744a Falling for Saturn; Heart of Martin Sheen; Florentine Favorites

What do you love about traveling? When Martin Sheen went on location overseas to film movies he starred in, it often showed him the stark realities many people have to live with. Coming up, he explains how it motivated him to get politically active in trying to make a difference. I knew that I would never be the same, ever. And you don't want to be the same. The first time astronomer Philip Plait gazed through a telescope at Saturn, he knew it was love at first sight. Seeing that little disk surrounded by those rings. It was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen. He shares what we've been learning lately about the ringed planet. Toni Mazaglia leads food tours along the streets of Florence. She tells us about her favorite culinary traditions in Tuscany. That's part of their culture. That's who they are. And if you don't try the things they love, you're never going to truly understand those people. The flavors of Florence, the dazzle of Saturn, and Martin Sheen's life-changing travels. It's all in the hour ahead on Travel with Rick Steves. A job that requires you to travel overseas can open your eyes to other realities from the ones you're used to seeing at home. What Martin Sheen witnessed outside the filming set helped to change his view of the world and his place in it. In just a bit, he tells us what opened his heart to the needs of others. And later in the hour, we'll enjoy a taste of the hearty foods of Tuscany. Let's start today's travel with Rick Steves from out of this world with a focus on one of our most beguiling neighbors in the solar system. A mere bright yellow-looking star to the bare eye, the reality of Saturn is a large planet with vast rings and a multitude of moons, each one different. It's the planet that most inspires young space explorers to pursue astronomy as a career. Just ask Phil Plait, who calls it the Gateway Planet. As a child, he fell in love with all things space-related, including the ringed planet. Today, Phil is bringing us to the edge of Saturn's rings and giving us a close-up look from inside the planet. Phil, thanks for coming down to Earth and joining us. Thank you. So tell us about your first real look at Saturn. What was that like, and how did it impact you? Well, I was probably 5 or 6 years old, and I am no longer 5 or 6 years old, so I have memories of this that have lasted me an entire lifetime. My parents bought a cheapo telescope, set it up in the driveway, and pointed it at Saturn. And I guess they'd seen something in the newspaper or on TV saying Saturn was as close to Earth as it gets all year. So they went and did this. And I remember seeing Saturn through that eyepiece. And even though it was a terrible telescope, seeing that little disk surrounded by those rings, it was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen. You know, being five years old, I hadn't seen that much. But I was really into science and really into science fiction and all that. And seeing it as a real place really struck me. And I know that I'm not alone in this. A lot of astronomers say the moon and Saturn, one of those two or both, is why they wanted to be an astronomer in the first place. And it was certainly a turning point in your life. Part of your whole career has been sharing your fascination with the solar system and beyond. And your book is Under Alien Skies, A Sightseer's Guide to the Universe. It's like a guidebook for exploring outer space. And Saturn is probably, from the read, it's your favorite chapter. And when you were writing about it, you mentioned the year 2004 was a really big year for Saturn lovers. What happened in 2004? Well, if I have my dates correct, that's when the Cassini space probe entered orbit around Saturn. This is an immense probe. It was a spacecraft the size of a school bus, and it orbited Saturn for well over 12 years and sent back thousands and thousands of not just images, but all sorts of interesting scientific data about the planet. We've been observing Saturn for hundreds of years, ever since the telescope was first invented. But we may have learned as much about the planet in that mission, the course of the dozen years of that mission, as we had in all those centuries before. It was a windfall of information, as well as spectacular jaw-dropping images. Wow. That must have just been thrilling for people who have dedicated their lives to exploring the solar system and beyond. So tell us, describe Saturn. I mean, the stripes, the moons, the rings, the density, all that. Tell us about this planet. We have, what, six hours for me to do this? Yeah, I think so. Well, let's just pretend you're a tour guide, and we've got about 10 minutes. So we just landed. We're on our way to Neptune, but we've got the afternoon for Saturn, and we're sitting on a ring. What are we going to see? Well, you can't land on Saturn because there's no land there, actually. It is a gas giant. It's a planet about 10 times wider than the Earth and almost 100 times the mass, the weight, if you want to think of it, of the Earth. So it's really huge, but it's gas. Yeah, you said it's like, what, lighter than water. You had a great way of describing it. If you had a bathtub big enough and you put Saturn in it, it would float. Yes, but it would leave a ring. The oldest astronomy joke there is. The planet is mostly atmosphere. It does have a core way deep down, thousands and thousands of miles deep. That's probably rock and metal like Earth is, but this is surrounded by a layer of gas that is so huge that we call it a gas giant. And around it, you have these rings, which are not solid. They are collections of trillions more icy particles. This is frozen water, and they orbit Saturn in a very thin plane. So if you were to see Saturn's rings edge on, they would basically disappear. They are so thin. Now we're talking about a system, the rings that are well over a hundred thousand miles across, but in thickness from top to bottom, they're 10, 20 yards thick. So it's not, you know, a hundred miles. Like you might think these things are literally thinner to scale than a sheet of paper. So when you see them edge on, they kind of disappear. But if you were in them, you would see yourself