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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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They Still Birth Pianos in Vienna

As I ponder my passion for Europe and why I’m a Europhile, I’ve recently been writing about my experience as a schoolboy visiting the Vienna factory of the most luxurious and expensive pianos in the world, Bösendorfer. Two blog entries ago, I mused that the old-fashioned quality of those pianos, built so lovingly that they were almost birthed and each had its own personality, likely is no longer the case in our fast-food world.

It’s exciting (or perhaps scary) how one’s writing can spread these days. I just received this email from Rupert Loeschnauer in Vienna, who assured me that their pianos are made “faithful to their traditional heritage.” (I’ll have to take him up on his offer next time I’m in Vienna.) Here’s his letter:

Dear Rick,

I found your interesting article (October 18) on HeraldNet. With great curiosity I read about your visit to Bösendorfer in Vienna back in the late 1960s and early ’70s and about your fear that old-time quality might have gone.

Don’t worry, Rick, the loving care for making our wonderful grands and pianos hasn’t gone. The employees in Bösendorfer factory, who are without exception great masters of their trade, have remained faithful to their traditional heritage. Still more than 10.000 production steps – most of them still done by hand – are executed per instrument to create a true work or art. Still we use the best materials for our pianos. And when it comes to the unique singing tone: we still treat the entire instrument as a resonating body, thereby achieving Bösendorfer’s unique richness of tone color and its typical singing timbre.

We would be glad, Rick, if we could host you another time in Vienna and show you that within our fast moving, mass-produced modern world you still can find traditional quality: products that are not manufactured but being birthed. How I like your words!

With best regards from Vienna Rupert Loeschnauer

I have a habit when I travel that I must open the keylid on any piano I see. The make of the piano gives me an indication of the values and priorities and appreciation of quality an establishment will have. While cheap Asian pianos dominate these days (I remember doing the math once and finding that one big Asian piano company produces as many pianos in a month as Bösendorfer does in 30 years), I’m always pleased (and impressed) to open the lid and see that classic Bösendorfer emblem. (In case you wondered, the Beatles played a Blutner, from East Germany.)

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Dropping in on Georgetown

Anne and I have been completely immersed at our daughter’s “parents’ weekend” here at Georgetown University in Washington DC. We have been getting to know her friends, teachers, deans, dorm, campus, and the surrounding neighborhood. She is just energized to learn and surrounded by new friends that will make the environment here even richer.

I don’t think Anne and I have ever wanted anything so much as to see our daughter Jackie get into this great school. It’s funny when you really want something badly and you have no power. We are so thankful she’s here.

While the students were carrying on with their regular class loads, parents were given a chance to sample the professors here. We attended a lecture by a psychology professor (Fathali Moghaddam) called “How Globalization Spurs Terrorism: Challenges for the Next President.” It reminded me how stimulating the university years are. Here’s a peek at my notes:

Threats of globalization hit different societies differently. We fear losing jobs, while many fear losing their culture.

The demands of the global economy (large-scale units) are pitted against the demands of cultural identity, causing anxiety. Thousands of years ago, the logical social unit was a group of around 500 people. Today that number is getting huge (with vast free trade zones). Cultural diversity is the victim. For example, it’s estimated that there were 15,000 languages on the planet 500 years ago. Today there are about 6,000. By 2100, there will be a predicted 2,000. A handful of languages go extinct every year.

Rising material expectations are unrealistic. Everyone wants to be rich as Orange County. That will result in some pushing and shoving.

Today there is greater movement of people and cultural forces without “pre-adaptation.” Groups are getting into contact without a gradual readiness for contact, resulting in more conflict.

“Sacred carriers” become more important to a group when it is under threat. That’s why the Islamic headscarf (symbolizing the traditional position of women in Islamic society, which is threatened by Western culture) is important to fundamentalist Muslims. That’s also why the American flag is most important to Americans who feel their way of life is threatened. We may ask why the scarf is such a bone of contention. They wonder the same about our flag.

Walking back to our Georgetown hotel — on well-worn red-brick sidewalks past stout and lovingly painted two-story buildings, square yet elegant, and kicking blazing golden leaves that just fell — I thought how great it is that Jackie is being exposed to people like professor Moghaddam, who’s from Iran (and who gave us his home phone when I promised him I’d encourage Jackie to consider him). As we walked, we thought Jackie will enjoy what must be one of the best “U districts” in the entire country. M Street and Wisconsin Avenue are a cancan of tempting places to shop, eat, and drink. I wear my little “Hoya Dad” pin with pride and gratitude. And I can only wonder about the fun and learning this school will bring Jackie.

