Steves Comments 03
As I write this, the original location of these comments is at http://www.ricksteves.com/blog/. There is no way to tell how long it will be available, but there are all the stories Rick wrote, and all the comments of his readers, including all of my posts, and all the comments and complaints about my posts, etc.
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Rick, I wouldn’t suppose you need any suggestions for travel destinations, but to add to the suggestion of Delfi, noted above, I would add the Metéoro Monasteries. There are huge columns of rock, with monasteries built on the top.
Google it, it is most amazing building site I have ever seen
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Sep 01, 2007 3:06 PM
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I hope no one minds that this may be a duplicate from me, but just for Rachel — —
In addition to clothes, money, and a passport, the most important thing to take with you on vacation is a positive attitude. It’s amazing how many stupid, ignorant, inefficient, obnoxious people we meet when (if?) we are in a bad mood.
That was first published as my Letter to the Editor of the Wall Street Journal, 30 years or so ago.
For 25 years I traveled somewhere most every week on business, in the years before the years of travel with my Sweetie.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Sep 04, 2007 3:02 PM
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Frequent solo traveler said, “Did Avignon this year … .”
I can’t resist telling this story. When the bridge, Le Pont D’ Avignon continued, before it became a ruin of four arches, it arrived at an island in the middle of the river.
Can you imagine, on that island is the campground, with the floodlit Le Pont D’ Avignon, the Pope’s Palace, and the town wall all in view from our dining/bedroom window. My Sweetie and I have spent nights on that Island in three years, and enjoyed another daytime visit.
The Häagen-Dazs store and McDonald’s restaurant are just across the main street from each other, a couple of blocks from the Pope’s Palace.
Aw well, I violated all the rules, but I just couldn't resist.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Sep 07, 2007 9:48 AM
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Rick, I Enjoyed the Rahner interview.
We are not Pollyannish about our travels, but there is no place where we have visited in 70 countries and Islands that we would not be happy to revisit. Some are more interesting than others, but when we travel we know it is their home, if we don’t like it we can leave. We are there to learn about their home and way of life, and we try not to tell everyone that our home and our culture is best, even though we are positive that it is.
Our experience, “A clerk in a grocery or bakery is thrilled to meet an American, a waiter and a bell hop are thrilled to get a tip.”
Rick said, “ The less you spend the more you experience.”
In 1989 a Visa bill corresponded with our month in Italy, including Sicily. All of the charges for that month were included. Including prorated cost of plane fare and RV, Sweetie and I spent a month in Italy and Sicily, for about $15 or $20 per day, more than just staying home. Trip was 115 days.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Sep 13, 2007 10:26 AM
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Each time we approach Rothenburg, Germany, Emmy wonders if it can really be as delightful and captivating as she remembers from our last stay. On our several visits so far, Sweetie has yet to be disappointed. It looks like just maybe it was built by elves. Rothenburg’s wall has a roof that protected the guards who walked guard-duty in years gone by, and the tourist who walks tourist-duty today. There are about thirty towers, perhaps a half-dozen gates for vehicles, and several more for pedestrians.
Just a block from the Marktplatz in Rothenburg, Germany, there is a restaurant with a very special filigreed, gilded, decorative wrought-iron sign extending over the sidewalk, with small Golden Arches conspicuously displayed.
I stepped into the street and stopped the cooperative traffic behind me, the last car dissapeared and I got that perfect picture, except — what a let down, it had no character. All that effort, and it’s obvious that people and things “do a picture make.”
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Sep 17, 2007 3:54 PM
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While Emmy would look for things to buy in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, I would look for a place to sit and work on the ache in my back, in a muscle just above my wallet — it must be from reaching for it so often. Sweetie thinks the soreness is because my wallet muscle just hasn't been exercised enough.
There is a new bit of blue in the The Süleyman Mosque (Blue Mosque). A sun-visor I bought in Athens, was lost inside the Blue Mosque. A blue visor, of course. Days could be spent here — but if we spend over 30 minutes here this day, we will miss another very important event — being on our cruise ship, the SS Odysseus, when it sails.
As we sailed through Istanbul on the Bosporus, we could see wooden houses, mosques, forts, and all kinds of buildings, as we pass through this narrow waterway. The Bosporus was filled with ships of all size and shapes, and ferryboats going back and forth between Europe and Asia, and a Soviet submarine sailing on the surface toward the Black Sea.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Sep 20, 2007 6:28 PM
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Athens is famous for its smog, but this day, according to the Athenians, is a one-day-a-year clean-air day. From the Acropolis, we could see forever.
Our family tradition is to eat in a different restaurant each wedding anniversary. On our 37th, we ate at the Athens Marriott. The waiter laughed and said as a school child he was bussed to the Acropolis one day, the one and only time he has been there!