being surrounded by just countless tiny, icy, shiny particles, literally frozen water ice. And they're not one ring. And we talk about the ring of Saturn. It's actually the rings of Saturn. The moons and Saturn and different effects pull on these particles. And there are gaps in the ring. Some of them are quite large. Some of them are very thin. There's a tiny moon called Daphnis. It's only about a few miles across, embedded in the rings. And its gravity has actually carved a gap in the rings around it. And it actually creates ripples in the rings as well. So they kind of look like a rippled potato chip. We never expected the rings to be this complicated until we got there and looked at them up close. And it turns out they're immensely complicated. People spend their careers studying them and they're gorgeous. What a trippy thing to be there. I mean, if you could imagine being there, you've got all of the kaleidoscope of visual dazzle. You've got these colorful rings. You've got 145 moons. You've got this giant, giant planet. And as you wrote in the book, there's a permanent hurricane going on. We're not going to be there, but just to think about being there, try to explain, if you were able to, you know, sit on the edge of a ring, what would you see? What would astound you? If you were looking down on Saturn, the view wouldn't be as spectacular as I would like. When you see Jupiter through a telescope, it's got these gorgeous stripes and bands on them. These are basically storms that are whipping all the way around the planet. Saturn has those as well, but it has a thick haze layer above it, which mutes all that stuff. You know, if you go out on a hazy day and the sky looks kind of fuzzy and ill-defined, it's kind of like that. On the other hand, there are some features like this hexagon on the North Pole of Saturn. Now, mind you, it's not solid. We're talking about the top of its atmosphere. And there is like a jet stream of wind blowing around the North Pole of Saturn that is shaped like a perfect geometric hexagon. And it's bizarre, but that's just the way flowing winds behave. There's something like that on Earth with the jet stream blowing around. And in the center of that hexagon is a permanent storm that's huge. It's, you know, it's a thousand or more miles across, and it looks like a giant eye staring straight up from the planet. And so I think, you know, flying over that would be spectacular and a little eerie, a little strange to look down and see something like that. You know, it just occurred to me, I love talking to good guides because they're so wonky and enthusiastic about things that I never gave a second thought to, and then it gets contagious. And talking to you about this makes me just really want to delve deeper into it. Philip Plait is the author of Under Alien Skies, A Sightseer's Guide to the Universe. He's revealing to us on Travel with Rick Steves why Saturn is the gateway planet for so many young astronomers. Phil also writes about celestial and terrestrial topics for Scientific American, and he hosts a number of TED Talks. His subscription newsletter is at badastronomy.substack.com. So, Phil, I could talk to you a long, long time about Saturn, but I've just got a few more minutes, and I want to talk to you a little broader about your passion for science and the value. And you've written that you've recently become more interested in the history of science and how science has been misused and misrepresented, as if that matters. Tell us why you care about that. What do you see? I care about science very much. For one thing, it's the best way to understand the physical universe. You know, we know so much about Saturn because we've been there, and we've been there because we sent a probe to Saturn that was based on scientific principles, from the rocket that launched it to the incredibly complex detectors that were on board it. And to understand Saturn itself, we needed science. And the thing about that is by looking at Saturn, we can understand Earth better. Saturn has weather. It has gravity. It has moons. We have weather. We have gravity. We have an atmosphere. And so we study the Earth. But it's hard because we only have that one example. By looking at Mars and Venus and Saturn and other planets, we can learn more about the Earth. You know, it's interesting because we have parallel kind of tour guiding. I'm an enthusiastic tour guide for terrestrial activities, and you're kind of a tour guide for getting out into outer space. And I often think the world would be a better and a safer and a more stable place if everybody could travel. Is there a parallel to that of how if everybody had a good grasp of science, the world would be impacted? Well, I think that would be fantastic because we see so many attacks on science right now, and we see that some of them are globally important. And if people understood the science behind it, instead of getting it from relatively unreliable sources, this impacts your health, it impacts your life, it impacts everybody you know and love. And if we understood the science better, that impact would be a positive one instead of a negative one. So I think it's critically important. I know this is a pipe dream, but I fantasize about a democracy where in order to vote, you have to have a passport and you have had to pass science 101. There are some issues with that. It would be tough to implement that sort of thing, and there would be some problems with it. But if you have an electorate, if you have a population that is appreciative of the real world and the science that goes into understanding it, I think you wouldn't need to do that. And so that's one of the reasons I am so passionate about showing people this, and especially the sky, because it is one of our greatest natural resources. The beauty of it is just incredible. And to be able to show people this, especially Saturn, let me say it just too, since we've been talking about Saturn, I've seen Saturn through a telescope a zillion times. So when I take my telescope out and show it to other people, I just get it in there, get it focused. And then I stand back and watch the people as they see it for the first time. And the joy and the awe on their face, it's so pure and wonderful to see