831 Greek Theatre; Beyond Santorini; Home Base Hiking in Europe

19:54Yes. Hora in current Greek means country. But in the past, each one of the islands would have its own hora, which would mean the capital. And that, where all of the commercial activity would be happening and where all the important people would be living at, like the ship owners or the merchants, would have to be far away from where the ships dock, from where the pirates could get to and attack. So for safety reasons, they used to build the Hoda on top of a higher position, many times invisible from where most ships would go by, and would be surrounded by walls like forts.

20:32Rick Steves:Oh, that makes sense then. So the port where the boat will dock will be one characteristic of a town, but maybe the older town would be higher up, a 10-minute taxi ride away or something on a cliff or hiding away from the pirates. Yes. All over Europe, when there's sea, there used to be pirates, and you find interesting pirate history. You want me to tell you a story that's kind of ironic? Yes. Because until two generations ago in Greece, almost all of the important property would be inherited by the boys, the first son or the rest of the sons of the family. And the girls would need to get a dowry and get married.

21:09And usually they would give them the less valuable property, which would be property by the sea. and they would give the boys the property up on the rocky parts of an island or the Peloponnese so that they could grow whatever they could grow there. And in the later generations, what happened was that the girls and their families got to become very, very wealthy. And the guys are stuck up there.

21:31Rick Steves:With the olive trees. You got the olive trees, you got the tourism and the beautiful beach resorts. Exactly. Whoa. Victor, if you're coming into some island in Greece and you know you got Korra up on the hill and you know you got the port town right there where the ferry docks. The convenient thing is just to walk across the street, be close to the harbor and the beaches and just find a hotel there by the ferry. Or you could take a taxi 10 minutes and get to that place where the romantic sunsets are, but not such good access to the beach or not such easy access for pirates. Pirates are no longer a concern, but you still have the convenience of being on the water or up there in the older town.

22:08Rick Steves:What are the pros and cons? What would you do? I would definitely go up into the town because the nightlife is something you won't find if you're staying down on the beach. But you'll meet it in the way of people. The locals will be up there. And that's part of the fun. So more of the tourists will be down near the harbor usually. And then you've got the beautiful... And I know rush hour for romance on Santorini is at the cliff in Hora watching the sun go down. But you could have that same kind of romance without all of that intensity of tourism at the hora of the little island that doesn't have the cruise port.

22:44Rick Steves:That's right. We've been talking about Foligandros, which is near Santorini. We've been talking about Tinos, which is near Mykonos. Do each of you have, would you mind sharing an island that is harder to get to, but is worth the trouble to get to? Victor? I think that Icaria is an example of an island that's a little harder to get to. Icaria. It's a little further route. Yeah, named, you know, Icarus. Yeah, Icarus, I was going to say, that's the guy who fell into the water right there. Icaria. Icaria, yeah. It's out there on the way towards Samos. Okay. It's just far enough away. It doesn't get so many crowds.

23:17Rick Steves:That's what you mean, just far enough away. Nikki? One of my favorite islands is Kimolos, which is right next to the island of Milos. Milos keeps on getting more and more crowded and more and more popular, and there is a reason for that. It's worth it, but you have to get all the way to Milos and then get on another smaller ferry to get across to Kimolos. And once you get there, the first time I got there, I was shocked by the Hora appearance that looks like time has stopped. It looks like Mykonos 40 years ago. And then, apart from exploring the little alleys that look like a labyrinth inside the Middle Ages castle of the Hora of Kimolos, you can drive to so many different beaches where there is nobody around.

23:59Rick Steves:This is it. Okay, so let's not even worry about the names of the islands. Let's just say there are always islands that have indirect ferry service. like the ones you guys both named, but I want to talk about some generic things that you might have on your checklist. For instance, you're talking about the traditions. Mykonos, 40 years ago. That's not that hard to find. You just got to take that one extra step. And it's going to get a bigger and bigger issue as things become more and more touristic and everybody is inundated with cruise groups where there are deep harbors. So you can find the traditional life.