We needed to fill our cooking gas tank, the guard who let us into the place, the man who filled the tank, the man who made out the bill, the cashier who took the money, were all much more friendly than required, or expected — just typical Greeks!
In Athens each time a light turns green, horns blows.
A man gave us his business card and said we should call him if we have a problem while we are in Greece. Now that is a nice man! We used to say the Italians are the nicest people. Now we say compared to the Greeks, Italians are hostile, treacherous, and belligerent!
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Sep 20, 2007 6:49 PM
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Here I go again,
If you could Google my name, and look at the 737 photos each with a story, + a thousand travel stories, you will find a bunch of Rick Steves photos and stories on my Site.
I know they are there because I post here, but I thought it was fun to let your know this.
I post on Rick, he gets advertising and exposure on my site.
And I am not complaining one bit.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Sep 23, 2007 11:24 AM
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On the Máni peninsula, there is a windswept landscape and little villages with abandoned towers. The towers date from the 1400's, and are maybe 20 to 30 feet on a side, and 50 to 80 feet high.
In this part of Greece, there are some 800 square stone towers. We drove on a little road to get closer to some that were apparently renovated by the present owner of the nearby house.
There are dozens of towers in the town of Vathia, and some have been converted into a tourist hotel. Many of the 800 towers look like ruins, with no one around, but there are clothes drying on the line outside others.
In the fields, both level and hilly, there are hundreds of miles of stone walls in Greece. We are sure we have seen enough stone walls in Europe to make one or two Great Walls of China! They are not defensive walls, just a place to pile stones from the fields.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Sep 24, 2007 10:20 AM
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Technology could have helped fight the fire in Greece.
Forty years ago I worked on a computer project where the intent was to store the details of the vegetation, the steepness of the hill, the prevailing winds, and all that could be thought of that would effect a fire, and the ability of firefighters to fight a fire in that area.
The idea was, that when a fire broke out, the computer could display the features of that specific area, then they would have been able to insert the current wind and temperature, the drought conditions of that area, thereby giving the firefighters information about which direction, and in what velocity the fire might move.
That job was many times too big for the computers that existed at that time, today you could do it in your laptop.
That would have been a great help for Greece, and many other places in the world.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Sep 26, 2007 9:40 AM
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In Gíthio, we talked with a restaurant owner who had lived in San Jose, CA for 15 years. His Gíthio restaurant was about empty this night. That would be cause for concern in San Jose, but his Gíthio restaurant will be filled tomorrow, or some other day, and that’s all that matters. He said, “Here I am sitting at my sidewalk cafe talking to my friends, and what could be better!”
In an antique store in Gíthio I found a Shepherd staff I wanted very badly, so paid the price the man asked. The store owner said this is the first one he’s ever had, and doesn’t expect to get another one. Other Greeks asked where I found it.
I walked in Métsovo’s central square with the special shepherd’s staff, just to see people’s reaction. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I am sure there were looks of surprise on the faces of some of the older men. But were they surprised to see the shepherd staff, or surprised to see some dum-dum American trying to look like a Greek Shepherd.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Sep 27, 2007 8:15 PM
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I talked to the owner of a hardware store and I asked about the partially built homes we had seen. He said they will be finished when the money is available. They are purposely designed so they can be partially built and lived in, until money is available for more construction, maybe next year, maybe a generation or two from now.
I was told that until a home was complete, the property tax was low. The idea was, built plenty of house, but leave a wall or a roof uncompleted as if you will add another floor or a room, and beat the system. That might even be true. We saw many.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Sep 28, 2007 6:10 PM
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In 1989 we visited Olympia, a city of ancient Greece, that was the site of the original Olympic Games, 3,000 years ago. We have visited the locations of 15 of the first 21 winter Olympics, and we have visited 19 of the locations of 25 modern Olympics.
As we left Leonidio, on the way to Kosmás, on the Greek Peloponnese, the road was terrible. Some kind Greek had placed small stones around one huge hole, to notify the next driver.
As we were leaving Kosmás, a camper from England blocked our way. The road they had just been on was unbelievable, and asked about the road we just came on. I assured her that while it's almost impassable, it just had to be much worse than what they had already seen.
Well, I was wrong. The road didn’t get worse, it just plain disappeared. In low gear and in heavy rain, we drove on dirt and over rocks, up and down chuck holes around boulders and trees, slipping in the mud with little rivers flowing in ruts formed by previous vehicles.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Oct 02, 2007 9:41 AM
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As we climbed the mountain toward Delfi, we were soon above the “Sea of Olive Trees.” And it almost looked like a sea, with olive trees from the mountain to the sea. Flocks of sheep, pink oleander, barren mountains, plenty of snow on Mt. Parnassos in the distance beyond Delfi, a beautiful place.
