour-guide DJs. If you’re traveling along our route (the Netherlands, Germany, Alps, Italy, more Alps, France, and Paris), feel free to use this list to inject some location-specific music into your travel fun. (What cuts might you add if it was your tour?)
Happy (and musical) travels!