Rick Steves’ Travel Blog

We’ve been filming for a week now in Venice. (It takes 12 days to produce two episodes.) My local guide is a bit disappointed that we gave Rome three episodes, but Venice only two. The city certainly packs two episodes, and we’ll be unable to fit in all the beautiful bits we’ve shot. My big frustration is living with our 3,200-word-per-episode limit (on average, that’s how many words I say, both on camera and off, in a 30-minute show).

While you’re waiting for the shows, here a few still images to whet your appetite.

I was so excited to be with my friend Piero in his fast boat on the lagoon. While only getting stuck in the mud once (as there are no rocks on the bottom to damage the motor, this is a routine occurrence that boaters here seem to shrug off), we jockeyed ourselves to a perfect spot to visualize the Venice those first farmers — fleeing the barbarian chaos on the mainland that followed the fall of Rome — found when they settled in the lagoon about 1,500 years ago. I got to stand with hip boots in the muck and do my “Venice was born in mud like this” on-camera.

While filming in my favorite Venetian church, the Basilica dei Frari, it seemed that half the Americans I saw either had my book or were using my audio tour. I’ve also seen lots of people enjoying our new Mediterranean Cruise Ports guidebook. And with the release of the newly updated Rick Steves Audio Europe™ app, more people than ever are taking advantage of our free audio tours. When this man saw me, he whipped out his entire library of Rick Steves guidebooks — all on a virtual bookshelf on his tablet computer. I’m glad my staff and publisher are determined to keep us up to speed with the technology of publishing as it evolves so quickly.

The imposing Stairway of Giants in the Doge’s Palace — which leads to what was, for several centuries, the most powerful building in Europe — is capped by statues of Mars and Neptune, symbolizing Venetian control of the land and the sea. For decades, every time I pass this statue, I think, “That’s not Mars — that’s Paul Newman.” I don’t know about you, but as I travel, it seems I see a lot of famous contemporaries in the paintings and statues of past ages. It would be fun to collect all these look-alikes into a guessing game.

It’s impressive to think what it takes to keep a medieval basilica constantly ready for worship and tourism — all over Europe and all through the ages. Churches everywhere have workshops associated with them, where statues gnawed bald by acidic air are redone, where soot-covered stained-glass windows are cleaned, and where precious mosaics — ground down by centuries of footsteps — are refreshed. Here at St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, where mosaics are a big deal, they have a famous mosaics workshop. We visited to film the artisans at work. You’ll see the complete, high-definition version in a beauty sequence in our new public television series (14 episodes debuting this fall). But this much more informal video (sorry about the jerky camera work) offers a peek at the working side of this thousand-year-old basilica.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.

The people who run the big sights in Venice have generally welcomed us to film, but only when they’re closed to the public. Consequently, we populate big, vacant halls with me, our producer Simon, and — if we can talk him or her into it — a reluctant guard. On this morning, we were on the balcony of St. Mark’s Basilica. The church was closed for 20 more minutes, but I noticed the line had already formed and was growing rapidly. It was fun to see how everyone had their various sources of information to prep for the experience. I didn’t see any of my guidebooks…I’d like to think it’s because my readers find ways to avoid these lines. (In the case of St. Mark’s, you can check a bag nearby for free, and your deposit receipt lets you slip directly in.)

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.

This year in Italy, when I comment to locals that I’ve noticed no decrease in crowds even with the slow economy, they say, “Yes, but spending habits are much different.” Many more tourists are blitzing in from cruise ships and cheap mainland hotels — meaning there are fewer overnights in hotels and fewer dinners sold. So, the cafés on St. Mark’s Square may be pretty empty in the evenings, even with the allure of their orchestras, but crowds still fill the midday streets and blockbuster sights. Getting up to film for a 7:00 a.m. appointment at the Doge’s Palace (what a treat to be in there all alone!), I was struck by how the square is an entirely different experience without the mobs. The simple moral: Get up early and stay out late, and you’ll have Venice all to yourself…except for a few joggers.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.

Forgive me for not dressing up for this, but while showering early one morning, the spirit moved me to share a peek at life as a tourist in Venice — and to show how the demand for private bathrooms in once-spacious elegant rooms has resulted in rooms that are less spacious and elegant, but more convenient.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.