Book Review: For The Love Of Europe: My Favorite Places, People, and Stories by Rick Steves
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At the start of the pandemic, searching for activities limited to staying at home and keeping socially distant, we looked for things to keep us entertained. At first, this was watching what shows we hadn’t watched on the various streaming platforms but even as that interest began to dry up, there was only so much to keep ourselves occupied. Sure, as anyone who knows me I can play another video game or read another comic, but what was missing from my life was travel. Being familiar with Rick Steves and knowing most of his show Rick Steves’ Europe were available for free on YouTube, we went on to spend many days watching the over 100 episodes to fulfill the itch. This first led me to listen as an audio book Rick Steves’ Travel As A Political Act. I wrote a review of that book that can be ready here. Recently, Rick published another book call Rick Steves: For The Love Of Europe. This is a book of 100 essays that Rick wrote of his most personal experiences on the continent. By sharing these moments with us it’s his hope that we will seek out our own special moments using his as inspiration.
Imagine taking the best moments from all the TV episodes and publishing them in a book and this is what you get. If there is one criticism I personally can have, it might be that some of the stories felt repetitive. I had seen many of them on the show and I almost feel selfish in even pointing this out. In some way, reading some of the essays that mirror the shows was like picking up a photo and re-experiencing the feelings of the moments in that photo all over again. Even for me, some of the essays were written about places I myself have visited. Such places like the Champs-Elysee in Paris, the Roman baths in Bath, or the canals of Venice, the essays bring memories of my experiences in those locations. A good example is cities like York, that I visited in 2018, which is a place I would like to return to explore more of it’s historic streets, visit the shops in The Shambles, and gaze up at one of the largest cathedrals in Europe, York Minster. Rick writes of visiting those shops for regional fair to being able to ring the bell inside the church. My short time in the city didn’t allow to do very much, so this book gives me those experiences but also ideas for my next visit.
Yet, there are many places in this book that I still have yet to visit. They are almost too numerous to list. There doesn’t appear to be anywhere I would turn down visiting. Too name the places I long most to visit, I start with Gimmewald to see life in a small village in the Swiss Alps. I would return to Germany to visit the three castles of Eltz, Rheinfels, and Neuschwanstein, this inspiration for Disney castles. And I would want to visit Tuscany and see how proscuitto is made. It doesn’t stop there either, there is Bruges, Dubrovnik, and Cinque Terre. The list goes on and on and I would argue this book can give the most comprehensive of list of places you must visit if you are going to travel to Europe. What you are getting is nearly 40 years of travel from Rick in these essays and the number here is evidence of that and I hope one day to myself be able to share in them.
If there is anything you should take away from any experience with a Rick Steves product, it’s that he encourages you to break out of the “comfort zone”. This is what these essays really are, it’s Rick breaking out of his own comfort zone, such as the nude baths he experiences in Baden-Baden. That’s not to say that he discourages anyone from visiting the tourist traps. He would certainly tell you that you should see those major sites to get the grander context of the place your are visiting. Yes, visit the Eiffel Tower, Trafalgar Square, and The Vatican, they are all important to the cultural significance and the economies of the cities in which they reside. What Rick would tell you to do, is visit a cafe in a place like Mostar or stay at a agriturismo in Tuscany, sort of like a hotel on a farm. It’s in places like these that you really learn the life of the people and just not the static objects of their past. It’s a step into a world that connects you directly to the experience of what life is like in another country. Rick says it best in his final essay that, “ While memories of palaces toured and castles climbed fade into a jumble, it’s the people, experiences, and cultural connections that stay vivid for decades…”
For anyone looking to fill their traveling needs in a time where most of us can’t travel far from our homes and your interest is in Europe I would highly recommend this book. Even if you are familiar with Rick Steves and his show and seen most of the episodes, I still would say grab this book. You might find a detail you missed before and if anything it’s like a warm blanket reminding you of the good times you had either watching the show, visiting Europe yourself, or looking forward to when we once again can stretch our legs and visit the places we long to see.