when they realize that this is a place. It's not a picture. It's not something somebody made up. This is a world that exists and is real. And that makes my heart sing. That's the greatest thing ever. Well Phil Plait you are mission that is for sure And your book Under Alien Skies A Sightseer Guide to the Universe is a good way to make that mission closer to reality Thank you so much for your work and for joining us today. You're welcome, and thank you. You'll find web links to Phil Plait's work and his earlier appearance on Travel with Rick Steves in the notes for today's show at ricksteves.com slash radio. The down-to-earth foods of Tuscany are the focus of a walking tour around Florence. We'll hear what that's like in just a bit. But first, actor and activist Martin Sheen joins us for a little heart-to-heart on how his own travels have changed his view of the world and his place in it. Imagine what kind of person you'd be if you had never had a chance to travel, to see different countries and experience other cultures that have different ways of living. Filming on location over the years has taken Martin Sheen to countries where some of what he saw could break your heart. He credits this awareness with impacting his activism since the 1960s as an advocate for peace, environmental, and social justice. Martin joins us today on Travel with Rick Steves to tell us about it. Martin, thanks for being with us. Oh, thank you, Rick. I'm just delighted. You know, it's so interesting to think about what shapes us as individuals. What makes you you and what makes me me, you know? Now, your mom was Irish, and your dad was Spanish. and you've traveled a lot as an actor. Let's talk about what helped shape Martin Sheen. First of all, your mom, Irish. So what? Well, my mother was sent to the United States to await the outcome of the Civil War because her family were IRA. Oh, the Civil War in Ireland. The Civil War in Ireland. Yeah, I didn't think you... My mother was that old. I was going to arithmetic there. Yeah, the Irish Civil War. Yeah, the rising started in 1916 and ended in 21. And then the republic, you know, was undecided which direction it wanted to go. And so she was sent out of the country? Yeah, her father was IRA. He was a master slater. He put slates on the tops of roofs and so forth. They sided with the anti-treaty. They wanted to unite the whole island. Right. And your grandfather was an IRA leader. No, my uncle. Your uncle. My mother's brother. Your mother's brother. Oh, I got you. Yeah, she was. Okay. There was a great advantage that the young IRA girls had is the British would not search anyone under 18. So now how did that impact who you are today? Because I really am tuned into this. We are, in a lot of ways, a product of who our parents were and what we've done. What did your mother do? He taught me to hate bullies and love justice. Hate bullies? Oh, there you go. Okay. Now, your father was Spanish. Yeah, and another civil war. Another civil war. Oh. Well, in fact, my father was born on the day that the United States declared war on Spain. He was born July 2, 1898. So when he came to the United States, Spain had lost Cuba and the Philippines and a few other spots in between. But there was a quota on Spaniards. A lot of people don't realize this. And so he came with his brother. He was 16 at the time. So that was in 1914. And the two of them were bound for Port of New York, and they got there. And there was a quota on Spanish immigrants at that time because of the war. It was still lingering, you know. It was a new concordant. Oh, because of the war, they had a limit on how many Spaniards they would accept. Yeah, exactly, yeah. So they got on the next boat to Cuba. And my father and his uncle Alfonso worked the sugar cane fields. My dad was there for three years. And then an opening came to come into the United States. And so he came in through Miami. And he came in as a Cubano. He was naturalized in Dayton, Ohio and started working in the NCR factory. My mother came in 1921 at basically the start of the Civil War because her family and she had been on the side. So they both came to America because of those civil wars, and you came out of that. Yeah. Does the fact that you jumped at the— Well, my father was the war with the United States. My mother was the— Oh, I see, right. Yeah. Yeah. They had made peace with the British. They didn't drive them out entirely. They didn't want to. They just wanted to control their own destiny and what they did. But they had difficulty deciding what kind of republic Ireland would be. And so that was decided between 1921 and 1923. So she was sent to the United States to be safe, to live with a cousin in Dayton, Ohio, and just to outweigh the Civil War. And she met my father in the meantime and fell in love with what she called the handsome young Spannard and taught him to speak English, and they became citizens together. And they were married in 1927 in Dayton, Ohio. Okay. And their son was Ramon Antonio Gerardo Estevez. Yes, that was one of them. Who eventually became Martin Sheen. Okay, so little Ramon spent a lot of time on movie sets. You were very immersed, I think, in the Philippines for months on Apocalypse Now, weren't you? Yeah, very much. Tell us about that. Yeah, the whole family was there for most of it. What was that like and how did it impact you? You know, they had been in Europe with us and in Ireland and Rome and so forth on various shoots and even in Mexico, but they had never seen that level of poverty in the Philippines. The worst I've ever seen in the world is India, but the Philippines is pretty close. And you made a point to bring your family along. Yeah, I did, yeah. And your children were quite young at that time. Very young, yeah. We got there in 76. The film took almost a year. It's good parenting, isn't it, to expose your kids at a young age to that sort of thing? It depends, because I learned a lot of things later that we didn't know were going on. Such as? Well, Emilio and I wrote a father-son memoir, and we didn't know what the other one was writing until the book was published. And so we learned one very, very profound moment is Emilio talked about Lawrence Fishburne saved his life, saved him from drowning in an accident, a