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Travel with Rick Steves - Episode 811: Slavic Europe; Running with the Bulls; Checking In
Episode Overview In this episode of *Travel with Rick Steves*, host Rick Steves converses with guidebook researcher Cameron Hewitt about the beauty and cultural richness of Slavic European nations. The episode also features Tony Lewis, a seasoned participant in the annual Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain. Additionally, Rick interacts with listeners who share their personal travel experiences and insights.
Key Themes and Discussions
- Discovering Slavic Europe
- Cameron Hewitt's Insights:
- Slavic nations include the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine, Russia, and former Yugoslav countries (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia).
- The cultural richness of Slavic Europe is often overlooked; it offers affordability, rustic charm, and distinctive traditions.
- Slavic cultures are shaped by their geographical position between powerful Western European and Eastern cultures (Russia and the Ottoman Empire).
- The Slavic people are characterized by their warmth, connection to nature, and strong cultural identities.
- Diversity Among Nations:
- Individual Slavic nations exhibit significant differences in customs, traditions, and languages despite a shared linguistic heritage.
- Each country possesses unique historical narratives, and tourists are encouraged to engage with local cultures to appreciate these differences.
- The Running of the Bulls in Pamplona
- Tony Lewis's Experience:
- Tony has participated in the San Fermin Festival for 50 years, running in front of bulls and experiencing the traditional festivities.
- San Fermin honors the patron saint of Pamplona and features a week of celebrations culminating in the Running of the Bulls.
- The festival is noted for its organization amidst chaos, with strict measures in place for safety.
- Participants and spectators become part of an exhilarating, energetic atmosphere during the festival.
- Cultural Significance:
- Participants wear traditional white clothes with red scarves, symbolizing the martyrdom of San Fermin.
- The moment the bulls are released is chaotic and thrilling, with the festival's energy unmatched by other events worldwide.
- Discussions surrounding the ethical implications of bullfighting are addressed, with Tony emphasizing the cultural respect for the animals involved.
- Listener Interactions
- Travel Reports and Queries:
- Listeners share personal travel experiences, including a focus on cashless travel trends and tips for visiting lesser-known destinations in Spain.
- Rick discusses the evolving nature of travel planning, including utilizing AI for assistance and the importance of engaging with diverse travel resources.
Key Takeaways
- Slavic Europe offers a rich tapestry of cultures that deserve more attention from travelers, with each country providing unique experiences.
- The Running of the Bulls is a significant cultural tradition in Spain, embodying both excitement and controversy, stemming from its historical and cultural roots.
- Engaging with local cultures, understanding travel trends, and sharing experiences contribute to a deeper appreciation of travel.
Conclusion This episode of *Travel with Rick Steves* highlights the beauty of Slavic Europe and the vibrant tradition of the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona. Through expert insights and listener experiences, Rick encourages travelers to embrace the diversity and cultural richness of destinations beyond the well-trodden tourist paths. For more information and travel tips, listeners are encouraged to visit [Rick Steves' website](http://www.ricksteves.com).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Take a closer look at the remarkable variety of cultures you'll find among the Slavic nations of Europe. The Czechs and the Poles and the Croatians are every bit as different as the Italians and the French and the Spanish. Coming up, Cameron Hewitt tells us why he's fallen in love with the people and customs of Slavic Europe. And the more you take an effort to learn and understand that depth and talk to local people and hear their stories, the more this region becomes just absolutely fascinating. Tony Lewis has been taking part in a cultural festival in Spain for the last 50 years. He explains how the week-long San Fermin Festival in Pamplona generates a palpable rush when it's time each morning for the running of the bulls.
0:38And you've never imagined the energy any place in the world like it is at that moment in Pamplona. Plus, we'll check in with listeners to hear how their European travels are working out. Come with us for the hour ahead. It's Travel with Rick Steves.
1:00He's been running with the bulls for the last 50 years. Coming up, Tony Lewis tells us what takes him back year after year to join in as a mozo at the annual festival in Pamplona, Spain. And we'll check in with listeners with travel reports and questions for their latest adventures in Europe. That's all in the hour ahead. Let's start today's Travel with Rick Steves with a look at what you can discover in the Slavic nations of Central and Eastern Europe. To better understand Europe, I find that it helps to start with an overview of its major language groups. Germanic Europe would be mostly Britain, Germany, and Scandinavia.
1:34The Romantic countries speak the Latin-based languages in places facing the Mediterranean, from Portugal to Italy. In Slavic Europe, that's what we grew up calling Eastern Europe, those are the former Warsaw Pact nations, from the Czech Republic to Russia. Among the Slavic countries, I see Russia as a sort of big mother, and tourists have long enjoyed coastal Croatia and the medieval city of Prague. But that leaves plenty of overlooked areas to explore for their rustic charm and distinctive traditions, as well as their affordability and lack of crowds. To share his love of all things Slavic in Europe, we're joined by my co-author for many of my guidebooks, Cameron Hewitt.
2:14Cameron updates the Rick Steves guidebook to what we now call Central Europe and is just back from his latest travels there. Cameron, welcome home. Thank you so much for having me, Rick. So first of all, let's define Slavic. I tried it there in the intro. What countries are we talking about in Slavic Europe? No, you did it well. It's a big kind of mushy area. It goes all the way from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, from outside of Vienna all the way to Vladivostok. It's a huge chunk of Europe, about 350 million people. The countries you might be most familiar with in the northern part are the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary.
2:47Sorry, not Hungary, Poland. And then moving a little bit east, Ukraine, Russia. And then if you head south, the former Yugoslav countries, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia. These are all Slavic countries. Bulgaria a little bit farther to the east. And then if we go beyond that, we talk about within Europe, there's these big regions that I think are fundamentally based on languages, aren't they? Which is, I guess, even more fundamentally, the ethnicities. You've got Romance language countries, you've got Germanic language countries, and you've got Slavic language countries. Yep. And of the three biggies, there's lots of minor ones.
