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

Sword-Fern Fantasies

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To commemorate the Smithsonian Presents Travels with Rick Steves magazine — now on sale online, and at newsstands nationwide — Rick is blogging about the 20 top destinations featured in that issue. One of those destinations is actually a collection of castles across Europe.

The list of favorite castles I collected and described for the Smithsonian ended up being mostly Europe’s glorious castles. These were the kind that were so foreboding, they made a petty kingdom’s debilitating defense budget a good investment in the long run, creating a defensive bastion so formidable that no one even attempted to take it.

But behind the touristic glorious castles are the forgotten inglorious castles — just evocative, stony husks with no plaster or paint, broken stairways, and open skies rather than rooftops. All across Europe, the fragrant lichen of history eats at the corpse of castles as they rot away unnoticed on hilltops. Climbing through waist-high weeds on rubble collapsed and corralled by surviving walls, you can break off a spiky frond and live a sword-fern fantasy.

While time strips away the plaster, it leaves enough to evoke the days of feudalism. Castles were built on the backs of peasant labor — forgotten people who had no option in life but to subsist under the rule of a corrupt and petty ruler and carry rocks when told to. Moss seems to prepare stones for the fall they’ve waited centuries for. A dark spiral staircase leads to a tentative lookout over what was a floor. Bat dung drifts high in the dark stretches of the staircase. Standing gingerly at the top of the stairs, you look out. Before you stretches no floor. Across the expanse is the most finished element of the castle: the still-tidy square holes into which hand-hewn floor beams were stuck. What became of the beams and all they supported?

Peering through arrow slits, you look away from your castle perch. Imagine the now-overgrown terrain, once shaved to create a no-man’s land, where no enemy could find cover as he approached.

Underground tunnels lead away from the shell of a castle. Crouching as I advance, I reach a place far from the castle, just a few feet under the shaved no-man’s land. Here is where explosives would be packed, ready to surprise advancing forces and blow them to smithereens if they dared approach this fortress.

Looking up from outside at the surviving wall, I see a pair of stones jutting out high above me, now supporting only the memory of an outhouse. I imagine updrafts that once blew onto noble butts. I imagine enemies that once eyed this toilet hole as the possible Achilles’ heel of an otherwise impenetrable castle.

Ruined castle appreciation isn’t for everyone. I guess it’s a guy thing…to peer, wonderstruck, over the shoulder of a guide who lowers a lamp on a rope into a dungeon that has only one way in or out — a mean-spirited hole in the ceiling. Stories of knights sleeping in wooden boxes filled with hay in dank ground-floor rooms evoke scenes of these men struggling night after night to find some warmth.

With the same boorish conversation and little else to amuse, I can imagine the appeal of alcohol in feudal times. There’s certainly evidence of drunkenness. Keyholes on mighty doors came with iron guides that funneled the key of an inebriated lord into place. All he had to do was locate his key, hold it in front of him, fall onto the door, and when the key landed in the hole, give it a turn.

The advent of the cannon forced castles to crouch rather than stand tall. And pre-cannon castles, standing tall atop hillocks, visited with the heavy breathing that comes with a steep hike, stoke the imagination of any traveler. And with imagination properly stoked, these humble and forgotten ruins too can rival Europe’s great and famous castles.

Photos: Rick’s Latest Trip

Nikos runs Albergo Doni, one of my favorite hotels in Venice. He and I have a ritual of taking our photo with our last photo each time I drop in. We just get better looking every year.
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The Barber of Venice. For 20 years Benito’s been in my guidebook — the only barber I recommend in Europe. He gives lots of my readers, young and old, a wearable souvenir.
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Anywhere in Italy, surveying the luscious vegetables in the market is a kind of gastronomic foreplay warming you up for a fine dinner tonight.
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Taking a break from my research chores in Venice, I tested a few of our audio tours. They worked like a charm which made me very happy. They are clean, easy to follow, and make the sightseeing experience a joy…if I do say so myself. Our new Rick Steves Audio Europe program—with scores of free audio tours and trip-related interviews — is just about ready for prime time (see iTunes/podcasts/Rick Steves).
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A ritual grounding — barefoot on the pavimento alla Veneziana (my hotel’s traditional flooring) and my soul knows it’s back in Venice.
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Stuck in Venice because of the volcano’s ash…let’s drink to Iceland!
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My Ravenna guide took me to the barber who does her little boy’s hair. I said “just a trim” in my best Italian and he proceeded to give me the shortest haircut I’ve ever had in my entire life.
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Eating dinner with Franklin, we embraced life with gusto (and our mouths).
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Chef Giuliano gave me and Franklin a meal we’ll never forget.
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There’s a new hit show on Sky TV in Italy. It’s by some American hotshot and called Europa di Rick.
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What a crazy experience: sitting in an Italian living room with Italian friends watching me with a deep and raspy Italian-dubbed voice telling Italians about their own country.
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Simon Griffith and Peter Rummel join me to shoot a piece of the Rock. We just wrapped up a great two week shoot in Spain, Gibraltar, and Morocco. Stay tuned for an hour-long special on Andalucia in October.
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Flying from Gibraltar directly to Indiana, I joined our family to celebrate our son Andy’s graduation from Notre Dame. Degrees in Italian language and literature and industrial design from a great school. Congratulations Andy Steves! Look out world!
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Dingle

