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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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Checking Out and Stupid Showers

Cameron Hewitt, who co-authors our Croatia & Slovenia guidebook, is part of our film crew for this 20-day, three-episode shoot in “Ex-Yugoslavia,” as people call it here. We were talking about showers and bathrooms and he told a good “cord” story. Showers in Europe come with an emergency cord to pull if you fall and can’t get up. While working as a tour guide, Cameron was checking into a hotel with one of our tour groups. Everyone on the tour was settling into their rooms. He was at the reception desk watching lights flash on, as tour members throughout the hotel were pulling their emergency cords. The hotel staff just shrugged, ignoring what could be calls for help, knowing it was just clueless tourists. I wondered what happens when someone actually does fall and can’t get up.

My staff knows I think design is a key to being successful in our business. Even in top-end hotels, I find some showers horribly designed. I just used a particularly narrow shower stall in which the hot/cold lever stuck directly into the center, making the already limited standing space even tighter. If I nudged it accidently while washing, it would either scald or freeze me. And to make a tough shower stall even worst, they didn’t give it a soap dish. There was no place to put shampoo or soap but on the floor or to balance it precariously atop the sliding door.

Hoteliers don’t appreciate an activist guidebook researcher. One of the rare suggestions I give to hotel owners is to actually take a shower in the rooms they rent and then show some compassion to people who do so every night…and invest in soap dishes.

An almost daily part of travel — packing up to check out of a room — is a kind of ritual for me. It takes time and is tinged with the risk of leaving something behind. My toiletries kit is so small that if I’m missing something there’s a big gap in it. My alarm clock is the final piece of that puzzle. Putting on my socks, I wonder if I really need to wear them again, considering my laundry level like checking a battery or a gas tank. I spread out the cover of my bed so nothing gets lost in a big wrinkle. I corral stuff scattered around the room onto the bed before tucking everything into my bag. For a one- or two-night stop, I rarely use the closet or drawers, so they don’t need to be checked. I carefully survey the electrical outlets to be sure I didn’t leave some recharging cord behind. I physically feel my security pouch to confirm that my passport — the only item easy to feel without opening it — is in there. As nearly every hotel has me leave it for awhile at the check-in desk, it is conceivable that I could forget to pick it up.

One advantage of packing light — you rarely leave something behind. I can’t remember forgetting anything in a hotel for years.

By the way, I was interviewed by Michael Duffy, assistant managing editor and Washington bureau chief of Time Magazine, recently. They sent a hotshot photographer to shoot me in Florence a couple weeks ago. And this week his article about me, my work, and the new Travel as a Political Act book is appearing worldwide in Time. Apparently I came one newsy, Supreme Court nominee story away from making it on the cover. It was a quiet news week…but not quite quiet enough. That would have been quite a break. Check it out.

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Risk Having the Door Slammed in Your Face — To Risk Being Invited In

We just finished filming a new show on Slovenia and it occurred to me that a tiny, typically overlooked nation of two million people is diverse and fascinating enough to pack a fine, 30-minute program. Discussing this with my camera crew, I dreamed up a new measure for shows: locals per script.

I wondered out loud if this ratio was the lowest population per episode of the hundred and some shows we’ve done so far: one show for two million people. Then we remembered Ireland — four shows for four million people. Poland — one show for 40 million — is about our worst by that measure. Thirteen shows on Italy is a lot but still some five million Italians per episode.

Relating back to our recent discussion of noisy American travelers: Travelers needing to avoid the noise can go to smoking sections — where they still exist. I was once settling into the scenic “Norway in a Nutshell” train ride from Oslo to Bergen. My car was a noisy commotion of American tourists. You know I love Americans — even noisy ones (a group to which, on occasion, I belong). But I was in a quiet mood…just wanted to be me, the rhythm of the rails, and Norway’s best mountain scenery. I simply moved to the smoking car — not a tourist in sight, just quiet Norwegians.

The same trick works in restaurants. If you don’t like the tourist noise…move to the smoking section (or dine after nine when the tables are filled with discrete Europeans rather than Americans who dine earlier).

Here are some thought-provoking comments I’ve heard in the last few days: Rome is no Legoland. I’m very much against gastronomic fundamentalism (go ahead, drink red wine with fish). The last games with the Olympic spirit were Sapporo in 1972 (then came Munich). Slovenian women have the strongest handshakes in Europe. Croats seem self-assured in their ineptitude. Seeing the decrepit and massive old factories here makes me nostalgic for my stamp collection.