3:19I think the Slavic countries are kind of the more overlooked. They get a little bit less attention. But yes, all of these places, they speak languages that are mutually intelligible to a degree, just like a French person and an Italian can kind of understand each other. You know, a Bulgarian and a Pole can probably... And an Norwegian and a Swede and a German can see, they can almost read their newspapers. Exactly. Yeah. Now, it's hard to generalize, but if you wanted to try to say what do Slavic cultures have in common, how would you put them together? What is it about Slavic Europe? You know, a lot of its geography, it's kind of the in-between, right?
3:55These are all countries that are between the big, powerful Western European countries like Germany and France and England, and then Russia and Turkey or the Ottoman Empire to the east. So I think in a weird way, in a way that gives me a lot of affection for them, the Slavs are kind of these squeezed in-betweeners. They generally don't aspire to empire. They're not conquerors. They're kind of settlers. They're peasants. They're townspeople who've been kind of dominated by other cultures. but they've really kept the embers of their own culture and language burning. And we may think of them as communistic, but maybe they were just the unfortunate ones to be located where Russia needed a buffer zone between them and the West.
4:31Yeah, that's a fluke of geography, basically. They were a very handy buffer zone when the USSR was enforcing communism. In fact, it's interesting, when you travel to Russia today, you still might find monuments to Lenin. There's a little bit of a sense that, you know, that communism was still part of Russian heritage. They do not want any of those reminders in the Slavic lands farther to the West, like Poland and like Czech Republic and any of those places, they really did not ever embrace that. That was something that was kind of thrust upon them. But there is, you can generalize about certain regions.
5:00In Latin America, I think, mi casa su casa. My house is your house. That's a bigger thing, I think, than in our culture in the United States. And are there any things that Slavic people are more generally amenable to than the Germanic or the Romance language people? You know, it's again, we're talking about a huge range of people, but I would say there's a kind of a dreamy quality. There's a kind of connection to nature because they're not ambitious. You know, when you read Slavic history with a few notable exceptions, you don't read stories of war heroes trying to create empires, but it's a story of farmers and artists.
5:35Celebrating that. Yeah, celebrating. They kind of they're very rooted in their culture and in their traditions. You know, I guess part of it is the religion. It's generally Orthodox Christianity. It's quite a mix. There's a lot of Catholic and other Western Christian in the Western part, and then the Eastern part becomes more Orthodox. And then the incursion of the Ottoman Empire brought Islam. Yes, and so you have Muslim Slavs. You know, the Bosniaks in the former Yugoslavia are Muslim Slavs. That only goes back to Ottoman times. Yes. So before that, it would have been Orthodox Christian and then schisms and Christian problems.
6:07But then we had that incursion of Islam. So we're talking about Slavic Europe as a geographic thing and an ethnic thing. Yeah, and a cultural thing, too. And a cultural thing. So what is your affinity for the region? Because you are just, what should I say, unusual in your passion for Slavic Europe. Is it just because Germany and France have already been taken? Yeah, that's fair enough. No, I am an odd duck in how much I love these countries. You know, I think when I first started traveling there, you know, I think every traveler can relate to sometimes a place just gets under your skin. And I think some of it is that underdog quality that it's this underappreciated, misunderstood, giant chunk of Europe that, you know, everyone else gets.
6:44And I understand it. I love Italy. I love France and I love Britain and so forth. I see why people get distracted by these other places. But for me, there's just something so endearing and intriguing about this huge population of 350 million Europeans who kind of get forgotten in a lot of the stories that you hear. And then when I traveled within the region, I think like a lot of people, when I first started traveling here, I kind of assumed, well, they're all very similar, right? The Czechs and the Poles and the Slovenes are probably all very similar to each other. And when you travel, the more you travel, I become fascinated by the diversity between each country.
7:17I mean, each country is really, you know, you don't realize it, but the Czechs and the Poles and the Croatians are every bit as different as the Italians and the French and the Spanish, for example. But they're also all under this Slavic umbrella, which I find kind of unites them sometimes in ways they might not even realize. Cameron Hewitt spends about a third of the year researching and updating the Rick Steves guidebooks to Central Europe, Croatia and Slovenia, Budapest, among others. He's sharing his love for Slavic Europe with us right now on Travel with Rick Steves. Cameron also writes about his travels in his book The Temporary European, Lessons and Confessions of a Professional Traveler, and on his website at CameronHewitt.com.
7:56Cameron, when we're thinking about what is most appealing and charming about Central Europe, I was thinking of all the TV shows you've been instrumental in helping us produce. Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, and most recently, Poland. And if I think about those processes, the wonderful guides who are now friends that we met, that's an important intangible attraction of this region. There's something about the people where they really are willing to be good friends. You know, and I'm glad you said that because I thought after you asked me what was I drawn to here, That's absolutely one of the things.
8:31I find the Slavic people, they're very, sometimes they have a little bit of a gruff exterior and so forth, but they're incredibly kind, warm, thoughtful, intelligent people. They're really fun and easy to connect with. They're very proud. I mean, these are little countries that we can kind of say, oh, isn't it cute? There's this little country of two million people called Slovenia. Well, the Slovenes are incredibly proud to be Slovenes. They would not want to be anything else. And there's a real joy to discovering a place that you know nothing about through the eyes of someone who's so passionate about it.
9:00And they're not just kissing up to you because you write the guidebook. Oh, no, no, no. Everybody... Anybody who's listening right now could have the same number of friends as you if they had this respect for this curiosity. Curiosity. That's it, a curiosity and a respect for learning and becoming a temporary local. It's an amazing thing, and it's a region that's in such exciting change. You've been going there for over 25 years now. Tell us about an early memory of when you branched into Central Europe and then how things have changed in the last two or three decades. It's hard to think of another part of the world that's changed as much as this area over that time.