24:29Rick Steves:Can you get an idyllic taverna on the beach? Yeah, you sure can. And part of the beauty of that is not only is the taverna there and the beach there, but you've got the stars as the sun goes down. And you don't get that in an island, which is absolutely overrun by tourists. Oh, no. You've got your own special little spot. And if you stay there a couple of nights, you'll find your favorite spot for the sunset. Yeah. And you'll find the taverna where the father is the one that goes out with his boat and brings out the fresh fish or octopus, and the mother is the one that cooks it. And you can enjoy it with your feet right into the sand, not having to wear even your shoes.

25:03Rick Steves:To this day, that's one of my favorite memories in Greece is to settle my chair into the sand. Uh-huh. You have to kind of wiggle it down, right? Yes. If you don't want to fall. You wiggle it down, and then, okay, now I'm settled in. And then you have a glass of ouzo. And try an ouzo. I mean, I think ouzo is great. And with the sun, I always like to say, I don't let a sun go down on the Greek Isles without a nice cloudy glass of ouzo. This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're talking with Nicky Vlackau and Victor Romagnoli. They're both world travelers and tour guides based in Greece. Nikki grew up on the mainland in a small town, and now she splits her time between Olympia and Athens.

25:40Rick Steves:And Victor is Canadian-born, but he's spent the last 25 years on the island of Tinos, which is just like half an hour ferry ride away from that popular cruise port of Mykonos. You'll find links to connect with Nikki and Victor in the notes for this week's show, and that's on our website at ricksteves.com slash radio. Nikki and Victor, it's so great to be able to review this because I'm just learning options. And let's talk about a beach. You always have a beach within walking distance of the ferry port, but you do have that option of hopping in a taxi. I wouldn't even rent a car. You just hop in a taxi.

26:15Or you rent a little scooter. A scooter. That's a good thing. If you don't go for super comfort, because, you know, sometimes you just want the nice sunbed and the umbrella and be right where there is a beach bar and have the waiter bringing over the cold beer and go in and out the water without having to worry about much. But if you want to really be experiencing the island the best way and have some relaxation, you jump on a scooter or, yes, you get on a taxi and you get 15, 20 minutes or half an hour away at a beach where there are no sunbeds, there are no beach bars. You have to make sure you have enough water with you.

26:47And you use the shade of some of the trees that grow by the water. And if it's really well isolated, many of us will just take off everything we are wearing and jump into the water and swim skinny dipping. Skinny dipping. Yeah.

27:01Rick Steves:How do you say skinny dip in Greek? Gymnos. Let me get that down. Gymnos. Gymnos. Gymnos. How do you say, be careful, skin that has never seen the sun is very tender. You can get terribly sunburned. Oh, true. That's true. I bet there's a lot of tourists that have a hard lesson. Then what do you do? You put olive oil on it. Perfect. So you just wrap a blanket around yourself and you go to the nearest farm and you say, Give me some olive oil. foil. There's an image. But the fact is, you can skinny dip, if you like, in a remote beach. It's done. And there are some beaches in certain areas which are unofficially beaches where people...

27:43Mykonos.

27:44Rick Steves:Mykonos has that. You go one beach, the next beach, the next beach, and the final beach is the nude beach. Actually, I was at an island some years ago, which is, there is a very famous and very long beach with some beach bars, and we were at the beach bars because our kids were younger. And the kids said, Mom, can we walk a little bit at the far end? I said, why not? So they went really far. And they came back yelling, Mom! Mommy! There are these older people that were nothing. Once you see that, Mom, you cannot unsee it. Yes. Victor, one trick I did was I made friends with a driver, a taxi, and I just wanted to go to a place that you couldn't just call an Uber to get a pickup, you know.

28:24Rick Steves:And he agreed to come back in two hours and pick me up. Do people still do that? Absolutely. Yeah. So you can just find yourself parked in the beach that whatever tickles your fancy, and your car will come back and get you, and you negotiate a price. Sure. That's great. This is so fun to talk to you guys. I really appreciate it. Let's just finish off my dreaming right now about the Aegean Sea by sharing a moment on a boat, on a ferry, sunset, on the top of a castle. I can think of dolphins running just in front of the boat as I'm going through the sea. dolphins, and it's just gorgeous. What's a moment for you, Victor?