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To commemorate the Smithsonian Presents Travels with Rick Steves magazine — now on sale online, and at newsstands nationwide — Rick is blogging about the 20 top destinations featured in that issue. One of those destinations is Dingle, Ireland.

Kathleen was old and frail, but picked up her step as she led me to the small-town cinema. She declared, “Tom Cruise is a wee little guy.” Everyone was all abuzz about where he and Nicole Kidman had slept.

I was in the town of Dingle, on the west coast of Ireland. And tonight, in Dingle’s homey theater, it seemed the entire town had gathered to watch the premiere of Far and Away — a movie that was partly filmed right here in Dingle. As the movie played, each time a bit player from the village appeared on screen, a rowdy uproar erupted. Knowing where to look in the movie, you could see telephone poles decorated like trees.

The movie depicted tough times — the 1890s, when impoverished people from villages like Dingle flocked to the New World in pursuit of a better life. These days, of course, Dingle is riding high on Ireland’s economic resurgence. But all it takes is a pensive stroll through the fields to remember the earlier pain and struggle of this land. Picking up a clod of earth, my friend Tim, Dingle’s retired police chief, explained how even the dirt had to be made by struggling peasants — sand and seaweed carried here by human beasts of burden from the distant shore.

Dingle’s a humble town. Each day, it feels like the main business is rolling out the empty kegs and rolling in the full ones. They claim to have more pubs per capita than any town in Ireland. And each evening, I walk around the block like a guy choosing a dance partner, considering where I’ll enjoy a pint.

Dingle’s town mascot has long been a dolphin named Fungie. This playful dolphin is thoroughly milked to stoke tourism. But to me, it seems that Fungie just brings people to town for the wrong reason. You don’t come to Dingle to see a freak dolphin; you come to experience a Gaeltacht town.

A Gaeltacht (a place where Gaelic — the traditional Irish language — is spoken) is a kind of national park for the traditional culture. As a Gaeltacht, Dingle gets special subsidies from the government. A precondition of this financial support is that towns use their Irish (Gaelic) name. But Dingle (or An Daingean in Irish) has voted down this dictate from Dublin. I think changing it back to An Daingean would be true in principle to the Gaelic movement, but just plain bad marketing. (It’s fun to say Dingle, but An Daingean — pronounced “on DANG-un” — is hard to say and to spell.) As a compromise, signposts spell it both ways.

The tip of the Dingle Peninsula is marked by a chalky statue of a crucifix. It faces the sea, but it seems like about half the time, it’s actually facing a cloud with zero visibility being whipped by sheets of rain. I imagine cows here have thicker eyelids, evolved over centuries of sideways rain. The Gallarus Oratory, a 1,300-year-old church made only of stone, is famously watertight — unless the rain is hosing in sideways. I’ve been splattered inside. I’ve crept over the Conor Pass with zero visibility, ragamuffin sheep nonchalantly appearing like ghosts in the milky cloud. I’ve huddled in farmhouses abandoned in the great famine of 1848, awaiting a chance to step out. Yes, the weather is a force on the west coast of Ireland. But when the sun comes out, everything rejoices.

Hair-Trigger Flamenco

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It was a sore-mouth, déjà  vu experience. To me, a rustic ham sandwich in Spain is one of the edible icons of Europe. It’s that simple marriage of crusty fresh bread and lovingly sliced ham, cut with care from the ham hock that fills a vise mounted in any bar or restaurant. Now I eat these simple sandwiches to celebrate being in Spain, but the raw roof of my mouth took me back to my student trips here, when I ate my jamón bocadillo because it was all I could afford.

