Journal

Rick Steves

Posted on July 22nd, 2005, in the afternoon

I just got back from an amazing ten days in Italy, involving at least the following must-do-before-you-die experiences (plus a whole lot else):

• Pompeii and Herculaneum - tick
• The Colosseum and Palatine Hill in Rome - tick
• The Vatican and Sistine Chapel - tick
• Venice - tick
• Michelangelo’s 'David' - tick
• Leaning tower of Pisa - tick
• Italian food in Italy - many ticks

And there's one man I have to thank for the great success of the trip (particularly in the food department): Rick Steves.

Rick Steves is an American who writes a fantastic series of guidebooks for European countries, far more engaging than anything I've come across before. We stayed in Rick-recommended hotels, ate in Rick recommended restaurants and used Rick's tips to skip the queues at the major sites.

As evidence for his indispensability, we actually lost our copy of Rick's 'Italy' at the Vatican (whether to a very irreverent thief or whether the book was transfigured we will never know). The following day we travelled to Venice without it and had the single bad food experience of the whole trip (one word: microwave). The next morning we discovered a copy in our hotel - a Rick recommendation - which the hotel keeper generously donated to our cause, and all was back on track. The contrast in our fortunes was almost ridiculous.

I'm thinking of getting hold of Rick's 'Great Britain' to try to make sense of my own country.