9:36It's gone from being sort of still recovering from communism to now being very, very affluent, very European focused. The cost of living in a lot of these countries is higher now than places in Western Europe. And I do remember there's a moment that I recall in Warsaw. I was updating our guidebook and they used to have in the subway underneath the city, they used to have signs in this very intimidating old Polish script. And then I went back a couple of years later and they'd replaced it with this very tidy, like airport style Helvetica. And I thought, ah, they're wanting to say, yeah, we're traditional, but we also need to be a modern society as well.
10:10Wow. You know, you are a perfect example of a theme that I've been pushing lately. The more understanding you bring to your sightseeing, the more you'll get out of it. Because you could go to Central Europe clueless about the complexity of those societies and those cultures and kind of just be overwhelmed. You could do a little reading in advance. you could spend$100 for half a day for a private guide in each destination, and you could get a heck of a lot more out of that experience. You know, these are fun places. They're enjoyable, and if you just want to go and have fun and drink cheap beer and party, you'll enjoy it.
10:41I think compared to a lot of other destinations, they're not just fun destinations. There's a lot of depth there, and the more you take an effort to learn and understand that depth and talk to local people and hear their stories, the more this region becomes just absolutely fascinating. And we talked about diversity. Let's wrap up our review of Slavic Europe with just a sense of the variety of places you could go. Take a couple of minutes, Cameron, and zip us from Poland down to Bulgaria on what we should be sure to be mindful of. So for a lot of people, the place they go first is Prague, and Prague is a great city with great history.
11:13It's been a little changed by all of the tourism, and I would say Czech Republic is worth seeing, but you want to get out into the smaller towns in the countryside. Poland is a big 40 million people. It's a big country. There's a lot going on. I'd say especially there are cities. There's some beautiful cities. Krakow, you mentioned, Warsaw, the capital, Gdansk up on the northern Baltic coast, each one very different. So that's a great place for kind of epic history, city sightseeing, great food scene, wonderful comfort food in Poland. Down south, the former Yugoslavia, I would say the highlights there, a lot of it is the natural beauty.
11:42So you've got Slovenia, which is an alpine country. It really looks like Switzerland or Austria. And then the coastline of Croatia, it's all about the beaches and the islands. And then you can go into Bosnia, for example, where you get kind of the rugged interior. And there is where you're going to have some of that Muslim culture. You're going to see minarets and mosques and old Ottoman bridges and so forth. And then, you know, that's just for starters. You can, if you want to go a little farther off the beaten path, head deeper into the Balkans, you can go to places like Bulgaria. which has its own sort of version of Slavic culture, which is a very traditional and a wonderfully surprising place.
12:13That's just for starters. I think you could take your pick of any of these places and you'd have a great experience. Cameron, thanks so much for joining us. Your enthusiasm for Slavic Europe is just contagious, and it's made stronger than ever by your understanding of the beauties and the complexity of this region. Thank you, Rick. And thank you for helping give me a platform to sing the glories of this part of Europe that I love so much. I really appreciate working with you to help people better appreciate this part of Europe that is so underappreciated. In that sense, we can clink our glasses and say, Nastravia.
12:45Nastravia.
12:55Cameron has more to say about our refocus on Central Europe over the old Cold War terminology we used to use for the region. It's in a web extra from today's interview, and it's posted with this week's show at ricksteves.com slash radio. Ernest Hemingway wrote about American expats who discovered the thrill of the running of the bulls in Spain in his first novel, The Sun Also Rises. Today, Tony Lewis tells us what draws him back to Pampalona each July to run with the bulls for the last 50 years. That's next on Travel with Rick Steves. Every July, people from all over the world converge on Pamplona in Spain to partake in a fiesta of San Fermin.
13:38Why? Well, either to run with the bulls or to watch the daredevil mozos in action. That's what they call the people who run in front of the bull. It's a centuries-old tradition taking place over nine days each year with hundreds of thousands in attendance to watch the thrill of those risking their lives to be chased through the city's narrow streets. Mozo Tony Lewis fell in love with the rush of running down those narrow lanes with six thunderous beasts speeding down the path on his heels back in 1975. Fifty years later, Tony has attended 39 fiestas, and he's run 162 times at the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, and he makes a point to plan his year around attending if he can.
14:22Tony, thanks for sharing your experiences with us. You're welcome, and thank you for having me. Give us kind of just a quick rundown on the Fiesta di San Fermin. Who is San Fermin, and why is he a big deal in Pamplona? San Fermin is one of the patron saints of the town, along with Javier. But he's the one who's the important one when we get to July. Actually, they celebrate the 1st of January, the 2nd of February, the 3rd of March, the 4th of April, the 5th of May, 6th of June. And there's a song about this, and they actually have a mass. on each one of these days, and it's called the Escalera, which is the getting ready towards the 7th of July, which is the Saints' Day of San Fermin.
15:07Okay, so that kicks off the big festival, and I've been to the Running of the Bulls twice, and both times I was really glad I looked at it as more than just the Running of the Bulls. That's just a couple minutes long at 8 o 'clock in the morning. Exactly. But the whole city is sort of swept away in this festival. It's a very Catholic sort of heritage, and it's important to go to the Mass and be with the people for the Festival of Their Saints. And why are people wearing the red bandana and the white clothing? Tell us what that symbolizes. Well, when I first arrived in 75, I would say there was probably about 50 to 60 percent of the people who dressed like that, and the rest just dressed in civilian clothes.
