Rick Steves's Blog, page 63

Stumbling into Vernazza’s city hall I found a chart showing how the random pastel colors so characteristic of Cinque Terre villages are actually not so random.

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Having visited Vernazza for over 30 years, I now have many friends in its cemetery. I remember following one of these dear friends, Monica, past the tombs in her town’s cemetery as she recalled her departed friends — illustrating the beautiful function that cemeteries provide.

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From Vernazza’s cemetery, the dearly departed enjoy the best views in town.

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My son, Andy Steves, runs his own tour company. His mission: to help American students in foreign study programs enjoy smart, experiential, and inexpensive three-day weekends. The students never have classes on Friday, and discount airlines make it easy to fly just about anywhere for $50 round-trip. So, Andy’s company, Weekend Student Adventures, offers €200 three-day tours all over Europe. He’s taken literally thousands of students on great trips in the past few years…to rave reviews.

My son, Andy, spends more time than I do in Europe. But we rarely connect because his tours run during the school year and I’m normally in Europe in the summer. However, Andy just finished his tour season and was able to drop by and hang out with the crew and me while we filmed for four days on Italy’s Cinque Terre. Though Andy had other things to do during the day, each evening he managed to show up…just in time for dinner. I was happy to have Andy dining with us for two nice meals on camera for this episode.

Andy has become a workaholic tour organizer…just like his Dad. Well, not quite as bad. But this moment, with both of us on our beds and hard at work on our laptops, with the wonder of the Riviera just a block away, struck me as interesting.

Seeing Andy off at the Monterosso train station was really fun — and tear-jerkingly beautiful for his proud Dad. Andy is an amazing traveler who, I’m sure, knows his angle on European travel better than anyone.

We’re having a great time filming our new public television show on the Cinque Terre, Italy’s perfect little traffic-free stretch of Riviera. Here are some behind-the-scenes shots from our shoot.

Our crew was out shooting on the breakwater in Monterosso. We scrambled for six days to finish our new Cinque Terre show. The weather was horrible for three days and just fine for three days. So whenever the sun was out…we were very busy shooting. We had just enough gorgeous weather to continue our mission of showing Europe as if it’s always sunny.

With so many of my guidebook readers enjoying the Cinque Terre, whenever I needed a bit player or two, I’d just tell the crew “I’ll be right back with people.” I snared a fan of our TV show from New Jersey with his French girlfriend, and they enjoyed a nice glass of the local dessert wine, sciacchetrà, with biscotti.

This scene looked very romantic on video. But in reality, they had a camera on one side and a reflector on the other as they looked into each other’s eyes and dunked their biscotti.

Shooting the back lanes of Vernazza, I had a list of things I needed to film in order to “cover the script.” One was the inside of a B&B or rented apartment — the best way to sleep on a budget in the area. This can be a headache to set up for the camera. But as we were filming, a couple stuck their heads out a window high above us and said hi. I invited myself in to check out their digs. It was perfect. Moments later, the film crew was in their private rented apartment showing our viewers exactly what an independent budget traveler’s accommodations look like.

If we are on target with our work — after we’ve filmed everything and know exactly what we have — we huddle to polish (or “scrub”) the script. Then I record a “scratch track” in the hotel room, which Simon brings home to use as the rough audio track for editing. When the show is all edited together, then we go to a professional recording studio in Seattle and record the formal voice track. The day after we finished shooting (and recorded this track), Simon and Karel flew home, ready to dive into post-production work.

We all love seafood, and it was seafood salads, stuffed mussels, and anchovies for lunch and dinner all week. When the show was finally in the can, we celebrated at Monterosso’s Belvedere Restaurant with their much-loved “Seafood Amphora.” When the waiter emptied the amazing pottery jar full of seafood into the big bowl on our table, we knew we were in for a memorable final meal on the Riviera.

This spring and summer, we’re filming six new public television programs to wrap up our new season: Berlin, Prague, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the Veneto, and the Cinque Terre. We do two shows (12 days) per shoot. Right now, we’re having great fun in Italy shooting episodes on the Veneto and the Cinque Terre.

Cameraman Karel and producer Simon are artfully capturing some of Europe’s greatest art on this shoot. Here, we’re surrounded by exquisite mosaics in Ravenna.

I love all the new technology that makes travel easier than ever. With the help of this rudimentary GPS system, we knew we were in Italy.

I generally don’t care that much about the weather. But when filming, I live by the weather forecasts. We enjoyed perfect weather for six days shooting our Veneto show. But when we headed to the Italian Riviera, when the weather was critical, the forecasts were horrible. I search and search online for a decent forecast, and sometimes, I come up with nothing but drizzle. We started our Italian Riviera show (near La Spezia) with nothing but rain in the forecast.