Pressing that hard crust against the tender ceiling of my mouth on my last day before flying home, I reviewed the many delights of my latest trip through Spain.

A year ago I had discovered a new favorite restaurant in Córdoba — Bodegas Campos. I came back twice and basically ate my way through their tapas menu. After my second visit, I knew I’d be back this year with the TV crew.

Now I was working with Isabel, a charming local guide who talks about food with the passion of a mother talking about her children. Her love and enthusiasm for Spanish cuisine translated well on TV. And it was a festival night, so the restaurant was packed with well-dressed Córdobans. One difficulty of filming in a restaurant is that we need lots of light, and this can ruin the ambience (and wear out our welcome in a hurry). Our cameraman’s new electric light comes with a slider, so we can let the brightness creep up — and no one notices (we hope).

Every plate seemed to glisten. The meal was made to order for TV: a montage of Spanish delights from the roasted almonds and spicy green olives that hit the table automatically, to the local salmorejo (like a super thick, bright orange gazpacho), boquerones (anchovies), fried eggplant, and “Arab Salad” with cod and delicate orange sections. Spaniards love their croquetas, which seem like glorified Tater Tots to me. Isabel was enthusiastic about the croquetas, so I figured, if ever I’d appreciate croquetas, it would be in a fine place like Bodegas Campos. Nope. Still just Tater Tots. The rabo de toro (bull-tail stew) was as dark as meat can be…almost inky in flavor. The jamón ibérico — a gift from the restaurant — was the best ham in Spain and very expensive. With its fat not lining the meat but mixed in, it was glistening with taste — eating it was the culinary equivalent of pinning a boutonniere onto a tux. The wine was the kind they bring out special glasses for.

Feeling underdressed for the filming, I zipped back to the hotel in a taxi between courses to get my sweater. On the way there, we passed a square thriving with people partying. On the way back, the same street was blocked by a religious procession. I had to get out and walk. One minute I was thrilled to be in the restaurant filming all that wonderful food; the next I was amazed we were missing parties in the squares and an exotic religious procession in the streets.

Excited, I called Isabel and asked her to get the crew out in the streets to film the procession. Seeing alcohol-fueled partying around a towering red cross and then a somber procession was poignant. In Andalucía, revelry and religiosity seem to go hand in hand: The same passion and energy dedicated to partying is put into long, sober, religious processions which clog the city’s narrow streets. Trumpets blare a fanfare, children practice long and hard to win the honor of carrying the float, candles jostle in unison as they glide in the dark of the night, and everyone runs to the streets to be a part of the procession.

Travel in Andalucía is like this. There’s always something going on. We were in Córdoba for the Festival of the Crosses, where each neighborhood parties around its own towering cross made of red carnations. Church bells ring not only a call to prayer, but a call to fiesta. And locals enthusiastically use a special day in the church calendar as a springboard for a community party.

Our filming took until midnight. We finished with the on-camera close of the show where, presiding over a table of local delights, I looked to the camera and said, “You want a recipe for a great trip? Blend history, culture, local friends, and great food. I hope you enjoyed our look at some of the highlights of Southern Spain. I’m Rick Steves. Until next time, keep on travelin’. Adiós.

Then we packed up the gear, said goodnight to Isabel, and caught a taxi home. We passed that romantically lit square — still thriving and hauntingly beautiful to me — with four people dancing flamenco on an elevated stage in the middle of a Renoir crowd. I desperately wanted to stop, but I knew it was too late to film — we were all just wasted. For the rest of my life, I’ll remember that image of the magic flamenco party that we didn’t film.

The next day, the barrio parties were basically over. We looked and looked and finally found one square that was lively. It was their first year entering the contest, their cross won first prize yesterday, and it seemed they’d been celebrating ever since. It was a scene of exhausted, hung-over happiness — like they had been eating and drinking and dancing for 24 hours (which they probably had). Now the cross was abandoned — missing carnations like a bum misses teeth, and the dancing was over. The last of the revelers gathered around the makeshift bar which seemed to provide physical support for those determined to carry on. I needed dancing around the cross for our TV show. Our guide said they were finished dancing. But with a simple suggestion, I was able to rouse the gang, and the yard was once again thriving with slinky flamenco.