29:01Rick Steves:I was walking up in the hills early in the morning with my dog some years ago, and the sun is rising, and I didn't realize there was a man out there collecting honey from his beehives, and he saw me and gave me a bit of a wave just to warn me that the bees were out. And I stopped, and I waited for a little bit. A few minutes later, he came up to me, and he had this container in his hand, and he said to me, you know, thank you so much She said, you waited. You didn't have to. And this is all the fresh honey that I collected just while you were here. And I want you to have this. Oh, I said, thank you so much.

29:33Rick Steves:You didn't have to. She said, yes, yes. And next Friday, there's the party in the village. You must come. And he ended up being a friend still for my life. Oh, that's a beautiful thing. Yeah. I think I can understand why you, for 25 years, made a small Greek island your home. Nikki, what's sort of a magic experience you have? I like these magic moments in our travels on the islands. Walking on the sand without my shoes on and getting away from where the lights of the buildings are towards the sunset and the way that it starts getting darker with the moon above. And ending that walk with a quick dive into the water and coming out of it, finding the taverna to have a nice glass of wine and some nice fresh fish right by the water, hearing the sound of the waves.

30:20Rick Steves:You know, anybody could have that. You don't need to speak the language. You don't have to have a lot of money. You don't have to have a reservation. It's simple. Take off your shoes. Take a walk after sunset. Simple luxury. Victor, Nikki, thank you so much. You're just a beautiful example of how if we're thoughtful and if we can venture away from all the big lines of tourists, we can find the magic of Greece. Thank you. How do you say bon voyage in Greek? Kalo. Kalo. Taxidi. Kalo taxidi. Oh, you're good. Is that right? Yes, you're right. Victor, let me hear that with a Canadian accent. Calo, taxi.

30:58Rick Steves:All right. Thanks, you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Rick. Nikki Vlackow provides custom tours, cruise ship shore excursions, and trip planning services in English, Greek, and French from her home base at Ancient Olympia on the Greek mainland. She also has a network of local tour guides to recommend across Greece. Her website is olympictours.gr Victor Romagnoli has made his home on the island of Tinos for the last 25 years. He and his partner Alistair offer historic walking and culinary tours and accommodations on Tinos, which is just a 20-minute ferry ride from the busy scene on Mykonos.

31:39Rick Steves:Their website is trulymadlygreekly.com. You can hear more about the significance of the Pilgrim Church, Our Lady of Tinos, in an extra from today's interview. It's posted with today's show at ricksteves.com slash radio. Let's plan a great hiking vacation in Europe. That's next on Travel with Rick Steves. Americans have the shortest vacation time in the rich world, and too often that means taking jam-packed trips to the most crowded locations, squeezing every site into a dizzying itinerary. So what's the antidote to the frenzied, crowded European travel? According to hiking enthusiast Cassandra Overby, it's staying in one place and using it as a springboard for a series of hikes.

32:23Rick Steves:She's found a traveler's need and filled it with her guidebooks, Explore Europe on Foot, and now with her latest book, Home Base Hiking Europe. In this book, Cassandra mixes European culture and nature in 10 favorite springboard locations. This is where slow travel meets hiking, and her love of Europe's outdoors comes through on every page. She's here now to help us plan an unforgettable home-based hiking adventure in Europe. Cassandra, thanks for being here. Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to talk more hiking with you. Oh, yeah. Well, you're the guide who got me going on all this long-distance hiking in Europe.

32:57Rick Steves:And I'm excited about your new book, Home Base Hiking. So I know your first book well, Explore Europe on Foot. And that's a pretty basic guidebook to hiking around Europe, using those venerable long-distance trails. Your new book is all about home-based hiking. So first of all, why home-based hiking? What is it? So home-based hiking, the concept, is all about going to a village, staying for 7 to 10 days, and doing day hikes from there, day hikes that highlight the very best of the local landscape, the local culture, and getting to know not just the local landscape better by staying longer, but getting to know your village really well as well.