15:49It's something which hasn't always been the tradition. but it came more and more into vogue in the 20th century. I guess it signifies the martyrdom of Saint-Fermin to have the red scarf around the neck because, of course, he lost his head. So he was beheaded, and that red bandana is his blood. And I just thought it felt right when I was in town to have my red bandana on, like so many of the people. Exactly. It actually took me eight years of going to the Fiesta before I finally thought that I belong enough. I'm actually part of this, and I can actually wear those white clothes and the red bandana.
16:28So now every year from July 6 to 14, you have the festival, and the city's in fiesta mode, really. Nonstop energy, music, food, crowds. I was so impressed with the city's ability to keep it, you know, orderly, to clean things up, to make it as safe as possible, to have medics standing by, to have barricades protecting the storefronts from all the pandemonium on the street. Just describe the scene during the Fiesta de San Fermin. It is extremely organized. And on top of that great organization is the most amazing chaos you could ever experience in your life. And that's the party. It starts on the 6th of July at 12 o 'clock noon.
17:16They shoot a rocket off. The mayor or someone important comes out and makes the announcement, Pamponeses, Pamponeses, we are now in Fiesta. and the place explodes and you've never imagined the energy any place in the world like it is at that moment in Pamplona. And then it doesn't stop 24 hours a day until midnight on the 14th of July. You know, I'm not big into festivals. I don't go to the tomato festival and wherever that is in Spain and I don't put it in my calendar. But I've been to a few festivals where I really thought this is well done. And, of course, people have their thoughts about, is it too cruel to the animals?
17:59And that's a consideration. But just as part of the heritage and the history of this city and the way it's pulled off and its tie-in with the Catholic Church and all of the partying and the community that comes along with this, I was just mesmerized by the joy during this festival. Let's just kind of get people tuned in to the moment when the starting guns go off and the bulls start to run. By the way, I just want to remind people this is Travel with Rick Steves. We're joined by Tony Lewis, and for 50 years, he's planned the majority of his summers around attending and participating in Pamplona's San Fermin Festival when the running of the bulls happens.
18:37When he's not running for his life in Pamplona, you can find him guiding tours in Switzerland. For more on Tony, you can visit his website at tonylewis.ch. Okay, Tony, it's 8 o 'clock in the morning, And it seems like it's really early in the morning, but no, it's just the end of a long night for a lot of people. That occurred to me very clearly as I got up and was groggy. Everybody else is up and pretty drunk. But not the ones running. The police are. Not the ones running. No. The police are really tough with that. They walk through and they check everybody. They look everybody in the eye and they get real close to everybody.
19:09And if you have any alcohol, signs of alcoholism or something like that, then they will definitely kick you out and throw you out of the street. Throw you out. Now, I did my arithmetic, and according to your website, you've been to 39 fiestas and 162 runs. That's almost exactly four runs per fiesta. A fiesta lasts for, what, six or eight, nine days. So you make three or four runs of every fiesta. Well, there were some years in which I did all eight runs. And then there was, of course, the two COVID years in which there was zero. other years that I was stuck in Buenos Aires or in New Zealand or something like that.
19:48How long is the actual race? How many seconds does it take? The bulls are in the street normally for anywhere from 2 minutes 20 seconds to sometimes I've seen runs that go 15 minutes. That's when the bulls separate and you've got one or two which are on their own and they don't know which direction to go anymore so they just start going after people. That's when it gets pretty ugly. Okay, so you know how that's shaping up. Tell me, do you have memories of your first run? I certainly do. What was that like? Well, it was the 10th of July, 1975, and on the 9th of July, it actually is a historic day in the running because it was the biggest, most dangerous and fatal pileup in the history of the run.
20:38And so the next day when I decided to run for the first time, there were a few less people in the street, and I remember my nerves. Because only a few people have died over the years, right? Fifteen people in 100 years, I understand, have died in the run. That's exactly right, which is good. It's not as many as one would think, and it's certainly not as many as a lot of the press reports that you get in different countries. Right, but a lot of people have been trampled. I mean, you don't die, but you get trampled. I understand there's some ways to survive. If during this commotion you fall down, what do you do?
21:14When you fall down, if you're knocked down, you trip over somebody who fell down in front of you while you were looking backwards to see where the bulls were, you do not move. You just stay there. You kind of get in a fetal position, and you just stay there, and you do not move. You don't twitch, nothing. And you wait until somebody comes, puts their hands on you, and say, it's okay, they're gone. And then you can get up and move. but do not move before that because that's where some fatal accidents have happened. I've seen some horrible things in front of me when somebody just raises their head to look up as the bull's going by right at the wrong moment.
21:51There must be a moment when you have a good run, and there must be some times where it just passes by, and it was like, well, what am I here for? Yeah. I had three runs this last July, 2025, when I celebrate my 50th year. And the three runs, the first one was quite good. I was very happy with it. I was able to position myself the way I wanted to start running as late as possible so that I was as close as possible with the bulls behind me and then retire at the last second before the bulls were on top of me. So that's a good run. That's considered a good run. And we're talking about probably a total of six to seven seconds.
22:32Okay. So it goes, especially where I run, they're extremely fast. Later, further on down, everybody chooses their place where they want to run. And each place has its own character. But the bulls come out extremely fast at the very beginning, which is where I've been running for the last 35 years. And later on, the bulls have slowed down a bit, and you have the possibility to have much longer runs, some people 25, 30, 40 seconds even. So what's the goal of this run? When you're starting there and you hear the starting gun rocket and you got the bulls coming along. What do you hope to have happen?