We’ve been in Andalucía for a week filming our show, and it’s a hair-trigger flamenco society. I like hair-trigger cultures. Just as Austria is a hair-trigger waltzing society, Andalucía is just waiting for the simplest excuse to put castanets into motion and dance. (This flamenco party on-demand reminded me of a filming experience on a Danube cruise. Every boat I’d been on played Strauss waltzes for crowds to dance on the deck. Sure enough, I came with my crew to film — and our boat had no music system. It didn’t matter. I cajoled 30 retired Austrians and Germans out of their chairs, away from their white wines, and onto the deck. Singing a Strauss waltz and waving my arms dramatically, I struck up an imaginary orchestra, and the entire gang effortlessly broke into a glorious waltz. Coursing down the mighty Danube, we filmed as they danced a particularly smiley waltz. Later, back in our editing studio, we laid in some actual Strauss music to the same beat I provided on the Danube that day. And, as far as TV was concerned, the Blue Danube cruise came with music.)

On that little plaza in Córdoba, I exhorted the exhausted gang to dance around their tired carnation cross. Within seconds the energy and magic of the previous night’s party had recombusted. Sinuous arms, toned and leggy legs, heels with attitude, flowing hair…everything churned with a silky Andalusian soul. Like I imagine crickets rattle their tails for sex, Andalusian women dressed in their peacock finery click their castanets. And the starlight was brought to us all by alcohol.

With enough dancing filmed, I let the fake party die, and everyone resumed their positions — propped up by the bar. They filled a bottle cap with a ritual shot of firewater and gave it to me. As two dozen onlookers watched, I downed it. With my head thrown back, knowing the camera was rolling and all Andalusian eyes were on me, I was plunged into what seemed like a long silence. I wanted to say something really clever or meaningful. But I could only come up with a cliché — “Olé!” No problem. Everyone cheered.

Memories of Istanbul

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To commemorate the Smithsonian Presents Travels with Rick Steves magazine — now on sale online, and at newsstands nationwide — Rick is blogging about the 20 top destinations featured in that issue. One of those destinations is Istanbul.

I first visited Istanbul in the 1970s. Some of my earliest — and most vivid — memories of that trip are of the colorful locals. Scruffy kids sold cherry juice, and old men would grab huge cucumbers from wheeled carts, then peel, quarter, and salt them, and sell them for pennies. Traffic jams seemed to last all day…and drivers seemed to accept them as an excuse not to work.

Holding piping-hot hourglass-shaped glasses of tea tenderly by the cooler rim, I’d sip while Turks told me the wisdom of hot drinks on hot days: It heats up your body in order to make the heat of the day relatively cooler and more bearable. Sipping tea, we’d play backgammon with boards chattering all around with careening little dice — their handmade dots never not lining up.

Tourists would gather awestruck by a sound-and-light show, as the thunderous voice of the sultan, Suleyman the Magnificent, spun yarns of palace intrigue with the floodlit domes of the Blue Mosque towering overhead. (While a few tourist attractions around Europe still cling to the old sound-and-light technology, these days many of those shows seem almost comically antiquated.)

To intensify the Istanbul experience, I’d ride a dolmus (shared minibus taxi) into the suburbs, and wander through neighborhoods that had never encountered an American — places where locals would stare at me as if I couldn’t see them…as if I were an inanimate object. They just studied me like an intricate Brueghel painting. Being stared at like you’re a freak, sometimes you just decide to play the role. I’ll never forget the fun my friend and I had grabbing a football-shaped honeydew mellow, hiking it, and melodramatically going out for a pass and making the catch. Children would practice their English with me. They’d ask, “What is your name?” To confuse them I would say, “Four o’clock.”

I’d hang out in the venerable Pudding Shop, watching the older-than-me hippies gather and plan their across-Asia bus trips to India. Eating my sutlac — rice pudding with cinnamon — I’d dream about someday making that adventure. (Eventually I did.)

I visited Turkey every year through my twenties. It was the unplanned but natural cherry on top of every European adventure. Each year, the political tenor was different, depending upon who was in power there, who was president back home, and the latest propaganda. Politically naive pawns of the Cold War, the Turk on the street would flip-flop — one year, they’d say, “America: imperialist fascist.” The next year, they’d say, “America and Turkey friends” (with index fingers rubbing together in a way that seemed like some kind of sexual sign language).

While the 1970s magic in many places has been plowed under by modern affluence, exploring Istanbul in 2010 is every bit as rich an experience.