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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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Finding Good Eateries in Britain

One of my favorite challenges is to spiff up the eating sections in my guidebooks. Because I’m famously simple in my tastes among my family and friends, it seems odd that I have this power to recommend or not recommend restaurants in my guidebooks. While I would be hard-pressed to judge the yellowness of the butter or the dentition of the pasta or the glimmer of the fish eyes, I still manage to find and collect places that seem to please my traveling readers.

Having just completed my work in Edinburgh, York, Bath, and London, I am impressed by the passion of the couples (gay, straight, professional, or romantic) who run my favorite little places. Rather than big, highly advertised formula places, I like quirky little ten-table places that are the creative vision of these entrepreneurial restaurateurs.

Doing my research, I rely heavily on the advice of B&B hosts (who have no vested interest in anything other than happy guests). If they’re good, it’s impressive how quickly new little restaurants gain a huge reputation.

In Edinburgh, the Wedgwood, run by Paul and Lisa (who served me haggis with pigeon — my favorite haggis ever), is a delight. In Bath, Casanis French Bistro (run by Jill and Laurent) has been open only a couple of months, and is already on everyone’s short list. (It’s fun to see a traveler fall in love with a chef, bring him home, and start a winning restaurant.)

Not only new places are fresh. In Bath, at Tilly’s Bistro, Dave and Dawn have been at it for nearly two decades and still scamper up and down their stairs and weave through their tight tables like it was their debut. Enjoying a great cheese and port plate for dessert, I told Dave this was my idea of a fine dessert. It didn’t surprise me that he admitted his desserts suffered a bit because he also was “passionate about cheese and port.”

Going back year after year, I often find the once-magic place has ebbed, and its talent is turning on taste buds just down the street. In York, Café Concerto has long been a favorite. I dropped by Café No. 8 and was blown away — everything that charmed me about Café Concerto at its peak and more. Then, savoring my figs with local blue cheese, I learned that Martin, who runs No. 8, came from Café Concerto.

I don’t like recommending chains, but some are just too fun or too right. The pan-Asian noodle slurp-a-thon Wagamama is everywhere now…and just as great as the day its first location took London’s Soho by storm a decade ago. The Italian chain Ask seems to nab the best grand old dining hall in many towns, and fill it with happy eaters enjoying decent pasta and pizzas at good prices. And how does Starbucks get the best real estate in each city? If I’m in need of a fix, I can intuit where they’ll put a branch.

In each town, there seems to be a hot Italian place where as soon as you step inside, you know its going to be a fun evening (Martini’s in Bath, Il Positano in Edinburgh). There’s something about a gang of happy Italian waiters and cooks that makes you just want to drink red wine and slurp spaghetti.

English office workers make a routine out of getting a top-quality sandwich. When going for a budget sandwich lunch, you might as well skip the tired chain and find the deli with the line of local professionals. York Hogroast dishes out great pork sandwiches in York. In Bath, at Chandos Deli, I just lingered on my stool enjoying my wonderful sandwich and glass of tap water while watching all the yuppies swing by for their take-away meal. My son Andy reported that during his recent studies in London, each day he’d go to the same winning sandwich place that included free Wi-Fi, and enjoy his meal on a shoestring while checking email.

Chinese buffets (like Jasmine, just outside Monk Bar in York) serve all-you-can-eat meals for $12. That’s fun and cheap. But their take-away boxes (fill one up for $7) can feed two, and that has to be the best cheap, hot meal going.

In general, I found British portions huge. Rather than two appetizers, two mains, and two desserts with wine for $70 each, a couple can order two appetizers, split a main, split a dessert, and drink tap water — and probably fill up fine, enjoy the same atmosphere, and get out for $30 each. Waiters seem to sympathize with the budget traveler these days, and accommodate our cost-cutting measures with a smile.

Great budget values in any town are the cafés in the market, where you can get baked beans with your breakfast all day long. And many churches have cafés where volunteers from the congregation serve up soup and sandwich for a price that’s not particularly cheap, but you know you’re supporting a humble local congregation’s community work with your lunch money.

Good fish-and-chips joints are rare. In each town, there seems to be one that is evangelical about grease and has won the undying allegiance of a passionate local following. One thing these winning chippies seem to have in common: a guy behind the counter who’s as greasy as the fish.

I was quite frustrated to find that many pubs that once served great pub meals are backing off on their pub grub to make more money selling beer. That attracts a younger and noisier crowd, and it becomes no place to enjoy a meal. In the Victoria Station area near my favorite London B&Bs, I found my two favorite pubs were overwhelmed by drinkers. Thankfully, I found St. George’s Tavern (on Hugh Street and Belgrave Road), with famous sausages, a commitment to serving good pub meals, and three fine eating zones — scenic sidewalk tables, sloppy pub interior, and classier back room. In London now you’ll pay $25 for a good pub meal with a big glass of beer.