Walking across an almost desolate square in the almost desolate Istrian Peninsula hilltown of Motovun a couple nights ago, I was marveling at how dead the town was. Then I heard a men’s a cappella group practicing. I snooped around to find out where they were. Around the corner, I went up a short flight of stairs and stared at a closed door separating me from their heavenly singing. I gently pushed the door open just a crack to see the group. It was a dozen men sitting in a half-circle with their backs to me, led by a woman director with springy hair who looked like a mad, young, female Beethoven standing before them and her electric keyboard. She saw me, abandoned her group, and literally ran to the door I opened. She opened the door further and invited me in with enthusiasm in keeping with her directing style. I pulled out a chair and savored the chorus — a traditional klapagroup typical of the Dalmatian Coast.

Bringing in my film crew, producer Simon agreed it was a magic moment…and we captured it, kicking off our Croatia episode with a wonderful bit of what we call “positive serendipity.” The lesson (which I intend to work into the script): when out wandering, poke around and risk having a door slammed on you — in order to risk being invited in.

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I’m in Slovenia…and Travel as a Political Act Is in the Bookstores

I’m in Slovenia filming. Tina Hiti, a Slovenian guide who leads our tours in this part of Europe, joined us to help out. Having lunch in the Julian Alps with Tina and my film crew, we all just cut off chunks of our dishes and shared the local specialties.

Normally laid-back Tina got visibly anxious. She said that the most stressful thing in her first year leading our tours was being surrounded by Americans who shared their dishes in restaurants. The plates would arrive and immediately…it’s a tasting festival. She wanted to build a shield around her plate with a sign saying, “Keep away. I ordered this dish and it’s not to share. That’s how we Slovenians eat.” Just for fun, once with her own Slovene friends, she tried the American-style sampling…and her friends became similarly uptight about their food.

Tina and Saso have a second child on the way. They live in what was the attic of her childhood home. Filming their place, I told her that in the US there was a stigma about 30-somethings living with their parents — especially if raising their own family. She said this arrangement is common, and considered good for everyone in places like Slovenia…it’s wonderfully economic, encourages great family values, and it’s equipped with built-in babysitters. But, there’s one unwritten rule: separate entrances. An old Slovenian saying teaches that in-laws may be welcome to drop in…but wearing shoes, not slippers.

We sat down to dinner with her parents. Tina’s dad, Gorazd, is famous throughout Slovenia as a three-time Olympic hockey star. It’s handy for Tina because whenever she gets pulled over by the police, she says her last name and ends up talking hockey with the cops.

I was getting Gorazd’s take on Tito and Yugoslavia. I asked if there was a nostalgia for the old days in Slovenia. He said that, for him, the problem with Yugoslavia was that socialism is good for bad workers and bad for good workers. And, he said, capitalism is good for good workers and bad for bad workers. As Slovenia had the best workers, Tito’s socialism favored other Yugoslavian republics — like Serbia. Slovenes are happy with their independence, and life here seems very good.

My Travel as a Political Actbook just hit the bookstores in the last week or so. While working in Europe, I have a strict ethic of not allowing fun marketing opportunities and work requests from my home office to interrupt me. My stride, focus, and rhythm here are a joy, and important to maintain.

But I’m so excited about this political book that I have made time for several newspaper and magazine interviews. (I even had a photographer from Timemagazine tracking me for a day in Florence. Stay tuned.)

With any interview, I try to come up with vivid anecdotes to make points. For each of these political book interviews, I find that whatever I’m currently experiencing, even in the last hour (like Gorazd’s memories of the frustrations of being a hard worker in Yugoslavia), provides a vivid example to illustrate the book’s message: that travel as a political act really makes your travels more fun and meaningful. (Sure, you can get the book in bookstores — or at a special price right here on our website.)

Last week, while traveling from Italy to Slovenia, I shared a train ride with a man from about the proudest corner of the USA. I was trying to work on my laptop, and he was talking — as many Americans are inclined to do — so loudly that everyone on the train had no choice but to hear his conversation.

He rattled on for the entire ride in a way that made it clear he had learned nothing, challenged none of his ethnocentric truths, and made no friends in his travels. His trip started with a sour note on the plane ride, where “the only difference between first class and economy was the curtain.” He didn’t bother with the Uffizi in Florence because “why wait in that long line.” He explained to all on board that the Middle East is a mess because “we should have never let Khomeini return to Iran.”

He treated his wife like he treated cultures he didn’t understand, saying, “She has to put up with me because all the available good-looking men were gay.”

He told me he was being met at the Venice train station by a water taxi, and someone would be on the track with his name on a signboard. I told him I write guidebooks, and with a guidebook he could get to his San Marco hotel on a public boat just about as fast, for $10 rather than $150.