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Fine Pianos and Cheese

When you travel, enjoy the cultural wonders. I used to be put off by those sophisticates in Europe. They’re so into their fine wine and stinky cheese, and even the cultural soil that created it all. But now I love being the cultural bumpkin.

Sure, I’m simple. I was raised thinking cheese is orange and the shape of the bread. Slap it on and…voilà! Cheese sandwich. Over there, cheese is not orange nor the shape of the bread. In France alone, you could eat a different cheese every day of the year. And it wouldn’t surprise me if people did. These people are passionate about their cheese.

I love it when my favorite restaurateur in Paris, Marie-Alice, takes me shopping in the morning and shows me what’s going to shape the menu tonight. She takes me into her favorite cheese shop. It’s a festival of mold. Picking up the moldiest, gooiest wad, Marie-Alice takes a deep whiff, and groans ecstatically, “Oh, Rick, smell zees cheese. It smells like zee feet of angels.”

I’m her wide-eyed student. It’s fun to be on the receiving end of all that cultural, gastronomic, and regional pride. I see it as a learning opportunity. Thankfully people are sophisticated about different things, and when we have the opportunity to meet the expert, it can be good for all.

While my father doesn’t know the first thing about cheese, he is sophisticated about pianos. He was a piano tuner in Seattle, and he imported fine pianos from Europe. When I was young, he took me to the Bösendorfer factory in Vienna, where the world’s finest pianos were made. I remember thinking they weren’t made — they were birthed. Touring the factory, which fills a former monastery, we learned how the wood was aged and the imported felt was made from just the right sheep’s wool. In each of the former monks’ cells, they proudly produced only two pianos per worker per year. The result of this lovingly labor-intensive production process: each piano had its own personality.

I remember going to Vienna on those first trips with my dad. Back in the late ’60s and early ’70s, I’d join him on a flight to Vienna. They’d line up five or six of these grand pianos — the finest and most expensive in the world. I’d hop from bench to bench playing them as my dad would analyze the personality of each, matching it with his client’s taste back in Seattle. He’d make the selection, autograph the sounding board, they’d put it in a box, and ship it to some lucky American pianist. Bringing that Old World quality to the New World was the joy of my dad’s work.

While this old-time quality is gone — a casualty of our mass-produced modern world — perhaps having seen this is one of the reasons I’m enthusiastic about sharing the fine points of European culture. Bösendorfers may no longer be produced with such loving care. But, thankfully, the cheese still smells like zee feet of angels.

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DARE to Defuse a Bloody Problem

Last week, I went to Tijuana. After I made the decision to go and purchased the plane ticket, the newspapers reported a rash of killings in Tijuana. I saw my emotions stir up fear, as is human nature, and I sent in my brains to quell that nervousness with common sense. It’s a city of a million and 20 drug runners are gunned down in turf wars with the cops in the wee hours in bad neighborhoods. Let’s go.

Once in TJ, standing there on the curb, I noticed a clear military and police presence: machine-gunners in “Federale” uniforms tense atop speeding armored jeeps. I found that exciting and fun to photograph…and nothing for the tourist to worry about. As usual, the image from a distance was one of tension. With the bloody news and concerned loved ones, I wondered if my visit was wise. And also as usual, when I got there, I found no tension. Locals I quizzed discounted the bloodshed, saying, “The dead are just drug pushers — they’re killing each other, and that makes fewer of them we need to deal with.” (They’re actually killing police, too.)

I guess they’re planning on a long struggle, as I saw the next generation of drug warriors being trained. I met what looked like a Boy Scout troop in juvenile police DARE uniforms learning how to be policemen to fight a drug war stoked by the US appetite for recreational drugs (it is American consumers, after all, who make up a substantial part of the lucrative drug market). With that training, these kids will have an exciting job awaiting them when they turn 18.

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Looking at the loving teachers and the new DARE uniforms, I wondered about the cost and violence that comes with drugs. I pondered the countless American boys waiting until they’re old enough to “fight evil” funded by the illegality of drugs in poppy-rich Afghanistan. I envisioned that war heating up and the USA getting sucked deeper into a quagmire much like the one that helped bring down the USSR, when gung-ho Russians underestimated the task of fighting and winning a war in Afghanistan.

Then I recalled seeing the movie No Country for Old Men— the entire plot based on a very violent confrontation between police and drug runners. Bloody movies, shoot-’em-ups just south of the border, expensive wars in lands rich in poppies: It’s all got me thinking. Imagine if drugs were suddenly made legal (people who chose to use them were held criminally responsible for bad things they did) and the money and violence associated with drugs disappeared overnight. That would infuriate a lot of very bad people who make money because drugs are illegal. Just a thought I had in Tijuana.