33:36Rick Steves:So you're mixing a little more focus on culture and not the everyday relocating by having the luxury of the same hotel and then coming back each time. Right. And getting to mix your hikes with other places like, you know, if you're going to go on a five-hour hike, you can come back and do a museum in the afternoon. There you go. And so being able to mix in a lot of sightseeing as well. Okay. Now, you were saying seven days per hub, but you don't. Let's just do a little magical trip together here. I've got like 12 days, maybe two weeks, and I want to go to three different home bases, and I want to construct it.

34:09Rick Steves:I love doing this consulting. You do this kind of consulting too, where somebody has a dream and you kind of chart it all out. I know what it's like to write a guidebook. You had to see a lot of places, and then you write your favorites up. You covered about 10 chapters in your book. You've got the Dolomites in Italy for a home base, the Somme River Valley in France, the Costa Brava north of Barcelona. You've got Provence in the south of France. You've got the Julian Alps in Slovenia. You've got the Jungfrau region in Switzerland. Piedmont in Italy. The Dalmatian region in Croatia, former Yugoslavia.

34:43Rick Steves:Berchtesgarten in Bavaria, the foothills of the Alps. And then the beautiful Vakau Valley where the Danube is just upstream from Vienna in Austria. So those are your favorite hubs for hiking, right? You can just stay in any of these places and hike for five or six days easily. Help me now. I've got a trip. I've got two weeks. I want to go to three places. What would you do? Let's say we're going to have three days in each and then, what, one day to travel between. So I would definitely mix different regions so that you get a fuller experience of Europe. So what I really like to do is I like to mix high alpine views with some really beautiful, warmer coastal views.

35:22And then I really like foothills as well for, you know, abbeys and castles and different cultural sites.

35:27Rick Steves:You know, and that's one thing. my one downside about hiking around Mount Blanc, it was too high. It was gorgeous from a nature point of view, but I didn't get any of the, what you just said, villages, churches, shops, farmland. So if you go to the foothills, you get more of that. So you're talking about some high alpine wonder, some foothills of the Alps kind of culture with your hikes and these gorgeous meadows and so on through farmland, and then coastal. If you look at your favorite hubs, what would the choices be for high alpine, high mountain? So some of my favorite high alpine hiking is in the Dolomites.

36:03And the Dolomites is simply amazing because you have these shockingly incredible views and these jagged rocks.

36:11Rick Steves:So this is in the north of Italy. These are the Italian Alps. Right. You could get there in two hours from Venice. Right. So what's amazing is that you have these incredible views. you have really great public transportation to where you can take lifts to all of the different hikes. You can cut a lot of elevation gain using lifts. So it's some of the best hiking that you can ever get for very little effort. And you've got pizza and wine. Right, pizza and wine. And it's about half the price of Switzerland. So it's a shockingly great deal. Nice. Okay, so the Dolomites will be our high-altitude experience.

36:47Rick Steves:Yeah. And then how about the Foothills experience? I really love Berkdesk Gardens. National Park. So now Berchtesgarten is near Salzburg and Innsbruck. Right. Very south of Germany. Very south of Germany, right close to the border. Two hours south of Munich. So you just go there on a quick train ride from Munich. Yeah. Hitler loved Berchtesgarten. Right? Yeah. Hitler's Eagle's Nest is built right there, which you can go up and see. It was the heart and soul of the German people. Yes. Just because Hitler liked it doesn't mean we don't go there. So he had good taste in mountain resorts. And there's so much around there.

37:19I mean, you have that history from World War II. But then you also have castles and, you know, you have farmland that you can visit. And there's excellent public transportation there as well. Okay.

37:29Rick Steves:So that would be our foothills. And then what did you say? You said beach. Now, that's interesting that you like beach hiking or coastal hiking, not on the beach necessarily. Right. So I love Costa Brava, Spain. And Costa Brava was one of those places where I went and I immediately felt at home. And it's a very local hotspot. So all of the travelers that you're going to really see or hear are Spanish. They're visiting from Barcelona, which is relatively close by. Close to Brava. I was there because Salvador Dali lived there in Cateques. Yes. And you can actually, you can hike from his house out to a lighthouse.

