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
I’m back home for a couple weeks’ break from Europe. Here’s a look at the reality of packing light (with a quick review of exactly what I lived on for two months in Europe) — and the reality of buying something you’d never wear back home.
Thanks for traveling with me for the first half of my “100 days in Europe” blog series. In the last two months, we’ve careened together from Lisbon, Madrid, and Barcelona to Italy, Normandy and Paris to Bulgaria and Romania. Coming up soon are 50 more days in Europe: Austria, our My Way® Alpine Europe in 12 Days Tour (through the mountains from Salzburg to Chamonix — which I’ll be leading), the Netherlands, filming three TV shows in southern England, and filming the Palio in Siena. Hold on to your castanets (or whatever you shake in these lands)…it promises to be a fun ride.
It is with great sadness that I announce that this amazing little clip of a wonderful artisan – and a charming man – won’t be in our upcoming show on Tuscany. One of the great challenges for me is to review a too long rough cut of one of our TV episodes, and then cut it to size. We routinely end up with shows 90 seconds or two minutes longer than our 30 minutes. The shows are already tight – with nothing really obvious to cut. My choice: to clip bits out of several artfully edited modules or to excise an entire bit in order to let the surviving sequences be seen in their full and proper glory. Painful as that is, I generally prefer the latter tactic. Here is a 70-second sequence showing off the wonderful coppersmith of Montepulciano – which won’t be part of our new series this fall. (I’m sure we’ll find a use for it somewhere, though!). Enjoy.
I’m between trips, back in the office for a few days, heading into my studio next week to record an exciting batch of new radio interviews. We’re cooking up about 10 hours of great talk radio, and I’d love to have you join me on air! Please have a look at our recording lineup and sign up to be part of the conversation.
Interview topics, with well-traveled authors and experts, range from Vietnam and North Korea to London, Provence, and Nicaragua. I’ll be talking about the wonders of America’s national parks with author Terry Tempest Williams, hearing about contemporary Australia with actress Marta Dusseldorp, and learning the unwritten rules of conversing in French. Also, my son Andy (who’s just published his first guidebook) will be sharing tips for fun weekend getaways across Europe.
You’ll hear these interviews in the next few months on “Travel with Rick Steves” on public radio and on my weekly podcast. If you’ve never called in, it’s easy and fun (and if you get on the air we send you a free Rick Steves guidebook of your choice as a thanks).
And if you want to eavesdrop on the live recording sessions, listen as they happen June 13-17.
The Roma are a part of Romania’s image that the tourist board wishes would go away. (The term “Gypsies,” which used to be the common name for this ethnic group, is now considered both derogatory and inaccurate.) But they are a reality in Romania, and we wanted to include a bit about them in our show. Of course, there can be a bad element in the Roma community (some are known for petty thievery), just as there can be bad elements in any community. But there’s a positive side too: hardworking Roma families and communities hoping to assimilate into general Romanian society.
I have a particular interest in the plight of nomadic people (whether Kurd, Eskimo, American Indian, or Roma) whose cultures are built on the nomadic lifestyle and whose very existence as a culture is threatened by being forced to stay in one place — and put their children through local schools. Nomads just don’t fit in the “private property reality” of the last few centuries, and struggling to conform to these unnatural norms — across nomadic cultures — is fraught with challenges and problems.
Rather than show glitzy, so-called “Gypsy palaces” and reinforce negative stereotypes, we worked to be both honest and positive. It really helped to meet and talk with local Roma. Writing the script was delicate. Here’s what we said:
A fun part of travel in Romania is to gain an appreciation for the diversity of the 20 million people who make up this country. Along with ethnic Romanians — who’ve been here since ancient times — there are minorities: Germans, Hungarians, and the Roma.
The Roma originated in India. They were nomads who migrated over the centuries throughout Eastern Europe, where they gained a reputation as entertainers and metalworkers — and sometimes, unfortunately, as petty thieves.
Romania has Europe’s largest Roma population. They’ve had to abandon their nomadic ways and face the challenge of settling down. The classic Roma image is of poor people in shantytowns. But here in Romania, most Roma live side-by-side with their neighbors — often poor, but more or less fitting into mainstream society.
Many Roma carry on the traditional craft of metalworking, and we’ve been invited in to learn more.
At this point we connected with metalworker Emile, his father (Emile), and his son (Emile).
This is Day 59 of my 100 Days in Europe series. As I research my guidebooks and make new TV shows, I’m reporting on my experiences and lessons learned in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Bulgaria, Romania, and beyond. Find more at blog.ricksteves.com.
From time to time, we share a random video to fuel your travel dreams. Today, we’re sharing this clip from my TV episode about the Netherlands. Join me as I check out the scene at the Aalsmeer flower auction. Every day from this building, 20 million flowers are shipped, destined to make someone’s day.