23:11Well, I hope that there's not so many people that I have no control over what I'm doing because that's when you lose your safety margin. The way you stay out of trouble is by having experience, knowing exactly where you are, what you're doing, and knowing how the bulls act. and of course after all these years it's kind of an automatic thing and I don't even think my pulse goes up all that much anymore at 8 o 'clock in the morning it's a wonderful place to be it's a place where I feel very very very comfortable maybe more than almost any place on the planet because it's just a place it's hard to describe I was going to say that's a feeling that is hard to explain it sounds unbelievable to me but I believe you because I've never been there and you've done it 160 times.
Read the full transcript
24:00Well, you said you've been there twice, and you didn't run. I didn't run, no, and I'm never going to. You're a smart guy, Rick. This is Kyle with Rick Steves. We're talking to Tony Lewis, and he has run. For 50 years, he's been running with the Bulls at Pompelona's Festival of San Fermin, and he's telling us the thrill of it and why he keeps going back. When Tony's not running for his life in Pompelona, you can find him guiding tours in Switzerland. He leads tours for the Laveau Vineyard Terraces along Lake Geneva. and for more on Tony, you can visit his website at TonyLewis.ch So Tony, I've heard and I know this when I was filming it that sometimes the bulls clump together and it's just bam they're done, they're by and the whole thing's over and other times the bulls stretch out and you've got, what, six bulls and you've got six thrills in rapid succession what's with that and then why are there also steers out there running who aren't bulls?
24:55Exactly. You have actually 12 very large animals and the steers are quite a bit larger. They're probably by 50 % bigger than the fighting bulls. The fighting bulls are still full fighting bulls, the best ones that you can buy in Spain, actually. They choose them big. They choose them with magnificent horns, especially for Pamplona because people demand that. So you have these 12 large animals and six of them are the bulls that are very aggressive. The steers are not aggressive. They are placed into the street to try to keep the flow going, to try to keep that. Okay, so they're like sheepdogs almost, keeping them going.
25:36Yeah, you know, it's the herd mentality and they go. They go. But do you sometimes find yourself running with the steers? I would think that'd be a little embarrassing. No, it's not embarrassing. It just happens sometimes. Like I said, I had three runs this year. The first one was wonderful. The second one was less so because exactly that time, the steers were in the front and on the left side where I run. So I actually, I could not get any contact with the bulls. And so I had my run. I said, okay, well, this time wasn't that great. Yeah, that happens sometimes. As you say, they come in one big clump, and then somewhere further on down the line, something will happen.
26:16One will fall or slip, and then you have this clump which becomes a little bit more distended, and then you have bulls which are on their own, and that allows people further on down to have wonderful runs, to have great runs, because they can pick their bull, and they can stay with them for a long time with space. Tony, there's a lot of people that focus on the cruelty to the animal, and it's related to bullfighting in general, because all of these bulls are going down to the arena, and they're all going to eventually be in a bullfight and be killed, right? I know that bullfighting is not appearing on the sports pages in Spanish newspapers, but if you want to know about the bullfight, you look to the culture pages.
26:57And I know that the bull has a lot of symbolism about power and about life and about the wild and the nobility of the beast or whatever. What would you say to people who say, Tony, it's a cruel thing for you to be part of this spectacle? It's a dichotomy to try to figure it out because they kill the bulls in the bullfight in the afternoon, the same ones we run with in the morning. At the same time, they love the bulls, they respect the bulls. We, for instance, running with the bulls, you're not allowed to touch the animal because that would be disrespectful to it. So you're allowed to run in front of it, but not to disrespect it.
27:37So that's part of it. At the same time, it's hard for people to understand how you can love something and then afterwards you kill it. And you love it and respect it even more if it was noble in the bullfight. Of course, this is going back to ancient, or even before the ancient Greeks. We know this, that the bull was an important symbol throughout all of mankind. mankind's history. I love the thought that when Hemingway first came to Pompelona back in 1923, he wrote about it, and he said he enjoyed watching, quote, two wild animals running together, one on two legs and the other on four. It is so amazing because if you think about this, you are allowed to go down into the street to get past the police barricades and the physical barricades that are set up in the street, you go down there into this space where you're not assured to leave standing up.
28:37You're not assured that you'll leave even alive. And where else on this planet today in 2025 can you go to a place where the lawyers haven't controlled things to the point where this is impossible? I guess the only thing comparable to it might be going to war. Yeah. Tour guide Tony Lewis brings Americana-style music to his home base at Montreux, Switzerland, as a singer-songwriter and as a member of the Swiss band called Tough Love. He joins us today on Travel with Rick Steves explaining his love for the Festival of San Fermin in Spain and why he's made a point to join in during the Running of the Bulls ritual dozens of times since he first tried it back in 1975.
29:22We have more in the notes to today's show on our website. That's at ricksteves.com slash radio. You know, I've always said in my little philosophy about travel, the last great source of legal adventure. And I'm not even sure quite what that means, but running with the poles is kind of like one of those last great sources of legal adventure. Tony, it's so great to be able to get your firsthand experience on this and feel your passion for this ritual. and I'd like to finish our discussion just by having you share the emotional tone when they wrap up this festival every year on July 14 and at the end everybody sings sort of an anthem.
30:03What is that anthem and what does that mean to Pamplona? This is at midnight on the 14th and it's pobre de mi, poor, poor me. And so everyone is actually quite, quite sad. They really are sad. They're not just pretending to be sad. and at 12 o 'clock, the fireworks goes off. It's announced by the mayor again, Pamploneses, the piesta is finished. See you next year. It's already less time until next year. So the people explode in joy, and they start singing the 1 de enero, 12 de febrero, 3 de marzo, 4 de abril, the song, and looking forward to next year already, and then they stop, and there's this dirge which is played, and the people get down on their knees, and they put their foreheads against the paving stones and they have candles on their hands and they're going, pobre de mi, poor me, poor me, because the Fiesta San Fermín is finished.