38:03So there's a lot of really interesting stuff. But one of the cool things about that is that you get these amazing views of the water and you can pack your swimsuit and you can swim at these very remote, incredible beaches along the

38:15Rick Steves:Yeah. Okay, so let me just, I'm making this itinerary right now. The Dolomites would be in northern Italy, and then we've got Berchtesgarten, which is southern Germany, and then we've got Costa Brava, which is near Barcelona. So you could fly into Venice, couldn't you? Yes. And then you do the Dolomites, then you have to get from Venice to Munich. Probably, well, we take a train. Right. And then you would fly from Munich to Barcelona. Yeah, that's what I recommend. And then you're a two-hour train ride from Barcelona to get to whatever your hub city would be. Right. And you don't need to rent a car for any of your trip.

38:50You can use public transportation, and you can still see all of the best sites.

38:53Rick Steves:I'm writing this down. I'm going to fly to Venice, and then I'm going to take a two - or three-hour train connection from the airport or from the nearest city. Trains and buses. Or buses to my base in the Dolomites. And then from the Dolomites, I'm going to find out the most convenient way to get over the Alps to get to Munich. as that's how you get to the foothills of the Alps in Bavaria. And then I'm going to fly from Munich to Barcelona and I'll fly home from Barcelona back to Seattle. So I get to fly to Venice. I'll take a day in Venice anyways because I like that. And then I'll zip up to the Dolomites, settle in.

39:25Rick Steves:I'm going to go four nights, three undivided days. And I have a whole day to travel to get up to Munich and then get to my home base in Bavaria. And then I have four nights and three days for hiking there. And then I go back to Munich and I fly to Barcelona for$150 in two hours. and then I've got four nights in Costa Brava, three days of hiking, go back to Barcelona. I love Barcelona. Take a day there and fly home. That's a vacation. And it's such a well-rounded one. I get to see some great cities, Venice and Barcelona and Munich if I want. And I get what's really cool, four nights, three undivided days, home base hiking.

39:58Rick Steves:Okay, I want to get into what we're going to do for each of those, but right now I just want to remind people that this is Travel with Rick Steves and we are planning one of my favorite ways to explore Europe on foot with writer and hiking enthusiast Cassandra Overby. Cassandra has compiled 10 hand-picked destinations for setting off on unforgettable hikes. That's in her newest book, Home Base Hiking Europe. She's also the author of Exploring Europe on Foot. Her website is exploreonfoot.com, and that gives you a peek at all of her work, plus some interviews we've done in the past together as we rave about doing Europe on foot.

40:34Rick Steves:Okay, Cassandra, we got the Dolomites, We got the foothills of Bavaria, and we've got the coastal area where France hits Spain. All right, the coast of Brava. Let's talk about each of those places now. We've just got a few minutes. The Dolomites, where would I stay? So my favorite valley is called Val Gardena. And it's a valley with three different villages. And the village that I like to recommend to people is Ordizé because it's the largest of the three. And by largest, I mean it's still very small. There's just a lot to do there. And that takes you up to Sucheda. Yes. Right from Ordece, that's my favorite bit of the Dolomites, because you're walking on this crazy ridge.

41:14It's amazing.

41:15Rick Steves:Oh, man. And that's just using the lifts like you talked about. So you go from Ordece up to Sacheda, and then you'd come back down on the same lift. That's one day. Yeah. What else would you do? So then I would go over to the village of Santa Cristina, and from there you can take lifts up to the Sassalungo Massif. and you can do, some people do all the way around it, but actually... Sassolungo, oh, I love it. It's the most amazing sight. I've seen it from Alpi de Susi forever, but I've never hiked around it. Oh, that is actually my very favorite hike in all of the Dolomites. So you can go around the base of it and then cut through the middle of it.

41:52And right in the middle of it, kind of like in the middle of a big molar, there are multiple huts that you can visit in the rocks.