boat accident they had that we were totally unaware of at the time. Right. Yeah. Martin Sheen's our special guest right now on Travel with Rick Steves. You know Martin from dozens of movie roles, including Badlands, Apocalypse Now, Catch-22, Gettysburg, and Gandhi, and his TV work on The West Wing and Grace and Frankie. From his early years in the Catholic worker movement, Martin has long spoken out on social and environmental issues around the world. Among his many honors, Martin is a trustee of the International Peace Museum in his hometown, Dayton, Ohio. Previously on Travel with Rick Steves, Martin told us more about the influence of his travels and why he's re-released the movie The Way, about a father's journey along the Camino de Santiago in Spain. You can hear those at ricksteves.com slash radio. Martin, you've been arrested, what, 68 times for demonstrating, and this comes out of your heightened sensitivity about justice issues. Yeah. So when you spend time in the developing world in troubled countries, I mean, you're in the Philippines and that's not Mr. Rogers' neighborhood. No. There was a trash heap called Payeta, which was just outside Manila in Quezon City, and it was the reciprocal for most of the urban areas' trash. And I was called to go there on one occasion. I had been to a pretty horrible one some years earlier in Guatemala because children live on these trash heaps. and families live in and around them and it's devastating. But the worst one I saw was in the Philippines. Really? Because I've been at that one in Guatemala City. I can't imagine the worst one. But I mean, any megapolis in the poor world will have that. And the poorest of the poor scavenge in the garbage. Yes, they do. And they hitchhike. They hang on to the dump trucks as they come into the place. Sometimes they slip under it. And then it's them and the birds that are prowling through all of that. And boy, that's a powerful experience. It's very powerful. You can't unsee that. You cannot. And I remember my heart is just so cracked open, is the only image I can use, that you know you're never going to be the same. And you're not going to get away with this. There is something is going to be different. You're going to, even if by only remembering it, it saves you from doing some measure of violence or waste or whatever. But more than that, you're motivated to, because you see the other two-thirds of the world, really, you are changed in ways that you cannot control. The heart is now involved. Yeah. And you've seen, and you've felt, and you've smelled. That affirms a phrase I always like to use. Thomas Jefferson said, travel makes a person wiser, if less happy. Yeah. It makes it tougher to be complacent. No, you can't be complacent. And you're far from complacent. I remember saying to the padre who was taking us on this tour, who was a Colombian priest, you know, and he went there all the time. He serviced the people who lived there. In the Guatemala City garbage dump? He was in the one in the Philippines. And I remember saying to him, we're going to have to pay for this. And I don't even know what made me say that, but I felt a responsibility. We're going to have to pay for it how? We're going to have to pay for it in some deeply personal way because you know it. Yeah, right. You lived during this time and this was going on while you were alive. It's like saying, you know, people who deny the Holocaust, you know. I've got a phrase in your travels, you can choose Mazatlan or you can choose Managua. You know, if you choose Mazatlan, it's easy. You're going to get a tan on the beach and you're going to drink pargaritas or sunburn. But, you know, for the same time and the same money, you could go to Managua and then you can be, have your heart cracked open like you like to say. Yeah. So now you've made movies in Mexico, Catch-22, and The Catholics in Ireland, and Badlands in Colorado, Cassandra Crossing in Rome. When you think back on those experiences, Martin, what lasting souvenirs do you take away from that as a caring person who's traveled? I don't always know what the effect is on my kids. I sense it sometimes, but I cannot deny what has happened to me, what changes with me in Third World. And that is the sense of responsibility to at least acknowledge it and let your mind and your heart lead you to the better part of yourself, for lack of a better term. In other words, I knew that I would never be the same, ever. And you don't want to be the same. When you know these things, particularly as an artist, as an actor, we call so often on our personal experiences. And those experiences are not just memory. They are part of our whole being. You can't separate. You know, as a phrase I use, our effort is to unite the will of the Spirit with the work of the flesh. Even if we're not conscious of it, we have a sense that we are dual in our makeup and that we cannot separate them. And when we're in the third world, we get a very clear picture and an opportunity if we're open and if we're vulnerable. Vulnerable is the key word because from that vulnerability comes our compassion. And compassion is the one grace, I think, that changes the world. It's compassion. It's about caring because we have felt something and been moved to change ourselves. And as I say, I don't know if I can ever change another human being. I stop trying, but I'll never stop trying to change myself. And I'm motivated by that level of compassion. We're exploring the value of travels and shaping our lives with Martin Sheen right now on Travel with Rick Steves. I know when you have been on sets over the years, you've made a point to take your family with you. And I know that talking to Emilio, there all sorts of legends in your family about how the kids and your wife on the road managed Tell us a story about your wife cooking with a big gang of locals or what a moment that you just treasure as a father I think, well, the Philippines comes to mind. But before that, in 69, I was doing a part in Catch-22, and we were on location in Huaymos, which is about halfway down on the Mexican side, on the Sea of Cortez. So we were there for about four months. Four months? Yeah. With the family, filming the movie? Yeah, and I did not have a big part, so I had most of