31:00And then they do that a couple of times and then they stand up and start jumping up and down again singing Uno de Enero, Dos de Febrero. And this can go on for hours. And you're right there in the middle of it all. Absolutely. Tony Lewis, thank you so much for joining us and giving us just an inkling of the thrill of running with the bulls in Pamplona. I was going to say happy travels. I'm going to say safe travels to you. Thanks. I appreciate it, Rick.
31:40We're opening our phones and checking our emails next as we check in with you, our listeners. Tell us how your travels have been going lately or where you're planning to visit next. We're at 877-333-7425, and our email address is radio at ricksteves.com. Are you in the mood to travel right now? While crowds and last-minute changes can present challenges you might not have anticipated, there's also a lot you can experience and see that'll boost your spirit and make you grateful you're able to get out and see the world. So let's spend a few minutes checking in with you or travel with Rick Steves listeners.
32:20Where have you been? Where do you want to go next? And what's it been like for you? Let's take a little time right now to learn from one another and get inspired to keep on traveling. Stephen's calling in from Cudahee, Wisconsin. Hey, Stephen. Hey, Rick. Thanks for calling. What's on your traveling mind? Well, my wife and I, we go to Europe. or try to at least every year. And we've noticed more and more places are going card only. Is cashless travel the future? Boy, you know, that's a trend I've noticed as well. And I hate to say it in sweeping terms because some countries feel much more almost anti-credit card and more cash.
33:00But in general, I see a big trend towards cash-free. In fact, I was in Belgium recently updating my guidebook, and I noticed, you know, we always list where do you find an ATM. It was hard to find ATMs. And I asked somebody, and they said it's simply a matter of demand. Not so many people are looking for cash on the streets. They're using their credit cards. So where are you thinking of going, Stephen? Well, next year, we were hoping to go to Antwerp, as a matter of fact. Yeah, Belgium. So, you know, thankfully, we have euros. So if you change into euros in Belgium, you can spend them in Ireland or Greece or Portugal or wherever you like later.
33:34but I would not get a big pile of hard cash because you'll find even if you're a cash person, like me, I'd rather spend cash, you'll be using your credit cards more than you imagined. I was just in London and nobody wants to see cash. They just want you to tap your credit card. So get used to tapping your credit card. I would remind you that if you have the app on your phone where you can just tap the credit card on your phone or the debit card on your phone, you've got your phone out there where it can be ripped off. and street thieves are targeting people with their phones out. So be mindful of that.
34:09Also, when you're in London and you're using the tube and you decide you're going to tap in and tap out, which is really the clear best and most efficient way to do it these days, you don't buy a pass, you don't buy a ticket, you just tap your credit card to get into the metro or the subway or the tube in London and you tap to get out. You have to use the same card. If you're using the physical card, if you're using the phone, you have to do one or the other. I opted to use the phone and then it occurred to me if my battery runs out I'm stuck without access to the tube in the convenient way. So be mindful if you're using your credit card via your phone that your battery is good.
34:47But again, it'll be one way in one country and another way in another country. Also, if you want to pay buskers on the street if you want to tip people if you want to buy something from somebody in a market or if you want to give a donation to a museum. A lot of museums are free, but they ask for a donation. These days, you can tap with your credit card. You can do a QR code, and you can still do those kind of fun on-the-fly donations with your credit card. So I would just recommend people to get comfortable with that. Okay. Good luck on your travel, Stephen. Thanks for your call. Thanks, Rick.
35:22You bet. This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're taking a few minutes to talk with our traveling audience, And you can email us at radio at ricksteves.com, or you can always call us at 877-333-7425. And Elizabeth's calling in from Akron in Ohio. Elizabeth, thanks for calling. Hi, thanks for having me. Yeah, tell us about what you're thinking about in your travel experience. Mostly Spain. Spain. Viva España. Yeah. And I think I found a little place that maybe not that many people know about, probably thousands, but it's just north of Valencia on the coast. Take the tram and you're there in about a half an hour.
36:07Huh. The city, well, the area is called Puerto de Sanguto. Hmm. And why, of all the beaches in Spain, is that the one that you'd report on? Because it's more rustic and sparse. I'm a senior now. I'm like 63, and it's like I felt comfortable walking around, and the prices were great because you're not in the big city. Yeah. Like the two-course, three-course meal was about 11 euros to 13 euros. The beach was absolutely clean and like almost barren, but this was during the week. On the weekend, it will pick up a bit. I love when you find a... I kind of think of it like a humble beach. A lot of beaches are really built up and commercial and more expensive.
36:53But when you find a humble beach with a humble beachside restaurant and unlandscaped expanses and the local people instead of the international tourist crowd, it really feels nice. A lot of people go to a beach in Spain and they complain you don't find any Spanish on the menus. But in a beach like you found, I would imagine you found Spanish on the menus. Yeah, I never saw English or French or German. Well, that's a, you know, because when people go to Spain, a lot of times they go to the Costa del Sol, and I call it the Costa del Turismo. And I used to write it's bikini strangled and Nivea creamed.
37:30It was just a concrete nightmare. And I thought, why is everybody going here? There's a huge coastline, and you're a good reminder, a half-hour bus ride north of Valencia. It could be a half-hour bus ride east of Nerja, or it could be anywhere other than Tormelinas in that stretch of coastline. So we have to remember, don't go to the famous places. I'm following your advice, don't go to the biggest city, go to like a second city. Yes. And you'll have 15 months or time. Second city, like Valencia. I don't know anything about Valencia. Did you stay there? I did, and I just had a ball with the people.
38:05I always do. Good for you. Well, you sound like a good traveler. Elizabeth, thanks so much for reporting on your adventures on the beaches in Spain. All right, take care. Okay, adios. Adios. Bye-bye.
