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
On our Rick Steves Best of Europe in 21 Days tour, the meat of the itinerary is the middle week when we visit Venice, Florence, and Rome in rapid succession. After that, we are ready for our treasured “vacation from our vacation” on the Italian Riviera. We are careful to thoroughly orient our groups upon arrival–because the next day is entirely free.
To take a Rick Steves tour you need to be mobile and pack light. That’s because many of our hotels are so remotely and beautifully situated that our buses can’t get to them. The classic example is our visit to the five dramatic villages of Italy’s Cinque Terre. We need to park our bus in the nearest big town and ride the train in. One of my favorite guiding moments is to be with our groups as we tunnel into the Riviera darkness–eyes periodically blasted by splashes of Cinque Terre brightness like this view of my favorite town in the region, Vernazza.
If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.
On this trip, I’m grabbing extra time in Venice, Florence, and Rome to beef up our restaurant listings for our guidebooks. As things are in constant motion in Europe, it’s important to keep our recommendations both up-to-date and fresh. The big news in Rome is the emergence of the Monti neighborhood as a vibrant place for any visitor to consider. This shot is the central piazza of the zone which stretches (conveniently for travelers) between the Termini train station and the Colosseum. We found several good hotels and a slew of fun eateries of all kinds for the next edition of the guidebook. For 20 years I’ve been enthusiastic about the characteristic Trastevere neighborhood as a great place for a colorful dinner. Now, for the energy of a lively neighborhood, I prefer Monti. To be the first traveler on your block to have all my new Monti finds (which will be in the 2015 edition of our Rome guidebook), click here.
With more than 600 Rick Steves tours a year, we have guides working all over Europe all the time. It’s an amazing pool of talent, passion, and travel savvy. They have their own digital communication portal and are constantly rendezvousing, sharing ideas, lessons, and having fun. For me, touring with Reid and Trish is a good chance to get in on the social end of things. Here (from left) guides Ben, Francesca, Trish, Reid (mugging for the camera), and me try out a new restaurant near Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori. (By the way, many of the photos on this blog are shot by Trish Feaster, whose own blog is at The Travelphile.com).
There are plenty of people researching for various guidebooks and websites in Europe, and rarely do I feel a strong, kindred spirit with them. But meeting Tom, who founded EuroCheapo.com, was really fun. Tom is a hotel wonk; he’s friends with many of the same hoteliers that I’ve recommended for decades. He’s right up-to-date on the trials and tribulations hoteliers are suffering in this age of Booking.com and TripAdvisor. Even the most independent of hotel spirits are finding themselves “invisible” if they don’t enlist with booking sites (like Booking.com). I don’t understand how these various booking agents can justify taking 18 percent of a hotel’s gross income when you compare all the real investment and tangible expenses of running a hotel to a website. Here, over a fascinating conversation about the hotel business, Tom, Trish, and I are enjoying one of my favorite kind of restaurant: an enoteca (a place specializing in fine wine by the glass and simple, rustic plates of ingredients that pair nicely with the wine).
As a tour guide, even when trying to vacation on a tour led by someone else (as I’m doing on this Best of Europe in 21 Days tour), I can never let a teachable moment go by. On this tour, each of our guides stops by his or her favorite hill town to break the long drive from Rome to the Italian Riviera (Cinque Terre). Reid stops at Massa Marittima–a delightful hill town that was new to me. Walking around its medieval walls, we came to a fig tree. After all the fig leaves we saw yesterday at the Vatican Museum, I just had to try one on. All I can say is, “They’re really sticky.”
In this video clip, I’m surrounded by a cacophony of tour guides explaining one of the highlights of the Vatican Museum’s collection, Raphael’s “School of Athens.” This is the last stop as they muscle their way through all the art to get their gangs to the coveted Sistine Chapel – just around the corner from here. In the video, I’m talking softly as to not disturb all the guiding going on…so you can barely hear me (turn on YouTube’s captions for subtitles). With emerging economies (China, India, Russia) and more cruise groups than ever, must-see cultural attractions like the Vatican Museum are jam-packed with tourists at all hours. Still, of course, these attractions are great experiences. This clip gives you a feeling of the crush of tour groups as we see the Raphael Rooms, which were done at the same time Michelangelo was creating the Sistine Chapel frescoes a few steps away.
If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.