I’m purging my books of stupid things that, for some odd reason, are just in all the guidebooks. I just deleted the paragraph about Spotted Dick (which I can’t remember seeing on a menu in the last decade). So that Spotted Dick can rest in peace, here’s what it said:

Spotted Dick is a sponge pudding with currants. How did it get its name? Some say it looks like a spotted dog and dogs were called Dick. Another theory suggests that “Dick,” “duff,” and “dog” are all variants of the word “dough.” One thing’s for sure: the stuff isn’t selling very well today, thanks to the name’s connotation. Some are considering renaming it “Spotted Richard.”

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Eddie the Verger and My First London Blister

 

A friendly verger greets tourists (who pay to get in unless they are really really worshipping) at Westminster Abbey.
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Eddie the Verger is posted in his red robe with a warm smile at the exit of Westminster Abbey. His responsibility: to sort through those who want to go into the abbey to worship, and those tourists who fold their hands and reverently say, “I’d like a few moments with the Unknown Soldier, please.” (By masquerading as worshippers, sightseers can sidestep the £12 — or $24 — entrance fee to the church.)

Dropping by, I tell him I’m working on the Rick Steves book, and he says, “I’d like a word with that Rick Steves. He implies in his guidebook you can pop in to worship in order to get a free visit to the abbey.”

I tell him who I am and we sort it out. Really charmed by Eddie, I agree that rather than promote the fact that visitors can pop in anytime for free if they claim to be worshippers, I’ll encourage those tourists to actually experience the church the way it was designed to be experienced, by listing the busy daily schedule of worship services (for example, there is a sung evensong six days a week, when anyone is welcome for free).

Then Eddie took me into a place where no tourist goes — the Jerusalem Chamber, where the monks set up shop to actually translate the Bible from ancient Greek into English, creating the King James Version.

Knowing the dangers of getting the word of God into the people’s language, the potentially dire consequences for these reformers, and the importance of these heroic steps back in the 16th century, I got the same goose bumps as when I was in the Wartburg castle and saw the room Martin Luther holed up in while he did essentially the same thing for the German-speaking world.

Eddie deposited me in the abbey, and I visited like any other tourist — enjoying the great new audio tour narrated by Jeremy Irons. Listening to his soothing voice, I enjoyed some private time with great history: the marble effigy of Queen Elizabeth I, made from her death mask in 1603 — considered the most realistic likeness of her; the coronation chair that centuries of kings and queens sat upon right here in the abbey on their big day; the literary greats of England gathered as if conducting a posthumous storytelling session around the tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer (Mr. Canterbury Tales); the poppies lining the tomb of Britain’s Unknown Soldier — with the US Congressional Medal of Honor given to him by General Pershing in 1921 hanging from the neighboring column; the statue of Martin Luther King added as an honorary member of this now heavenly English host; and so much more.

The steep admission fee includes this marvelous one-hour guided walk with the best-designed audio wands I’ve encountered anywhere in Europe. (These things are really getting good.) I started my visit wondering if I should produce my own audio tour for Westminster Abbey. Now that the abbey’s audioguide is included in the admission, I’m off the hook. Instead, I’ll strongly encourage all who visit to take this tour with gusto.

Then I stepped across the street into the basement of the Methodist church for a cheap soup and sandwich, wrapped a Band-Aid around my toe — cushioning the first blister of my trip — and headed out for more of London.

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Risky England and Pointy Umbrellas

I’m having a great time researching my guidebook in England. I really am. But a few things are bugging me. I just need to vent for a minute. I love traveling in England and still marvel at the fun of it — but those coming this year on a budget will need to cut a few corners. From my experience, it’s doable, and the essential fun of being in Britain is not determined by how much you’re spending. Having said that…now let me vent.

I nearly got into an argument at the Bath tourist information office. I guess I was in a sour mood at how expensive things are, compounded by how greedy Bath, the most delightful (and probably richest) little city in England, has gotten. Tourism is its bread and butter, yet even the tourist office — now privatized — does its best to gouge visitors.

My guidebook listed the tourist office’s free phone number — the one dedicated to booking rooms. (The office gets a fee, plus takes a 10 percent deposit — which they pocket — and B&Bs then need to increase their prices to recoup the TI kickback. You and your host do better if you book direct.) I give that toll-free number to my readers for tourist information.