As I was just leaving the Amphitheater in Delfi, Greece, maybe 20 feet below the entrance, an elderly (yes, older than some people I know) lady asked if it was worth her effort to climb to the top. I said that since she was 20 feet from the Amphitheater, I would say yes, but had she asked the same question as she was ready to leave the Theater, a long way below (where my Sweetie was waiting), or the Agora (market) even further below, I would have said the Amphitheater was well worth the effort, but would make sure she knew it would take a lot of effort.
Just a question, are food, drink, and shelter, really that interesting, or are they just tools of travel?
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Oct 04, 2007 4:51 PM
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I would not suggest that anyone travel in Europe in a RV, as My Sweetie and I did for over 600 nights of our 968 nights in Europe over 25 years. I highly recommend travel with Rick, or at least his style. RV travel is very different.
An automobile, the bus, or a train could take you to most places we have visited, but the time and effort to duplicate our trip in some other travel mode is hard to envision. Can you imagine finding a hotel room 600 times, and finding a couple of thousand restaurants to replace the bedtimes and mealtimes we have enjoyed in our RV? Six to eight hours each day can be spent looking for meals, and eating, and finding a bed. Clothes wear out from packing and unpacking the suitcase.
During our 50 years of business and personal travel in the USA and Canada, when not traveling in an RV, we spent a thousand nights in hotels, and have eaten thousands of meals in restaurants, but neither experience appreciated more than a meal and a night in our RVs.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Oct 06, 2007 9:34 AM
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One day in Stockholm, I needed a Dental repair. The cost for this repair in Sweden was three time what it is in the USA. They had a price sheet, looked at a list of countries and charged a percentage of the listed cost, based on which country the client was from. The percentage charged was less for countries with Government controlled medical system. For a US citizen, my charge was three times the cost at home.
We visited Cousins in Hospitals in Germany, always dozens of patients in a ward, much like being in a Army barracks. And they weren’t happy with the care they got, or didn’t get.
Our friend in Bracknell, England, worked for the English Health care system since it started, the stories she told about problems waiting to get care. Her son was a dentist, and after a few years, he started a private practice, one of the fasting growing businesses in England.
I had dental work in Venice, don’t remember the cost, quality of the repairs was terrible.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Oct 05, 2007 8:15 PM
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At Hopitaux Universitaires de Strasbourg, France, I was ushered into the office of Professor Ernest Heid. This is a teaching hospital, there were three young lady students. The girls spoke English, and they seemed to enjoy my sense of humor, now that I had an audience, … !
I took off my shirt, Prof. Heid poked me with a needle, then took a small part of the “thing” for the biopsy. I told the Professor that the shirt was off, the spot was numb, the knife was in his hand, so why not remove the whole thing (smaller than your finger nail), and he did.
The bill was 137FF. At 5 FF per dollar, that was a cost of $27 for seeing the doctor, and the removal of the spot. Later we got another bill for about another 216FF, (most likely the lab) a total of $70. Medicare won't pay for care outside the US, but Blue Cross paid 80%, our cost $14.
We made arrangements that he call Emmy’s Cousin Doctor Reinhold Herrmann, in case we didn’t understand details, if we had made a call.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Oct 06, 2007 4:28 PM
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At Mount Solmissos, above Ephesus, Turkey, we visited what local legend says was the last home of the Virgin Mary. Near “Mary’s House” a row of pipes supply what we understood is “holy water,” something like at Lourdes, France.
Our taxi driver, a Muslim most likely in his fifties, had been a driver for a General in the Turkish Army, and was wounded in the leg during a war in the 1950’s. The wound would not heal, in spite of what the doctors and hospitals did.
He walked and hitchhiked across Turkey, managed to visit “Mary’s House,” did something with this water, and his leg healed. (1989)
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Oct 07, 2007 3:22 PM
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Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar burned in 1546, 1618, 1652, 1660, 1695, 1701, 1750, 1791, 1826, 1954, there were earthquakes in 1766, 1894. It has always been repaired.
I had priced a beautiful rosewood cane, inlaid with brass, for a friend at home. But the price of $75 elicited this comment from me, “Bob’s not that good of a friend.” Why didn’t I buy it for me?
Galata Koprusu, the bridge over the Golden Horn, is two-level. On the lower level there are restaurants, some are fancy with tablecloths, and others are not so fancy, and there are a few stores selling tourist goods.
We recrossed the bridge over the Golden Horn on the way back to SS Odysseus. It was nearing lunch time, the restaurants were becoming crowded, the fishermen were still selling fish, the street stands were still selling pastries, the ferryboat terminal was still disgorging passengers, a thousand pigeons were eating or waiting to be fed. Those scenes will continue until we return to Istanbul.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Oct 09, 2007 7:57 PM
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