Our crew in Vernazza 2001: This favorite view of my favorite town on my favorite stretch of Mediterranean coastline doesn’t change much. This is our crew (me, producer Simon Griffith, and cameraman Karel Bauer) in 2001. It was fun to update this episode with many of the same players among the townsfolk…and with my same, wonderful crew.

Same crew in Vernazza 2014: And this is the same crew, at the same viewpoint in 2014. Thankfully, as we get older, the camera gear gets smaller and lighter. At this rate, we’ll be producing TV for a long, long time. By the way, TV production today is every bit as challenging — and rewarding — as it was in 2001.

As a tour guide, I strive to get into the mindset of the people for whom art was created. Ravenna’s mosaic-slathered Church of San Vitale dates from a time when the ancient world was on the cusp of the Middle Ages. For 15 centuries — ever since the days when Jesus was portrayed without a beard — pilgrims have pondered the path their lives will take as they work through the labyrinth leading to this amazing altar. With delightful symmetry and vivid symbolism, this lovingly assembled pile of mosaic chips has worked wonders on visitors for well over a thousand years. And we’re excited to be bringing it home on public television.

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Padova’s Scrovegni Chapel is slathered with precious and exquisite frescos by Giotto, including several poignant scenes from Holy Week, Jesus’ Crucifixion, and the Resurrection. I’m hoping to do an Easter special (as a follow-up to our Christmas special) for public television, so we filmed each of these beautiful scenes in anticipation of that project. In this frantic little video clip, I take one minute to blitz the events of Jesus’ last week as presented by Giotto. (Thankfully, when you visit the chapel, you’ll get 15 minutes.)

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It’s fun to get off the beaten path when filming our TV series. The show we’re doing now is all about not going to Venice — instead, we’re visiting nearby places we’re calling “sotto-estimato”…underestimated: Verona, Padova, and Ravenna. While I love Venice, the welcome is warmer and less greedy in towns on the nearby mainland.

Pilgrims Converge on Padova’s Basilica of St. Anthony

One of the most popular pilgrimage sites in all of Christendom is Padova’s Basilica of St. Anthony. And plenty of pilgrims were here celebrating the canonization of two recent popes, John XXIII and John Paul II.

Just Our Crew and the Best of Giotto

Padova’s Scrovegni Chapel, with a precious and exquisite series of frescos by Giotto, is one of those super-fragile and popular art treasures (like Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper) where, in order to control the humidity, only a few people (who have reservations in advance) are allowed in for short visits. With our film work, rather than the normal 15-minute visit, we got to stay for two hours…and, four times each hour (as other visitors were ushered in and out), we had the chapel all to ourselves for a couple of delightful minutes. The last time we filmed here was 12 years ago, when it was covered in scaffolding. Making the best of a disappointing situation, we adjusted the script to focus on the restoration process itself. This time we enjoyed the chapel in all its Giotto glory.

Grief Frescoed as Never Before in 1300

Enjoying the artistic genius of Giotto in Padova’s Scrovegni Chapel is a highlight for any art lover. It’s amazing to consider that these scenes, including this Crucifixion, were frescoed 200 years before the age of Michelangelo and Leonardo.

Damn You… All of You…

The entire Scrovegni Chapel is frescoed by Giotto. And, while it’s a carefully designed series of panels showing events from the lives of Jesus and Mary with a dramatic Judgment Day filling the back wall, I enjoyed finding my own favorite little snippets. You can find countless details that, if framed and hung on a wall, would be gorgeously designed scenes on their own. This tiny segment is in the gruesome corner: the damned on Judgment Day, just kicking off what promises to be a pretty miserable eternity.

Man, I Need a Cigarette

I love working hard with people equally committed to our mission of sharing the wonders of Europe with our travelers. And my crew — producer Simon Griffith and cameraman Karel Bauer — make TV production both a joy and very rewarding. We get to be alone with Europe’s greatest art. And after private time with the very greatest, we feel a special exhilaration. Even though none of us smokes tobacco, in moments like this, we joke that we need a cigarette.

Pilgrims and happy Roman Catholics were pouring into Rome last week for the canonization of two popes. And many among them were Poles celebrating the sainthood of their beloved Pope John Paul II (born Karol Wojtyla in communist-era Poland). Here in Italy, at Padova’s Basilica of Saint Anthony, a new painting of JPII has already joined the ranks of centuries of inspirational Christians who became saints. Being here as they put up a painting that travelers will stand before for generations to come is a reminder that we are part of history.

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