my time off. So I got very familiar with the village and the people there. And we rented an apartment outside town. Waimas at that time was a way station for NASA, where they would clock in with the orbiting, the astronauts would be orbiting, and that was one of the way stations along the way that did report from Waimas. There were a number of Americans there, and they lived in this community, I think it was called San Antonio, outside of Guaymas. And we were able to finagle an apartment there for a while while we were there. So we were kind of with an American community. But what was real clear is they were not really making connection to the community that lived there that were part of the real reality, the real community. and if you have kids, no matter where you are, they'll make contact with who's ever there for whatever reason, and they did. That's a very practical bit of advice. When you do have your kids, remember, they're going to be the social icebreakers in very creative ways. Very much so. You might not become poor good. Yeah, and even if you might be led into certain neighborhoods where you wouldn't ordinarily go, but you're going there to pick up your kids, and so you're going to have an extraordinary experience of what it is to engage with locals. And it happened. And there were several families. They were fishermen. They were very, very poor. And they had large families. And they started coming to the house for dinner and sometimes for breakfast they would show up. But they were omnipresence the whole time we were there. And one of them asked me to be his sponsor for Primera Comunión, you know, which you need a sponsor. And I did. For what? What was that? First Communion. Oh, okay. Primera Communion. And this little boy called Manuel. And so I did. And it's so memorable. Some little boy in Mexico has Martin Sheen for his sponsor. All right. Primera Communion. And Alan Arkin, who was the star of the movie, we were friends. And he was an amateur photographer. And he liked it. So I told him about it. He said, oh, can I come and photograph? And I said, of course. And so he did. And he took a lot of pictures. And so we have some of those pictures. So this part of the area where we lived was on the other side of the tracks in a way. So we were very enmeshed in the community. One occasion, I remember there was a huge carnival. We took all the kids and Ramon got lost. And we said to one of the kids, can you find Ramon? Five minutes, he had him back with us. You never worried about being kidnapped or harmed or anything. All these months in developing countries with the family never really had a serious mishap. No. And it's interesting because there was a slaughterhouse nearby, and it was just at the apex between where the other side of the track started, and we were on that side. And we would hear these horrible screams, you know, the animals were being slaughtered during the day, and it was endless, and everybody was kind of used to it, and you'd walk by it. They would be dropping off animals. for that. And one night we heard these screams and we thought, that's so odd, they're slaughtering at night? No. And we looked out the window and there was no lights on in the slaughterhouse and we realized that the other side was the graveyard and that this couple had lost a child. We saw the funeral because we saw the procession. It was a tiny white coffin, so we know, you know. and they'd come the night of the burial to mourn by themselves. And they were... What an impact that had on your young children, I would imagine. Yeah, we all just couldn't believe the sounds of grief we were hearing from these parents. It was a prayer, it was an exultation, it was extraordinary. Those are the impactful experiences that stay with you. Martin Sheen is sharing how his worldview and activism have been shaped by his travels right now on Travel with Rick Steves. Martin and his son, Emilio Estevez, joined me to film a discussion about the value of our travels. They added that to the re-release of their movie, The Way, which takes place on the Camino de Santiago. It's available to watch on a number of streaming services. Martin, what prompted you to give the movie a second run after its initial release back in 2011? Well, since the ending of the pandemic, there has been a sense of now is opportune time that we'd missed before. People were always putting things off, but then, you know, because of the pandemic, everything was put off no matter if you had the means or the time or otherwise. So we feel that there is a need for people to find this possibility to not just have a vacation and explore more, but that they can find a way to unite the will of the Spirit to the work of the flesh so that you can have a vacation and an interior journey to your own heart that will bring you to places that you can't even imagine until you go there. Wow. Thank you very much, Martin, for being with us, and bon camino. Bon camino, and keep on traveling. You got it. Martin Sheen and his son, actor Emilio Estevez, tell us more about why they re-released their movie, The Way, and what it's like to be a pilgrim on the Camino de Santiago. You can hear their earlier visit with us from a link with this week's show. It's at ricksteves.com slash radio. Getting hungry? We're traversing the streets of Florence in Italy next with a local food tour guide who recommends her favorite Tuscan treats. It's travel with Rick Steves. One of the great pleasures of the work I do in updating my guidebooks to Europe is eating my way around some great culinary capitals. The last time I was in Tuscany, I enjoyed an evening exploring the restaurant scene of Florence with Toni Mazaglia. She runs half-day food and wine tours of the city and made sure I knew about its traditions and what was new and popular with the locals. Toni joins us now from her home in Florence. Toni, thanks for being with us. Hi, Rick. Thank you for having me. Boy, I had such a great evening with you. You and I spent an entire evening running around. I had a list of restaurants to check, and you were right there making sure I knew what was happening in Florence. These are very popular all over the world these days, isn't it? You can hire local experts to take a food tour. Yes, almost