41:59Rick Steves:So there's like Sassolungo and Sassolidl or something like that. There's two different mountains, right? and they've got a valley between them. Well, it's kind of like broken rock between them. Broken rock. Yeah. Okay. So this is your Dolomite thing. Right. And you've got great food and you get to know what to say. Then you go up to Munich and you side trip it down and you get settled into Bavaria. Where are we going to make our home base for our Bavarian hikes? So kind of the heartbeat of Berchtesgaden National Park is the town of Berchtesgaden. And I love it because it's a place where you see very strong German people walking around in their hiking boots and their lederhosen.

42:35Rick Steves:And their felt hats with little feathers. Right, right. And they yodel. They actually yodel. Yes, and it feels very much like an authentic German outdoor village that's for Germans. It's true. Berchtesgarten is very touristy, but it's very touristy with Germans. Yes. And that's nice. Quickly, what would the hikes be from Berchtesgarten? So from there, you can take lifts up and walk down some of the mountains, getting views of Bavaria's deepest lake. You can hike up to a spot where they serve a typical Bavarian breakfast, and you have views over the whole valley that includes Berchtesgaden. I mean, you can do a hike in the valley near Ramsau, and from there, you just walk from hut to hut along this ridge, and there's no elevation at all.

43:22It's a salt brine path. And you get apple strudel as you go.

43:25Rick Steves:And you could take a bus to Salzburg if you wanted to. Yeah, it's very close. I mean, it's probably half an hour to Salzburg. Yeah. You could even hike for six hours, come back and go to Salzburg for dinner. Right. That's the thing. Don't underestimate public transit. Okay. Last stop, after our Bavarian Alpine fun, the hills are alive with the sound of music. You'll go to Munich and you'll fly to Barcelona. You'll connect to Costa Brava. Yes. And where would you stay and what would you do? There's a little town there called Cala de Palafrugell, and this is kind of a bedroom community of Barcelona.

43:56It was a fishing village many years ago, and now it's just a quiet spot where people from Barcelona like to take their weekends. It has really great beaches in town, and from there you have some really amazing cliffs with great hiking.

44:10Rick Steves:So when you think of coastal hiking in Europe, I suppose once in a while you're walking on a beach, but normally you're walking on bluffs with a view of the beach? Yeah, a lot of times you're on bluffs. So you're walking kind of through towns, along beaches, up the bluffs to lighthouses. And at the lighthouses, they serve refreshments. So you can get, you know, a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. And then you can keep going and end up at places like the Salvador Dali house. Right. You splice in examples of culture along the way. Yeah. Fantastic. Cassandra, this is actually a trip I could imagine doing, especially I'd give it a few more days to have time in Venice and Munich and Barcelona.

44:48Rick Steves:three great cities with a nice mix of hiking in there. And the nice thing about this is you do the hiking you're comfortable doing. If you want to, you take the lift up and you hike down. If you want to, you take a taxi out and you walk back. And you have flexibility. If it rains one day, switch up your itinerary a little bit. Cassandra Overby is our guest on Travel with Rick Steves. She's a writer and outdoor enthusiast who recommends we build in some serious hiking in our travels. She's the author of Home Base Hiking Europe and Explore Europe on Foot, your complete guide to planning a cultural hiking adventure.

45:22Rick Steves:She also offers trip consulting and route guides at her website, exploreonfoot.com. We have links to Cass' earlier conversations with us and a short extra from today's interview in which she tells us about walking the Costa Brava Trail in Spain from Salvador Dali's house to isolated beaches and a lighthouse view. It's included in the notes for today's show at ricksteves.com slash radio. Okay, your books are so full of wisdom. We're out of time, except I'd like you to just, but let's do one thing I think is really, really helpful is just your sort of words of wisdom on smart hiking while you're traveling in Europe.

