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 in Romania — home of the descendants of ancient Roman soldiers and young Dacian widows. Join me with my guide in Bucharest as we learn how Romanians were born out of a horrible slaughter. I said the soldiers “made love” to the widows of the locals they killed…on further consideration, it was more likely rape.
This is Day 53 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 Italy’s most remote stretch of Riviera, the Cinque Terre. Join me in Vernazza as I savor the view, visit a romantic spot at the edge of a stony castle, and sit down to some gnocchi with pesto.
This clip shares the most unforgettable experience I’ve had in two months of travel. Traveling through countries that spent 45 years in what locals here call “the Soviet club,” it’s fascinating to see how an ideology that preached equality for all built gigantic monuments that impoverished the very workers for whom the ideology was designed to serve. That’s the case on a mountaintop in Bulgaria where we visited a conference center built for the 100th anniversary of the founding of what became the Bulgarian Communist Party. In this clip, we marvel at its immensity and then squeeze through a tiny hole in the barrier to discover what’s inside.
This is Day 52 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.
We’re holed up in Veliko Tarnovo, waiting for the persistent rain to let up. This was a capital of Bulgaria back in the 13th century when “little” Bulgaria was actually a big deal — its empire included all of the Balkan Peninsula and stretched from Greece all the way to Ukraine. I show this clip for two reasons. First, to address the concerns from our viewers that it never seems to rain in our TV shows. (It does. We just do everything we can not to film when it’s raining.) And, second, to look at that ugly communist-era hotel, built to greedily take the view, mindlessly obliterating the view of almost everyone else in town.
This is Day 51 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.
When filming in Europe, if the light’s good, we’re rolling. The weather report is horrible for the next couple of days in Bulgaria, so we’re shooting like there’s no tomorrow — covering as much of our script as we can before the sun sets. And here, just 15 minutes before the sun dipped behind the Balkan Mountains, we nailed one of my favorite “on cameras” of the year. We are so excited about our new episode on Bulgaria — airing with our new season of 10 episodes on public television this fall. (And you can bet a close-up of these poppies will make the final cut.) Sharing this clip, I’m a mix of exhausted, exhilarated, and thankful: thankful to be collaborating with such a great crew (Simon Griffith, Karel Bauer, and our Slavic Europe expert, Cameron Hewitt); thankful to be able to share all we’re experiencing with our public television viewers; and thankful for work that we hope helps America feel less threatened and more open to people from far away who embrace life a little differently than we do. My cultural flavor of the day? Bulgaria!
This is Day 50 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.