anywhere, even towns that you wouldn't expect. Yeah, I mean, it used to be, well, it's a new sort of phenomenon, but a fun part of a food tour, And what we should say, the typical tour you do, there's probably a lot of different tours, but it's basically a four-hour, $100 morning experience that could end up being an early lunch because you're going to go by five or six places, right? It's a late breakfast and an early lunch. It's a progressive brunch, basically. You don't want anybody to start your tour with a full stomach, that's for sure. Please come hungry. Okay. And just very quickly, I would imagine there's a similar kind of template for a food tour. You could go to a bakery. You could go to the market, try a pastry, do some wine tasting, and maybe some gelato, right? That sort of thing. Yes. Those are the highlights, I would say. And then there's always some seasonal things as well. I think a fun dimension of that that's probably unheralded is a chance to hang out with a local like you, often an American expat that's really gotten into the local scene and is well-connected with local merchants and artisans. Tell us about the kind of people that's a byproduct of tasting the food that you'll get to meet on a food tour. I have the fortune of doing my tours in the San Lorenzo neighborhood. And those are all people that I've known for 20, 21 years now. And I'm absolutely in love with the baker. His name is Remo. Remo and his sister Ivana are the, I guess I could say they're the bread and butter of the San Lorenzo neighborhood. Their bread is served in many of the sandwich shops and the restaurants, in the wine shops, in the little crostini and the little bottoncini. I miss them. I haven't seen them in almost a month now. They've been traveling. And that's the first thing I want to do when I go back to Florence or come home to Florence. I love it. I love the way you say all those words. I wish I could speak Italian. Give me that little rundown of beautiful, tasty treats you could buy in a bakery. Close your eyes and just think of them. Okay. Okay, at the forno, I like to have the schiacciata ripiena. My favorite is the one with salsiccia e strecchino, sausage and strecchino cheese. I also love the gorgonzola e mella, which is gorgonzola and apple. And then they also make a carciofo e parmigiano, which is fantastic. And then they also make fried dough called coccoli. And I love to get the coccoli with a little bit of strecchino cheese and prosciutto. It's a classic. Okay, now I need to go back to Italy immediately. Doesn't it kind of break your tour guiding heart when somebody travels all the way to Italy and then they just have spaghetti bolognese every night or they just have a pizza with pepperoni on it? It absolutely breaks my heart and yes. You know, if you don't know the name on the menu, that's a good thing. Right, exactly. Don't be afraid. It's probably local. If it's a good restaurant, it's local and it's seasonal. And that's really important. That's so important. And I'm glad you said that because I try to serve things on the tour that get people out of their comfort zone. I'm not serving bruschetta. I'm not serving, and that's how you pronounce it, I'm not serving, you know, bolognese sauce. I'm not serving pizza. I'm not going to hire you to give me a spaghetti bolognese. You know what? I've come around to the realization lately, Tony, that culture shock is not something you try to avoid. Try something new. You don't need to like it. It's just very interesting to have sampled something that all the people in the neighborhood like, that they've been eating for centuries. That's part of their culture. That's who they are. And if you don't try the things they love, you're never going to truly understand those people. Something else that's very interesting to me, Tony, is that when we think of Italian food, we think Italian food. But Italians, they don't go out for Italian food. They're eating still food from Italy, but different regions. And there's a real passion for every region. And restaurants will be known as a regional restaurant. and that's kind of going out, that's kind of going ethnic, right? Yeah, it is. I mean, we often will travel to other parts of Italy and rave about the food, but also when we get home, we're so happy to have our unsalted bread in Florence. No, so that's a good transition. Let's talk about Tuscany. Florence is the major city, the leading city, the biggest city in Tuscany. And what is it famous for? I mean, every city, every great city has the food it's recognized for. Florence has a lot of tourism, but with or without the tourism, it's got this foundation of its own cuisine. Our cuisine, the majority of it is actually, sono piatti poveri. I'm blanking out on how to say it. The poverty is sort of based on the hard times of the past when people didn't have a lot of food and they had to eat yesterday's bread or something like that. Yes, thank you. So it's not about presentation. It's about flavor. It's about fresh ingredients. It's about exalting a few ingredients, not trying to cover up one thing with sauces and tons of garlic and all those things. So most of your recipes in Tuscany and Florence in particular are going to have maybe four to five ingredients. And one ingredient is going to have a strong flavor. The rest are going to just exalt that flavor. Oh, I like that. One gets to have the microphone and be in the front of the stage. Yes, yes. And the others are like the, yeah, they're the backup singers. Yes, exactly. Yeah, it's not a boy band. There is definitely a lead singer. No, you got a lead singer and then you got the pips. All right. This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're exploring food delights of Florence right now with Toni Mazzaia. She runs a company called Taste Florence. Toni links to her favorite eateries and markets and wine bars and viewpoints in Florence on her website. That's tasteflorence.com. So, Toni, we're going through some Florence delights. I think a big thing about Tuscany is the beef When we think Chianana beef we thinking beefsteak alla Fiorentina right Pardon my Italian but when you say alla Fiorentina that Florentine style and that a big deal It is. Oh boy, is it ever. Everyone loves the Florentine steak. It's