As I updated my guidebook information, they asked me to change that phone number to their 0906 number. In Britain, “09” in the prefix sends up flares. In each country, you need to watch out for costly phone sex-type prefixes. The Bath tourist office now charges a dollar a minute to ask them for advice on how to spend money in their overpriced town. They no longer give out maps, but sell a lousy little sheet for $2 — no better than the one hotels give out for free. More square footage in the TI is devoted to their retail shop than information. And a far handier map is for sale just steps away for $2.50.

 

Bath’s ancient Roman spa has more appeal than its 21st century spa.
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Part of Bath’s desperate greed is because their spa project ran about $50 million over budget, and they’re trying to pay that back. Locals as well as tourists are being hit. A local told me that on the town’s picturesque Pulteney Bridge, which is open only to buses and taxis, the city hall was photographing unknowing tourists as well as sloppy locals and fining each vehicle that crossed $120. For a while, the city was netting $60,000 a day just on Pulteney Bridge infractions. (By the way, anywhere in Europe, tourists driving in city centers can unknowingly cross a no-go line and be hit with a huge fine by mail.)

Britain is really expensive, and apparently it’s tough for locals, too. Everyone is talking about the recession (they raise prices “because of the recession,” which makes no sense to me), the high cost of oil (they blame the USA), and the housing and mortgage bust (just like ours). Local minimum wage is about six pounds ($12) per hour, which I think has even less buying power than the minimum wage in the USA. Knife violence (four killings just yesterday) and the singer Amy Winehouse (she keeps slapping bouncers and being photographed with “blobs of white stuff in her nose”) seem to dominate the tabloids. Each day this week, wasted Amy has been shown oblivious to the sober world on the cover of the leading papers (the National Enquirer types dominate on the tube).

Part of the high cost of living is the fear everyone has of being sued or burned up in a fire. I can’t walk down a hall without having to open big, heavy fire doors. Whenever I encounter something really inefficient or absurd, locals say, “risk assessment.”

School kids are taking fewer historic field trips. Why? “Risk assessment…it’s too legally risky for the schools.” Some walking tours don’t go if it’s raining. Why? “Risk assessment…danger of an umbrella poking someone’s eye out.” A male local guide refuses to do a tour if he has only one, female customer. Why? “Risk assessment…she may claim he molested her.” Why is the water not really hot in my room? “Risk assessment…we don’t want guests to scald themselves.” Why can’t I open my window more than four inches? “Risk assessment… a baby fell out of a window once right here in London.” What?! “We have even more lawyers than you do. It’s ruining our country. A burglar can sue me if he’s rifling through my home and he trips on a stray cord.”

As long as you have money, there’s no risk that you won’t have a good time here in England. But bring your pointy umbrella and a lawyer just in case.

(By the way, if you haven’t seen it yet, our daughter Jackie is writing a fun blog of her own about her high-school-graduation, no-parents-in-sight trip through Europe.)

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Anglican Ritual, Snuff, and Meat Loaf in Bath

Shaking off my umbrella, I stepped into my room exhausted after a long day in Bath, England. Blowing my nose, I noticed a spray of red dirt on the Kleenex…and I remembered the snuff.

Paul, who runs the Star Inn — the most characteristic pub in town — keeps a tin of complementary snuff tobacco on a ledge for customers. I tried some, and — while a drunk guy from Wales tried to squeeze by me holding two big pints of the local brew over my head — I asked Paul about it. He said English coal miners have long used it because cigarettes were too dangerous in the mines, and they needed their tobacco fix. Paul wanted me to take the tin. I put it back on the ledge and said I’d enjoy it the next time I stopped by.

Walking home through the English mist, I reviewed my day backwards. I was pleased that even by just researching B&Bs, restaurants, and pubs in one of the most cutesy and touristy towns in Britain, my day was filled with memories.

School’s out and, while I’m heading home, the streets are filled with young kids partying. English girls out clubbing wiggle down the street like the fanciest of fish lures — each shaking their tassels and shimmying in a way sure to catch a big one. As one passed me, eyeing a gaggle of guys smoking outside a pub, I overheard her saying, “No spray, no lay…no cologne, you go home alone.”

The rock star Meat Loaf was playing a big concert in the park, and during his performance, much of Bath rocked with him. While the concert was sold out, I gathered with a hundred freeloaders craning their necks from across the river for a great view of the stage action.

The musical highlight of my day, however, was a worship service at the Bath Abbey. Earlier I had logged onto www.bathabbey.org, and — bam! — the day’s schedule was right there: Sung matins service at 11:00, visitors welcome.

I’ve noticed that any on-the-ball B&B or guesthouse these days provides free Wi-Fi for guests, and more and more travelers are carrying laptops or handheld computers to get online. I need to be better about using the Internet — it’s how today’s travelers book and buy things like train tickets while on the road.