38:21Steve's calling in from Lancaster in Pennsylvania. Hey, Steve. Hi, Rick. Where have you been traveling lately? Well, my wife and I, in July, hiked a part of St. Olaf's Way in Norway. Wow, St. Olaf's Way. Everybody, when they think of a pilgrimage, They think of Spain going to Santiago de Compostela, but you're in the other end of Europe. Well, we've done the Camino numerous times, and through some connections with folks there, we discovered St. Olaf's Way, and it was a real delight. Norway is trying to sort of replicate what Spain has found about the growing popularity of pilgrimage, and St. Olaf, as you probably know, is the patron saint of Norway, who is buried in Trondheim, which is the destination for the pilgrimage.
39:07So you hiked, what, how many days, how many miles? Well, we hiked 100 kilometers five days, which is the minimum amount you can walk to get the Olaf certificate, which is like the Compostela that you get if you walk 100 kilometers in Spain. Okay, so instead of in Spanish, you got the one in Norwegian, but it still gives you the same credits in heaven. Well, they're Lutherans. Oh, they're Lutherans. I forgot. Okay, good. So tell me, what is the ambience? What's the feeling on this trek across Norway, all the way up to Trondheim, which Trondheim makes Oslo seem tropical? Well, it does. The route actually starts in Oslo, and a lot of people walk the whole 500 miles in about a month.
39:53It's a lot less populated than the Camino de Santiago. we would see maybe four or five other pilgrims a day. As a matter of fact, in Santiago, they give out one or two thousand compostelas a day. And my wife and I received Olaf's certificates number 500 and 501 for the year in July. So, yeah, it's a lot less crowded. And, of course, you know, St. Olaf died in 1030, and the pilgrimage started shortly after that. Then they had this little interruption called the Reformation, and that really put the kibosh on a lot of the spiritual aspect that you'd find on the Camino. There is still a lot of that.
40:39One of the places that we stayed up in the mountains, they have a morning and evening prayer for people who want to participate in that. And there's some delightful churches along the way, which are 1 ,000-year-old churches that still have an active community. But it's certainly not as heavy as you find on the Camino in Spain. And it's important for us to remember that Trondheim, I was joking, Oslo's like the tropics compared to Trondheim. Trondheim's 500 miles to the north. But Trondheim was a big, important center in the Middle Ages in Norway. and that cathedral there, while it's burned down and been rebuilt, it's got deep roots historically, doesn't it?
41:18Oh, yes, yes. It's a beautiful place. The restoration they're doing is impressive. And, of course, it's still the largest cathedral in northern Europe. Yeah, it's pretty mind-blowing. And it's a stark example of grand architecture, centuries old, way up there almost to the Arctic Circle. Yeah, it's wonderful. And you would appreciate this. they have a pipe organ with 9 ,800 pipes. Oh my goodness. Every day they give a rousing recital where they can just pull out all the stops. And in the evening they have a pilgrim service where they do it a little bit more subdued. That's beautiful. Yeah. Now, Steve, when you talked about this trail and you and your wife were like number 500 and half a year that had done this trip, what is the trail like?
42:04Is it in the woods? Is it along a road? Do you go through a lot of villages? Is there farm life? Are there little bed and breakfasts that you can sleep in? Are there youth hostels that all the pilgrims sleep in? Or what's the general feeling on the trail? Yeah, well, we stayed in farmhouses and guest houses. You know, there are not too many albergues like there are, say, along the Camino de Santiago. Well, they'd go out of business because there's just a thousand people a year doing this thing. And you can only do it, like, in the summertime, June, July, and August. But we had a delightful time staying with farmers.
42:37You know, they would milk their cows, and then they'd come in and they'd visit with us. And you'd get to visit with other pilgrims from around the world, staying in those farmhouses. The ambiance, it was through the woods. Yeah. It was along roads some, but no major roads, and not very many villages, because, you know, unlike Spain, these towns haven't built up around the pilgrimage route. Did you have reservations for your accommodations? Yes. Okay. Yes. It's really a good idea to make reservations. You know, I think that sounds like a great—how long did you— Were you on the road? We were on for five days.
43:10Five days. So 20 kilometers a day, 12 miles a day. And it sounds like it was a beautiful experience for you. It was a beautiful experience. And you get to see part of Norway that is literally off the beaten track. Beautiful sod-covered houses where they'll send the sheep up to mow the grass. And, you know, it was just a delightful time to get to know the depths of Norway. And you must have had a feeling of jubilation when you finally got to Trondheim. You had done it. Well, didn't we? I was really excited. So what did you eat to celebrate when you finally got to Trondheim? Reindeer. Reindeer. Very nice.
43:46Steve, thanks so much. I've never really considered a pilgrimage in Norway, and I bet for anybody who wants to get a multi-day hike, that would just be a beautiful hike as well as a pilgrimage. Well, there are a number of different versions of it you can do, and there's a website called pilgrimsladen.no that's run by the government-sponsored agency that organizes that. So we would highly recommend that trail, but there's a lot of others as well. And what was the website again? Pilgrimsladen, P-I-L-E-G-R-I-M-S-L-E-D-E-N dot N-O. Dot N-O for Norway. Steve, tusen tak. Bye, Rick. Bye-bye. This is Travel with Rick Steves.
44:27That was fun, thinking about a pilgrimage hike in Norway all the way to Trondheim. Wow. I just love talking with our traveling listeners. And right now we're taking a few minutes to hear from you. You can email us at radio at ricksteves.com, and our phone number is 877-333-7425. Peggy is emailing us from Mitchell in Oregon. Peggy writes, What are your thoughts for using AI for travel planning? Travel planning has become very time-consuming. I can't rely on one source, Google, TripAdvisor, Yelp, and so on. and then there are guidebooks, blogs, travel agents, and friends. I'd love to hear your advice on using AI to plan a trip.