the pride and joy of every menu. Not everyone does it well, but the Florentine steak, it's the kind of steak you share with two or three people. It's usually going to weigh quite a bit, about a kilo. We went together to Ristoro di Cambi, I think. Yes. C-A-M-B-I. I will spell that one for people. It's on the other side of the river. It's a 10-minute walk from all the action. And I love it because they bring you the cut of red meat. And they tell you how much that's going to be and you know how much that's going to cost by the kilo. And you can share it. So you could get one big T-bone steak for four people. And then you can supplement that with beautiful side dishes. Did you have beans with it or potatoes? Do you remember what you like with it? Red wine. That's what I like. Red wine and red steak and grilled rare. Grilled is more rare than what most Americans go for. And I would remind you, kind of go with them. They know they're not going to bring it to you raw, but go with what they recommend. Oh, they're not going to bring it to you well done because they will kick you out of the restaurant. Oh, yeah. No, that would be that would be a sacrilege. Yeah, yeah. They get very, very upset. And there's that cuisine of the old days of poverty. So you've got soups, you've got ribollita. And ribollita is kind of going back to the poor days, isn't it? That's sort of a bread soup. It all ties together because we have this unsalted bread. And salt is what preserves your bread. So if you have unsalted bread, your bread goes stale rather quickly. And bread is a luxury. So if you have bread and it goes stale, you're not going to throw that bread away. You're going to invent recipes to use that bread. So we have tons of recipes. We have these beautiful soups, ribolita, which translates to reboiled. It's a vegetable and bean and kale soup. And then the bread soaks up that broth and it turns into this nice, what we call a papa. And then we also have papa al pomodoro, which is a bread and tomato soup with a little basil. So if you like tomato soup, this is just tomato soup with some stale bread thrown in basically. But of course we make it more delicious because we're here in Florence. and our olive oil. Don't forget the olive oil, how important it is to Tuscans because they're very proud of their oil. You went with me to a beautiful little district called San Nicolo. Again, on the other side of the river. So many great little characteristic corners are on the other side of the river. The Ultra Arno, the wrong side of the tracks, but in Europe, that'd be the other side of the river. And in San Nicolo, we went to this cool bar and it had a, what's it called when you have a, You get a glass of wine, then you get a wooden board with a whole bunch of different cheeses and meats. An aperitivo or an apericina. And then that wooden board would be called a tagliere. It's where you slice things usually. Yeah. Tagliare is to slice. And so that's kind of the, you've probably noticed it's becoming a trend all over the world now, these food boards, right? But they're called a tagliere. Tony, I've heard that with the traffic-free center in Florence. It's a beautiful thing because it keeps away all the buses and the trucks, and it makes it more bike-friendly and pedestrian-friendly, and you can actually hear the birds. It's quite nice. The consequence for tour groups is we have to park the bus at the edge and walk in with our suitcases, but that's a small price to pay for having the traffic-free downtown. But one interesting impact of that is I understand a lot of locals have a hard time getting downtown because they can no longer come there with their cars. Consequently, the restaurants in the center no longer have that local clientele who are now eating outside of the center more, and that means that restaurants in the old center are more touristic in the evening. Yes and no. I would say that the traffic or the limited driving zones and parking, really parking, I would say, is the largest issue because even if we were allowed to drive, there would be nowhere to put the car. but I can say at least in my my observations since the pandemic everyone is kind of returning to the city because we missed it so much so I'm seeing more locals eating in the restaurants and also there's a lot of changes we still have all these classic restaurants like the ones we've been talking about but there's also a lot of more modern places opening up coffee shops where you can actually sit for an hour and drink your coffee and bring your laptop things we didn't have 10 years ago. The city's changing a lot, and there are a lot of places that only cater to tourists, but these historic restaurants still have a local clientele. They just show up at 9 p.m. and not at 7 p.m. That is so important. You can go to a restaurant and poke your head in the door at 7.30 and go, this is just a tourist trap. Come back at 9 o'clock, and it'll be busy with locals. She left North Carolina in 1997 for Italy to research her family tree and attend university. For Toni Mazaglia, you could say it was love at first sight. Toni operates food tour walks of Florence to the city's characteristic restaurants, vendors, and wine bars. You can find out about her various food and wine tours at tasteflorence.com. You know, one exciting dimension for travelers when it comes to experiences is cooking classes. Yes. Can you tell me a little bit about options that there are, not particular places or businesses, but are there options where you go shopping, where you actually eat what you cooked? What do you recommend for a cooking experience as opposed to the guided walks that we were talking about earlier? Yes, there is a whole menu of options of cooking classes. You can take a class where you go to the market in the morning and then cook the food, the ingredients that you bought with your instructor, or there are other options where you can just show up. They've already got everything chopped up if you just want to kind of learn the recipe, even just demonstrations. so there's a whole gamut depending on your cooking level and what you're looking to do what your preferences are and then there's classes for pizza making and gelato making and pasta making and I mean there's really a