(PS: I am what drug reform activists call an “incrimentalist”–I support decriminalization of marijuana but not harder drugs. The pot issue is clear to me. I’m still struggling with the more sweeping approach to taking the crime, money, and violence out of hard drug use and abuse. Except for one delightful mushroom dinner in Bali, I’ve never ventured beyond pot.)

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How Armpitty is Tijuana?

A year ago I was excited about Tangier in Morocco and wrote on this blog, “It’s no longer the Tijuana of Africa.” I didn’t realize I’d touch a nerve with people who think TJ is notthe armpit of North America.

So I went to Tijuana this weekend to give it a second look. Okay, I admit, I’ve never been there … so I’d give it a first look. (I also wanted to be in a rough border town, where First World meets Developing World, as I continue to work on my upcoming book about the value of travel as a political act.)

I had a great time. While TJ is not a destination most would fly to in itself, as a side trip from San Diego or a stop while heading south, visiting it is a great experience. As an observer of the cultural and economic riptides created where two worlds collide, it’s a fascinating case study.

At what locals claim is the busiest international border in the world, 24 lanes are busy with traffic — 24/7. It’s easy to get out of the USA … tough to get back in. A handy trolley zips tourists from San Diego literally to the border for $3 (it also takes Mexican workers into San Diego on a daily commute that thousands make). Drivers can park within 100 yards of the border for $8 a day. Pedestrians step right in without showing a passport, power past the trinket stalls and aggressive cabbies, and head for the towering arch that marks the start of Revolution Avenue (and all the fun).

Getting out of Mexico is different. Pedestrians shuffle fairly quickly through an officious passport check. Cars are generally stacked up for a several-hour wait. As taxis are dirt cheap and there’s always a very long wait to drive north across the border, there’s no reason to drive in if you’re just visiting TJ.

Tijuana, barely a century old, thrives today with 1.5 million people. A local explained there’s a big funnel from Mexico to the USA and this is the little hole through which everything flows. While there’s the cross border business — legal and illegal — there’s also a thriving local industry stoked by 650 maquiladoras:assembly factories for First World manufacturers that locate here for the cheap labor. With plants for companies such as Samsung, Sony, and Hitachi, more TVs are assembled here than in any other city.

Throughout Mexico, Tijuana is considered a place of opportunity. With this thriving economy comes a thriving culture: music, arts, an impressive cultural center, and lots of people who love San Diego’s public television station. Everywhere I walked, I met locals who were regular viewers of my travel show on KPBS — something I expect when I cross the border to the north and visit Canadians in Vancouver but something I didn’t even consider in the south.

The city, while ramshackle architecturally, is impressively clean. The streets were free of litter. Locals thank their new government that “gets things done.”

Tijuana’s tiny old town, which radiates from the arch, feels like ramshackle 1950s. You can’t miss all the things people come to a border town for: plastic surgery, pharmaceuticals without prescriptions, dentistry, cheap hair cuts, Cuban cigars, and of course jumping beans. The kitsch is riveting: glow-in-the-dark tattoos, hucksters hollering “Hello, 100 percent off today!”, donkeys painted like zebras on each street corner, ready for you to don a sombrero and pose for a photo.

Bars that feel like saloons come with cheap prostitutes wearing down their stiletto heels at their doors. Checking out a few $20 hotels, I struggled by transvestites patiently waiting for something in the lobbies … while watching Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. Apparently, the siesta is alive and well, as these places also rent rooms by the hour. (While there is a hotel strip with big high-rise places, there are plenty of decent places — without company for hire in the lobbies — renting $40 rooms on or near Revolution Avenue.)

After the salesman promised me it came with a fine guided narration in English, I hopped onto a two-hour, $10 bus tour. It was a great tour — but with no guide. I chatted the best I could with the driver for the duration. He said the USA and Mexico are brothers, stuck together. If the US gets the flu, Mexico gets pneumonia. He explained the youth culture is crazy about Japan these days, explaining all the colorfully painted hair and people dressed up as different pop culture characters. Hopping off the open top tour bus at the cathedral, I joined a Mass.

Grabbing a pew in the cathedral, I sat there with hundreds of Mexicans, enjoying a vivid reminder that the gang the tourist sees along Revolution Avenue and in front of the saloons is photogenic but not representative. This was the real Tijuana. Surrounded by well-worn people, I pondered how all were at various stages on the same ride up and down the parabolas of their respective lives. These people, taking an hour out of their Sundays to worship, wearing crude t-shirts, hooded sweatshirts, and shoes without arch support picked up for $3 at a street market, were the Joe Six-Packs and Hockey Moms of their world.

And as I poured out of that church with all those people and bought a bag of fresh baked churros encrusted in sugar, it occurred to me how wrong I was to consider Tijuana the armpit of the Western Hemisphere.