That comment didn’t go over very well. (He used air quotes when referring to my “work.”) And, rather than get in a discussion about my other book (Travel as a Political Act), I went to another car so I could get me and my keyboard some peace and quiet.

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The Mouth Cannot Be Finished until It Smells of Cows

Enjoying a dinner in one of my favorite Roman restaurants, I struck up a conversation with the couple at the next table, and eventually joined them. (It turned out they were Robert and Ina Caro; Robert is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author for books on the Washington, DC power scene.) We were talking about how, in several of our favorite restaurants, the namesake owners eventually end up just shuffling around grating Parmesan cheese on their customers’ pasta. The restaurant is their life, their meaning, their persona, and it likely takes a toll on their family lives. As they grow older they really know nothing else.

We were talking about dessert with a man at a nearby table. I said, “For me, it’s cheese and a little more good red wine.” He told of how his grandfather always said, in local dialect, “La boca l’è minga straca se la spuza de vaca”— “the mouth cannot be finished until it smells of cows.” To the rustic foodie two generations ago, you must finish the meal with cheese.

The Caros were charming conversationalists and a joy to spend an evening with. I poured some of their water into my glass and was stunned at my first sip. The conversation was so stimulating, I just assumed they would be drinking their water frizzante(sparkling). I didn’t realize I was a snob about choice of water.

(By admitting to my bigotry in this area, I don’t mean to pre-empt my resident hecklers. Heckling is what makes London’s Speakers Corner so fun. And this blog is the Speakers’ Corner of my dreams.)

The Caros knew Paris very well but were in Rome for their first time. Ina described her first time in Rome like being well read and suddenly finding a great new author. I thought she was right (and that I should read more). I recalled the famous quote: “Living life without traveling is like having a great book and never turning the page.” Then I flipped it around: “Living life without reading is like having a passport but never using it.”

Either way, la vita è bella. Embrace it.

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Wild Boar and Fried Brain

Studying Italian restaurants in the last week, I came up with some theories.

While I’ve never liked putting up with TV noise when grabbing a simple meal in Europe, I now realize that when an eatery has the TV playing, it’s often because it’s where the local workers drop by to eat…and that indicates a low price and a good value.

I’ve realized I should stay away from restaurants famous for inventing a pasta dish. Alfredo (of fettuccini fame) and Carbonara are both Roman restaurants, and they’re both much more famous than they are good. And seeing how the back lanes of Rome are clogged with cars has inspired me to think a little about adopting a diet that won’t clog my arteries. (But not until after this trip.)

Italy’s no-smoking rules have caused some bars to stop serving drinks earlier than before. That’s because now that they have to be smoke-free, young drinkers who want a cigarette take their drink outside…which disturbs neighbors who didn’t hear the action back when people stayed (and smoked) inside. Neighbors complain, and bars comply.

The other day I was talking about styles of guiding with an Italian tour guide. He explained that guides here all know that when dealing with cruise-ship travelers or Americans, the more jokes you tell, the more tips you get. This shapes many guides’ delivery.

Italians are pretty excited about Fiat having purchased Chrysler, given Fiat’s hybrid technology and passion for fuel efficiency. I’ve spent two days in the last week with guides driving tough, economic little four-wheel-drive Fiat Pandas. They love them and predict that Americans will be driving small European-style cars in the future. I know when many Americans hear the word Fiat they think “Fix It Again Tony”… but it’s not your grandmother’s Fiat any more.

For the first time I encountered a guest house that chose not to install phones in its rooms because nearly all their guests travel with cell phones now.

While I pride myself in not needing to dress up to enjoy a good restaurant, there is a limit. I was in a restaurant yesterday where a couple of American travelers made me get my notebook out and jot down, “Even in a modest trattoria, shorts and T-shirts look goofy at dinner.”

Italian TV actually broadcasts Obama speeches and press conferences live — Italians remain enamored with our president. Part of their fascination with Obama is that it stokes their dream that they can replace their cartoonish president, Berlusconi, someday soon.

My American friend Annie, and her Italian husband, took me out to a great restaurant in Volterra. The waiter recommended the day’s specials: wild boar and fried brain. I’ve had lots of wild boar, as it’s big throughout Tuscany. And for the last few days I’ve had a fried brain, too.

 

Annie’s baby is bilingual. She says “Yummy liver” in Italian to her daddy and in English to her mommy.
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Annie has the cutest little two-year-old. Annie said parents raising bilingual children here figure their kids will at first fall six months behind linguistically, as they grapple with the confusion of double language input. But, by the age of five, most bilingual children are ahead of other kids their age in each language. As for little Julia, she was wondering why English words don’t end in vowels like all of her dad’s words. She says “clock-o,” “ghost-o,” and “dog-o.”