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Rick Steves’ Travel Blog

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

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Parisian Culture: Pulling Out All the Stops

I hunger for culture that exists with or without tourism. When I’m in Scotland, it seems like the folk music and the kilts and the haggis are there, at least in part, for the tourists. Paris, however, feels like more of a cultural powerhouse. When traveling in Paris, I always feel that tourism is like a bug — it bounces off the windshield, with the city barely noticing. But sometimes Paris leaves its window open…and we can slip on through and really be inside.

One way to get inside, culturally, is to be at the back of St. Sulpice Church between the Masses on Sunday and climb up into the organ loft. It was my dream to return to that loft with our TV camera and enjoy perhaps Europe’s greatest active pipe organist, Daniel Roth, at work.

Here’s a snippet of our script (with a good example of a hardworking transition, as we needed the script to lead us into the Bastille Day section) and a video clip attempting to catch the wonder of being in the loft of St. Sulpice with Daniel Roth:

On Sunday mornings when I’m in Paris, you’ll likely find me here…in St. Sulpice Church, enjoying its magnificent pipe organ — arguably the greatest in Europe.

For organ-lovers, a visit here is a pilgrimage. After Mass, enthusiasts from around the world scamper like sixteenth notes up the spiral stairs into a world of 7,000 pipes.

Before electricity, it took three men, working out on these 18th-century Stairmasters, to fill the bellows, which powered the organ. The current organist, Daniel Roth, carries on the tradition of welcoming guests into the loft to see the organ in action.

As his apprentices pull and push the many stops that engage the symphony of pipes, a commotion of music-lovers crowd around a tower of keyboards and watch the master at work.

St. Sulpice has a rich history, with a line of 12 world-class organists going back over 200 years. Like kings or presidents, the lineage is charted on the wall. And overseeing all this: Johann Sebastian Bach.

This music continues to fill the spiritual sails of St. Sulpice as it has for centuries.

The good life in Paris — music, culture, an appreciation of its rich heritage and fine architecture — is easy to take for granted. But today’s freedoms and a government that seems passionate about its people’s needs didn’t come to France without a struggle. And the pinnacle of that struggle — an epic event that reverberates in the spirit of its people to this day — was the French Revolution.

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

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A Water Lily Stroll with Monet

We just finished filming two new TV shows on Paris — 12 days of work. I was exhausted when we were done, but — I have to admit — in Paris it’s hard to call it “work.” Rather than hard working, let’s call it hard living.

One of the great perks of TV production is the luxury of being alone with Europe’s greatest art. A few weeks before we came to film, I scouted Paris’ Orangerie Museum and developed a concept of strolling with Monet along the banks of his water lily pond. When I returned with the film crew, we commandeered a wheelchair to use as a “poor man’s dolly” (in good guerilla-budget public television style), allowing us to capture that smooth “stroll along the pond” effect for our viewers — in hi-def!

Here’s a bit of my script for that part of our Paris show, followed by a video of cameraman Karel and producer/wheelchair dolly operator Simon in action:

Like an aging Beethoven, who composed his most dramatic works while losing his hearing, the nearly blind Claude Monet spent his last years painting these symphonies of color on a similarly monumental scale.

We’re looking into his pond — dotted with water lilies, surrounded by foliage, and dappled by the reflections of the sky, clouds, and trees on the surface. Monet mingles the pond’s many elements and lets us sort it out.

The true subject of these works is not the pond itself. It’s the play of the light reflecting off the water. Monet would work on several canvases at the same time — each one catching the light of a particular time of day.

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

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A Cheese Course Makes the Meal

Each evening co-author Steve Smith and I visit the restaurants we recommend and check out other possibilities. Our treat after a long day of research is sitting down to a meal at our favorite place. In this restaurant in Amboise, I was particularly charmed by both Aurore (who runs the restaurant) and her cheese course. She introduced it so lovingly to each diner, that I had to share the experience with this video clip.

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

 

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The Case for Splurging

For the past few nights in the Loire Valley, I’ve been reminded that an evening meal here can be much more than a meal. When you spend $60 for dinner here (instead of just “filling the tank” for $20) don’t count on getting any extra nutrition. You’re buying a three-hour joy ride for the senses — as rich as visiting an art gallery and as stimulating as a good massage.

In Amboise, after a full day of researching the next edition of our France book, Steve Smith and I go to Restaurant L’Epicerie. Steve orders a basic menu and I go top end. As usual, we share. I bring along my little black notebook in an attempt to capture how — when you choose a good restaurant, relax about the prices, and let yourself really tune into the experience — splurging on dinner is a travel thrill in itself. And that can make it a great value.

