Postcards from Europe by Rick Steves

This doesn't happen often...a trifecta of non fiction, with no SF or Fantasy read and reviewed in the meantime. Maybe next week I'll go all fiction, ok?

I've been a big fan of Rick Steves' travel shows for a long time, and at least one of his guides was extremely useful when we traveled to Portugal a few years ago. This book has been out for about fifteen years, and contains some of his reminiscences and insights on European travel. I've obviously watched too many of his shows, because when I was reading this I could hear him narrating it, in his own inimitable style the entire time.

Steves begins in Holland, and works his way south through Europe to Germany and on to Italy and France, then Switzerland in this tale.

An interesting quote about business in Germany follows.

"Looking exhausted and burnt out, he (hotel owner Kurt) says, 'It's the new cook. He's always sick. A cook costs me four thousand deutsch marks [$2500] a month. He gets one month paid vacation and up to six weeks paid sick time. Doctors say the best way for a German employee to stop being sick is to start his own business.'"

and a new German proverb for you,

"German men say a man without a belly isn't a man. A German saying is, 'Better to have a big belly from drinking than a broken back from working.'"

Venice is definitely one of Steve's favorite places to visit, closely followed by Florence.

On comparative gastronomy:

"Ilaria says, 'For me the French cheese is the Italian cheese with mold. If we have cheese that nobody buys, it gets moldy. After some days, it becomes the perfect French cheese.'
Raising my glass of wine I offer a toast to Italian food. 'To la cucina Italiana.'
Manfredo follows that, saying magnanimously, 'To bacon and eggs.' We all agree that American breakfasts are unbeatable.
'Omelets, hashbrowns,' Roberto reminisces. 'On my last visit to New York, I gain four kilos in three weeks.'
Raising our glasses, we make another toast. 'To American breakfasts.'"

This is not a travel guide, but more of a series of vignettes which tells us a great deal about Rick Steves and his attitudes about travel.

Rick Steves' Portugal by Rick Steves

My wife and I love Rick Steves' travel shows. If we happen to be surfing the tube and catch him on PBS, we stop to watch his adventures. So, when I first started thinking about a European adventure, I rushed to the library and grabbed all the stuff by him that they had.

Like all of his travel books, this is packed with information, but not a monstrous tome that you'll wear out your arms carrying it on the trip. Also, like the rest of them, Rick Steves' Portugal has about twenty pages of introductory information that's just generally good advice for travel in any country, with the specific country information pasted in, and some very country-specific practical information in the appendix at the end of the book. The appendix contains a short history of Portugal, information on telephones, email and mail, transportation, holidays and festivals, and a short list of "survival phrases" in Portuguese.

The bulk of the book is broken into sections by area, with instructions about the best way to travel to the location, the main neighborhoods and attractions, great places to stay and to dine, and background information about the area and its sights and activities.

One of the things I really like is the way Steves' whittles down the information on, for example, lodgings in each city to three to a half dozen options, ranked by expense. Most of the places he lists are not going to be found on Orbitz or Travelocity's hotel searches, and he provides contact and reservation information for all of them. He also provides an itinerary for a walking tour in each city, as well as listing various motorized tour options and even private guides for hire.

For the moment, I'm giving this book an excellent rating, but I'll know for sure when I'm done jaunting around Portugal in a few weeks, and I'll update this post then.