45:09Well, Peggy, this is big news for all of us and I'll go through your sources there. First of all, travel agents, I use my travel agent and I use a living, breathing travel agent for my international travels. I use my travel agent for flight concerns but not on where to travel and how to travel. I don't want a travel agent's advice on where to travel and how to travel once I'm there. I want my travel agent to get me there and back, and then I rely on other sources of information for getting around once I'm over there. Social media is so popular these days, but social media is just clickbait in so many cases and a lot of people who are first-timers in a place that don't really know much about it that present themselves as experts.
45:50I generally don't go to social media crowdsourcing sites for my advice. I like forums. There are forums at different websites that create a community of travelers. The busiest part of our website at ricksteves.com is our Travelers Forum, and it's a huge and smart and caring community of DIY travelers sharing notes. That's really a good source. There's real travel journalism. There are so many great guidebooks. I'm going hiking in the Dolomites, and I bought a guidebook for the Dolomites. I'm certainly not the guy to write that book, and that was$25, very well spent. So find a specialty guidebook covering your needs.
46:30I would also remind you, getting back to this whole AI issue, that this is indeed a fun new frontier for information, and I would recommend having fun with ChatGPT. Ask a question, learn how to ask the smart questions so you get the smart answers, and then let that be your introduction to information about that site, but then try to confirm it and affirm those opinions with other sources. but I would not underestimate the value of AI and I think it's just going to get better and better and I am a beginner as so many people are when it comes to AI and I'm finding it is a very good friend when I want to get some ideas about how to enjoy the cuisine of southern Portugal or you know what if I want to take a food tour in Belfast you know you could ask AI these kind of questions and I think you'll get some good information thanks for your email Peggy Saul's calling in from Pittsburgh Saul, thanks for your call Thank you for taking it Where are you heading?
47:31So we're planning a trip to Sicily My wife and I are planning a trip to Sicily and we're really excited but we're going in January and we were just trying to figure out what we can expect to experience at that time of year because a lot of the books that we're reading are about peak season stuff or shoulder season Yeah, most people travel obviously in peak season almost by definition As soon as you said you're going to Sicily, Saul, I thought, this is great. And then when you said you're going in January, I thought, even better. Oh, cool. I'd love to travel in the off-season in Sicily. I think you'll get crisp blue weather, you know.
48:05It's not going to be swimming weather, but it'll be mild weather. And the main thing is you're going to be experiencing the actual culture, not the culture geared up for tourism during the peak season. But this will be a time when there's not as many tourists around. and Sicily is a wonderful culture to experience that way. And January is a festive time, so know where the festivals are in this sort of thing because Sicily is a place that loves its festivals, so do a little prep on that. I don't see any downside of traveling in January. It's just, they say, there's no bad weather, just inappropriate clothing.
48:39Well, we have trouble getting to some of the more obscure sites. I mean, I was just sort of thinking, like, we're going to go without renting a car. We'll just take public transit. So I know that that makes another challenge. Yeah, I think you're going to be a little frustrated in the countryside with public transit. It works, but you'll have... Oftentimes there's less frequent departures on public transit in the off-season when there's less demand, less travelers out and about. You can still do it with public transportation. Good for you if you're going to do that. Personally, what I would do, I would start and end in a big city.
49:11I would start maybe in Palermo and end maybe in Syracuse, which happen to be on opposite sides of the island, and then I would pick up a car as I'm leaving Palermo, and I'd use the mobility that the car offers to get around and be kind of frisky in the countryside, and then I would drop it as soon as I arrive in Syracuse, and I would do my last days in Syracuse without a car. I think that's the practical way. And I think you'll be impressed by how good the roads are in Sicily and how sparse the traffic is. Sicily has benefited from Italian subsidies when it comes to taxpayer-funded infrastructure.
49:49Consequently, Sicily has better roads than you would expect, and especially in the off-season, I found it very easy to drive in Sicily, but your car is of no value in Palermo or Syracuse, and those are clearly the two urban centers that you'll want to spend time in. But you'll be glad you had a car. You'll want to send me a postcard from all the fun you're having with a car when you're in the middle of Sicily and when you're exploring the South Coast. Have a good time, and dress for the weather, and get out there into the markets. especially off-season, the markets are just where all the life is.
50:22It's just every city's got a great market. Okay, have fun. Oh, okay. Thank you so much, Rick. Bye.
50:35Travel with Rick Steves is produced at Rick Steves Europe in Edmonds, Washington by Tim Tappan, Kazma Hall, and Donna Bardsley. Andrew Wakeling and Sherry Court upload the shows to our website. Affiliate relations are by Sheila Gurzoff. Jerry Frank wrote and performed our theme music. You can find links to our guests and search the show archives at ricksteves.com slash radio. We'll see you next week with more Travel with Rick Steves. Hey, I'm Rick Steves. Thanks for listening. You know, the busiest corner at ricksteves.com is our travel forum. That's where a vast community of Rick Nicks exchanges advice, experiences, and tips.
51:13This entirely free resource, which empowers real travelers to share real experience is a beautiful complement to all the content we produce. Think of any travel topic, hotels, tricky itinerary decisions, dealing with or avoiding crowds, and you'll find a world of advice based on real experience. Hey, we're all in the same traveler school of hard knocks, and it's okay to compare notes. See you there at the Travel Forum at ricksteves.com.
From the publisher
Guidebook researcher Cameron Hewitt opens our eyes to the history, nature, and genuine welcome that await travelers venturing to the Slavic nations of central and eastern Europe. Then a tour guide from Switzerland explains what compels him to run with the bulls in Pamplona each summer, as he's done for five decades. And listeners chat with Rick about their latest European travel discoveries.
For more information on Travel with Rick Steves - including episode descriptions, program archives and related details - visit www.ricksteves.com.