huge variety dozens and dozens of schools now there's even a few that do the Florentine steak which I think is a great idea because then you get to figure out how to make it at home and share it with your classmates because it's a commitment to eat a Florentine steak if you're by yourself so I recommend taking food tours and cooking classes if you're a solo traveler because you meet new people, but you also don't have that overwhelming amount of food, yet you get to try everything. And, you know, the scene is so ever-changing with all the different cooking classes, all the different food tours and so on, and no guidebook can know what's happening right now because companies come and go. And this is one place where I would go to the Internet, and there's different services. Where do you find a consumer can go to know what is available in the way of food tours and cooking classes in Milan or Naples or Florence or Venice or whatever? There's so many now, and there's such a good opportunity. And it's not a matter of what's good and bad. It's a matter of what fits what you're looking for in your budget and so on. What are the best sources of information for this online? That's a great way to put it, what fits best for each person, because not everyone's looking for the same thing. I would say it's going to sound kind of simple, but I would do a Google search or whatever your search engine of choice is. And then check a cross section. Don't only look on things like TripAdvisor. Look at TripAdvisor and the reviews and make sure that a company has been around for a while. But don't stop there. Also look and just Google the name of the owner or Google the name of the company and see if they've had any news articles written about them, any major complaints written about them. So there's just so many, if you have time to research, then you'll do the right, you'll make the right choice. You mentioned TripAdvisor. You know, I'm not that big on hotels and restaurants recommended in TripAdvisor, but what I am big on in TripAdvisor is the things to do category. I find anywhere in my travels, if I want to know what's going on, who are the small businesses, who are the food tours, where are the cooking classes, they would pretty much all be listed on TripAdvisor. and I don't get too hung up on who's in the top 10 because it's easy to kind of game that. I just want to know who's in business and from that I can do further study. What's your take on TripAdvisor? So that's a really good question, Rick. I began Taste Florence right around the time that TripAdvisor was a new thing and so I was lucky enough to be on TripAdvisor when I didn't have much competition and it's definitely the reason my company took off as quickly as it did. Unfortunately, the structure of TripAdvisor has changed because, and I understand that, they wanted to make money, but they partnered with Viator. And so now you could be looking at TripAdvisor and reading legitimate reviews of anyone's business, whether they're number one on the list or number 20 on the list. But while you're reading that, you're going to get a pop-up window and that's going to be for a tour that is bookable through Viator, AKA through TripAdvisor. So it's, I don't know exactly, I don't know if I would call it gaming, but it's definitely not totally fair. As a consumer, we need to be aware of that, that there's a lot of aggressive work going on of any crowdsourcing sites where they can get their commissions and net a little more advertising revenue. Tony Mazzaglia, it's so much fun talking to you because I love to have a local expert on a place that I'm invariably going to be going again soon. A couple of last points. First of all, if you want to eat somewhere with a nice view in Florence, I've always found that a challenge. What's your advice? It is really a challenge. So we have places, if you want to eat with a nice view just like in any other city, you're either going to pay a lot or the food isn't going to be good. So those are things you want to keep in mind. If you want to pay a lot but have good food, and I say pay a lot by Italian standards, actually not that much, right? So you would go to, it's called Golden View Open Bar. It's a beautiful business on the river. We stopped in there and had that fabulous cheese. Do you remember that cheese, Rick? They're good. I love it. And you can get a table right over the river, and it's just great service, wonderful food. Fabulous view. And also there's on top of buildings kind of terraces and viewpoints that are quite nice. And finally, Tony, gelato. Florence is famous for gelato. I've sort of burned out on gelato because of 25 years of tour guiding. But if I was going to Florence for my first time, I'd be looking for the latest, greatest gelato. What's the news? Well, latest and greatest, there's a whole bunch of that. I mean, there's a bunch of great places opening up all over town. But I'm a little bit of a curmudgeon. I like my places tried and true. And I like my historic shop called Perque No. And even though they are an old historic shop, they do new flavors all the time. So you're not going to get the same thing you got last time. Sometimes they do ones with, for example, curry. It's fabulous. Curry and candied mango. They have one that has toasted sesame and chestnut honey. They do Sachertorte, the Sacher cake that comes from Vienna. So that one gelato shop has a huge variety of fantastic flavors. There you go. High quality and natural. Why not? Isn't that it? Por que no? Por que no? Why not? Exactly. And then I love the little neighborhood ones that, you know, only the neighborhood knows. And they've got a dedicated following. And they don't have big mountains of neon-colored, you know, gelato. But they've just got good quality, honest gelato. As it should be, yeah. Hey, Tony Mazzaglia, thanks so much. And best wishes with Taste Florence. And next time I'm in town, let's go into the Ultra Arno and have a meal we'll never forget. I can't wait. Buon appetito. Grazie. Travel with Rick Steves is produced by Tim Tatton with Kaz Mural Hall and Donna Bardsley at Rick Steves Europe in Edmonds, Washington. Andrew Wakeling and Sherry Court upload the shows to our website. 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