The Anglican service was crisp, eloquent, and traditional. I was struck by the strong affirmation of their Catholic heritage, the calls for sobriety, and the stress on repentance (repeated references to how we are such wretched sinners). “Knife violence” (by gangs in the streets), which has replaced fear of terrorism as the main threat to communities in England, was a subject of prayers.

The Anglican worship ritual is carefully shuttled from one generation to the next. That continuity seemed to be underlined by the countless tombs and memorials lining walls and floors — worn smooth and shiny by the feet of centuries of worshippers. With the living and the dead all present together, the congregation seemed to raise their heads in praise as sunlight streamed through windows. (Bath’s particularly bright church is nicknamed “the Lantern of the West” for its open, airy lightness and huge windows.)

Glowing Bath stone columns sprouted honey-colored fan vaulting fingers, and cherubic boys in white robes and ruffs (old-time ruffled collars) filled the nave with song — making it a ship of praise. The church was packed with townsfolk, proper and still. Sitting among them, I was no longer a tourist. The scene felt timeless. I gazed at the same windows for the same inspiration that peasants sitting on these pews centuries ago sought.

 

Local volunteer guides still bring the wonders of Bath to life.
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The sermon was about Christian servanthood. The pastor’s stern comment about the USA took me by surprise: “If, after 9/11, that great Christian nation, the USA, took its responsibility to be a servant among nations seriously, how different our world would be today.” When he was finished and the offering plate was passed, his gentility also caught me off guard: “If you’re a visitor, please don’t be embarrassed to let the plate pass. It’s a way for our regular members to support our work here at the Bath Abbey.”

After the choir paraded out, the huge central doors — doors I didn’t even realize existed — were opened. Indoors and outdoors mingled, as the congregation spilled out onto the main square.

Bath is an expensive town in an expensive country. A young couple hired to manage an elegant Georgian guesthouse I recommend told me they took the gig just to live in Bath. (“Work-a-day English can’t really afford to live here.”) They have an apartment in the basement, but enter through the grand front door just to marvel at the elegant building they live in and manage.

I started my day joining a gaggle of curious visitors in front of the Abbey, where five of a club of 60 volunteer guides divided up the gang and proceeded to take them on a free town walk. My guide, a retired schoolteacher, explained that in 1930 the town’s mayor — proud of the charms of his historic town — took the first group gathered here on a free town walk…and “the mayor’s honorary corps of volunteers” has been leading free walks daily ever since.

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Spanking Each Other’s Lederhosen Shiny

After a few months of denial when it comes to the impact of our weak dollar on travel, I have to admit that I’m finding fewer Americans on the road. And at many sights that were notorious for crowds and delays, visitors no longer have to be as concerned about how to get in without a long wait. As I update my guidebooks, I find myself deleting related tricks and warnings (such as recommending booking tickets to Mad Ludwig’s castles in advance). Part of the reason is fewer crowds. The other is smarter systems to move the masses through these popular sights.

It’s fun to see tourism evolving with our age. When I started traveling, the elegant nighttime “son et lumiere” (sound and light) shows were a huge deal. People would bundle up, pay a steep price, and sit under the stars on folding chairs. They’d watch colored spotlights light up the ruined arches of static, old sights, as a cast of grand and evocative voices thundered the history of that place.

Whether listening to the spirit of King Henry at a château on the Loire, Napoleon at Paris’ Les Invalides, great Greeks at the base of the Acropolis, the pharaoh at Giza, or Quetzalcoatl at the pyramids outside Mexico City, we would thrill to the sounds and lights bringing those stones to life. Nearly all those shows are now long gone.

In this fast-paced age, where special effects make “sound and light” shows as exciting as watching paint dry, traditional music shows are endangered as well. It’s much tougher than it used to be to find quality Norwegian or Scottish folk shows. Only in Ireland has traditional folk music stayed strong in pubs. And a good evening of slap dancing and yodeling in the Tirol is going the way of the hokey-pokey.

Rather than spanking each other’s lederhosen shiny, the people of Reutte, the town I often call home in Austria’s Tirol, seem more focused in maintaining their community for their families. As an example of how committed the town is to maintaining its character, real estate there can be sold only to those using it as a primary residence. The people of Reutte saw that many other formerly vibrant Alpine towns made a pile of money, but lost their sense of community, by becoming resorts. These towns allowed wealthy foreigners — who just drop in for a week or two a year — to buy up everything. Now streets of these towns are shuttered up and dead for most of the year, and these towns have forever lost their real vibrancy.