46:02Yeah. So I think one of the best things that I like to tell people is to take breaks and to stop when anything hurts. Don't press through it and think you have a destination that you're headed to and you're just going to be tough and go do it. because if you do that, you'll end up developing something like a blister. Fix it before it's a problem. Fix it before it's a problem. And, you know, when you're doing a hike or something like that, you can get in this mindset of wanting to be at your destination and being fixated on that. And I think that's a really good reason to take breaks. So I actually take a book with me when I'm hiking in Europe, and I will sit there and I will drink wine from my platypus, and I will eat the snacks that I brought, and I will read my book for 20 minutes out, you know, on a little fence in the farmland or on a bluff.

46:48When I do that, I stop enough to actually take it in.

46:51Rick Steves:You drink wine from your platypus? I do. What is it? That's a horrible image. So a platypus is basically a plastic bag that people use for water when they're on trail. Okay. But I use wine as a wine platypus. It exactly fits a liter of wine inside. Oh, that's nice. Now, what I do in order to have some downtime each day is I make a point to leave an hour before I might want to. And then I have an hour, extra hour on the trail. Yeah. Because what's better, an hour at the hotel or more an hour just to be in the moment on a trail without hiking? Right. I love that. Okay, third word of wisdom. So I would encourage people to be a visitor rather than a tourist.

47:32And I think you can do that really well when you're home-based hiking because you get to have conversations with people who run the wine shop and the meat shop and you have more opportunities to talk to locals. But I think it's really important not to just come into town, consume nature and leave. I think it's really important to talk to people, find out about their daily life, find out about what they do. I mean, a lot of times the souvenirs I bring home are a new way to do things. You know, like in Italy, they spend so much more time with their families and they have these long lingering dinners.

48:04So part of being a visitor rather than a tourist is to take home those bits of culture. And I know that's something that you really do, too. And it's important and I think it's powerful.

48:15Rick Steves:Number four words of wisdom. I would say, you know, a lot of people, especially when they're doing a challenging trip like a high alpine trip, especially if they do it for something like retirement or a big birthday. It's such a high that as soon as that high starts to fade, you get sad, right? And I always tell people, even before your trip has ended, start planning the next one. Don't get sad. Get planning. And when you're in Europe, it's the perfect opportunity to talk to European hikers and find out what their favorite trails are, and you get that insider knowledge. Very nice. And you like to say allow your travels to change you.

48:51Yes.

48:52Rick Steves:What does that mean? So to me, that is, you know, talking to other people and letting those bits of culture in and those things that other cultures do better than your culture does. Nice. Be open to being impressed by somebody else's culture. It's not a contest. Right. And it's not even about being impressed. It's try to try to recreate that in your own life. Huh. Set aside the time for a long lingering dinner. You know, do the things you have to make the habits. And I would add one more bit of wisdom, stretch religiously. Yes. I'm so committed to stretching when I'm hiking. I always feel creaky at home, but when I'm hiking, I stretch in the morning, I stretch at night, and I stretch after the hike's done.

49:34Rick Steves:It's the best time I could invest if I want to enjoy myself while I'm on the road, if I'm not a real great hiker otherwise. Right. And something I would suggest to people is especially pay attention to your hip flexors, because when you're wearing a backpack, you have a tendency to tip forward. And so your hip flexors get tighter than they normally would. So that set of muscles you really want to pay attention to when you're on trail. Okay, so pay attention to your hip flexors and drink wine from a platypus. Yes. Cassandra Overby, thank you so much, and I'll see you on the trail. Sounds good. I love to go a wandering along a mountain track.

50:09And as I go, I love to see my knapsack on my back. Louder-lis, Louder-lis, Louder-lis, Louder-lis, Louder-lis, Louder-lis. Come join my happy soul.

50:37Rick Steves:Travel 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. 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. In our online travel store, you can choose from 80 different Rick Steves guidebooks covering just about every country, region, and major city in Europe, as well as books on history, art, Italian food, cruising, and festivals, plus phrasebooks and planning maps.

51:18Rick Steves:You'll find my favorite bag, the one I designed and I live out of for 100 days a year, and a selection of other custom-designed bags, backpacks and wheeled bags, big and small, plus a selection of accessories that experienced travelers won't leave home without. It's all at ricksteves.com.