Getting a full dozen escargot rather than the typical six snails doubles the joy. Eating six you’re aware that supply is very limited. Eating twelve, it seems for the first eight like there’s no end to your snail fun. The taste is so striking that I find myself requesting silence at the table. It’s just my mouth and the garlic-drenched snails, all alone on the dance floor of my palette. Add good Chinon wine and you’ve got a full orchestra accompaniment. Like a slow motion love scene, I pry another snail gently out of its shell and pop it into my mouth. The swirly spiral on the empty shells visually syncs with each swish of wine.

Like a mermaid’s tail in a tide pool, my crust of bread laps up the homemade garlic-and-herb sauce. I ask Aurore, our waitress, how it can be so good. With a sassy chuckle and smile she says, “Other restaurateurs come here to figure that out, too.” Then she adds, “It’s done with love.” While I’ve heard that line many times, here it seems believable.

The restaurant itself adds to the experience. Under rough timber beams hang frameless portraits of long forgotten city fathers. Opposite hangs an aging painting of a traditional boat full sail blowing up the Loire. Glasses fill the room like crystal flowers. Gazing at the quiet lane outside my window, with the floodlit Amboise château sparkling high above, I think French kings and Leonardo strolled along this very spot.

Then my main course arrives: tender beef with beans wrapped in bacon. Slicing through a pack of beans in their quiver of bacon, I let the fat do its dirty deed. A sip of wine, after a bite of beef, seems like an incoming tide washing the flavor farther ashore.

My crust of bread, a veteran from the escargot course, is called into action for a swipe of sauce. Italians brag about all the ingredients they use. But France is proudly the land of sauces. Thanks to the bread, I enjoy one last encore of the meat and vegetables I’d just savored.

If it’s not this afternoon’s bread, it’s not a good restaurant. I hold up my petite wicker basket and, with a quick and crusty chop, chop, chop, it comes back in moments filled. If the sauce is the medicine, the bread is the syringe. I take some more.

Lighting in a restaurant is a mystery to me. When it works, the food, the glasses, your dining partner all twinkle. The red in the beef, the diamonds in the wine, the smile in the tomato, everything seems more appetizing. And then, Aurore asks in French, “What would give you pleasure?”

Shifting my chair to stretch out my legs, I prepare for the next course. Aurore brings on her cheese platter. It’s a festival of mold on a rustic board with its vibrant yet mellow colors promising a vibrant array of tastes. She explains the line-up with patience and care as I film her presentation with my iPhone. With the cheese there’s a special extra: raisins soaked in Armagnac brandy. Her sweet French voice makes me want to respond, “Oui!” The lovingly sliced collection of cheeses arriving on my plate makes me want to sing (out of consideration for Steve, I don’t).

As cheese needs wine, I check my wine bottle like I would my gas tank before driving home. Noticing the restaurant crowd thinning, I remind myself there is no rush. I appreciate hearing the quiet murmurs of other diners, as eating among others enjoying their experience as much as I am enjoying mine is part of the sensual experience. It makes me wish restaurants back home were also hushed.

As I lean back to stifle a burp, Steve says, “And here comes dessert.”

Mine is a tender crêpe papoose of baked cinnamon apple with butterscotch ice cream garnished with a tender slice of kiwi. That doesn’t keep me from reaching over for a snip of Steves’ lemon tart with raspberry sauce and shaved almonds.

The meal ends with an offer of coffee, but I decline, preferring to remain in my dazed state.

The bill arrives: €34 for my four courses, €22 for Steve’s simpler menu, and €30 for the wine. The entire meal costs us €86, or about $60 each. You could call it $20 for nourishment and $40 for three hours of bliss. I can’t imagine a richer Loire experience, one that brought together an unforgettable ensemble of local ingredients, culture, pride and people.

Aurore bids us good night with the same twinkle of joy that accompanied each course. Stepping out into that lane, looking up to the floodlit château, I know it won’t be the last time.

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France’s Insanely Extravagant Palaces

I’m just finishing a busy week visiting the best châteaux of the Loire. Touring these insanely extravagant palaces — and considering the division of economic classes of that time — it occurred to me that most of them were built by bankers and financiers from the courts of the great kings. The parallels between these “hedge-fund managers of the 17th century” and their counterparts today, given the recent political discourse in our country, was fun to ponder.

I had a particularly thrilling experience climbing through the attic of one of these guys and popping out on his rooftop, where I could survey his garden. This was about a century before a “big correction” occurred. Because, back then, there was no political way to reign in these fat cats, the correction was done quite violently. Here’s Vaux-le-Vicomte, the home of Louis XIV’s finance minister, Nicolas Fouquet.

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