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

A theater director from Athens explains how the classics of Greek theater have never lost their relevance. The characters start becoming more easy for us to identify with, to see ourselves in them. But what kind of drama might you encounter when you include a popular Greek island cruise port in your travel plans? Coming up a pair of tour guides to Greece recommend little-known islands, where after you've been in the touristic hotspots, you can cool down without feeling overwhelmed. 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. You can drive to so many different beaches where there is nobody around. And to help us plan for slow travels by foot, we'll look at strategies for designing a European hiking vacation around a well-chosen home base. The concept is all about going to a village staying for 7-10 days and doing day hikes from there. Come along for a fun hour ahead, it's Travel with Rick Steves. A hiking enthusiast who's helped me plan long distance hiking vacations for the last few years in Europe is back with us today on Travel with Rick Steves. This time, Cassandra Overby will help us plan for home base adventures. Instead of designing the typical long distance hiking route where you stay somewhere new each night, you select accommodations that are centrally located for what you want to do and see, including hiking on the local trails. And it comes with the friendliness and rural charm of a small mountain town. We'll also get recommendations for visiting some lesser known Greek isles, the ones you might see in the distance, that promise a break from the bustle and expense of tourist centers like Mykonos and Santorini. Let's start the hour dipping back into the Travel with Rick Steves archives to learn how the theater and performing arts were essential to creating a civil society in ancient Greece. Filippos Kanakars directs a theater troupe in Athens that has offered new takes on ancient classics. He also leads tours of his Greek homeland to sites that can help us better understand the role of theater in ancient Greece. Filippos, welcome. Thank you. Tell us about your work as a theater director in Athens. I have a small theater company in Athens and we mainly deal with classical plays. We're visiting ancient Greek tragedy mainly and we try to decipher the hidden messages of this place. Why did this place survive within the centuries? What is it that makes them important to modern life? We're not interested in presenting something which is like an exhibit in a museum, but we're trying to discover all the things that have a global appeal throughout the centuries for people. So why is ancient Greek theater important to you and why should I care? It is very important because back in the days, I mean in the classical period, 6th, 5th and 4th century, BC, where we have the flourishing of the ancient Greek theater, this is not something special. This is not something that you dress up in order to go and to see someone deciphering words or singing or dancing. It was something that was mandatory for everyone regardless of their income, regardless of their education. In fact, rich sponsors had to pay for the fee so that the simple, the poor people, the uneducated people can go and see plays. It occurred to me, I was at an ancient Greek theater recently and it occurred to me, this is like almost like church 500 years before Christ. This is where morals were taught. This is where lessons were taught the younger generation. How are you going to be a good Greek citizen, a good human being? Absolutely and that's why they believed that it was an integral part of the society theater and it was mandatory for everyone. 2500 years ago. Now today are some of these ancient plays still being enjoyed by Greeks? By Greeks and not only Greeks, they're being performed in other parts of the world. Having lived for six years in London, always the national theater of the UK presents ancient Greek tragedies. They have it on their repertoire. So what's an example of a lesson that the Greeks would all learn and be inspired by 500 years before Christ that today still resonates with people who can go and enjoy a Greek play? That's an excellent question. I will give you an example from a play I directed quite recently. That was Medea by Euripides. Very quickly she is the wife of Jason from Jason and the Argonauts. They go, they get the golden fleece, instead of going back to the place they need to go, they end up going to Corinth. And that's where Jason, despite all her sacrifices and the assistance she gave him because she was a kind of a witch, she assisted him to get everything he wanted. They go to Corinth and he abandons her to marry the wife of the local king. She takes her revenge by killing their children and his future wife. Why was this play written at this time? I will tell you, we are on the verge of the Peloponnesian war. Athens is ready to go to war with Sparta. And what Euripides is trying to say with this play is, be careful, because in Athens we have three kinds of people that we don't recognize as real citizens. The women, the foreigners and the slaves. When the time comes and we will need their help because there's a war coming, they will take their revenge on us. Oh, that was wise to be able to call people's attention to that. Exactly. Because Medea is a woman, she comes from an area which is modern day Georgia in Russia, in former Soviet republic. And she's about to become a slave because she's being kicked out of her country. So now today you can look back and as a theater director and enthusiast for Greek theater, you can look back and actually respect these playwrights as we look at Shakespeare. Smart, full of wisdom and appropriate to this day. Absolutely. And you can see a difference in the way they write. Eskilos, who is the oldest, he started writing first. So he writes archetypes. He creates characters that have in them elements of kings, of important men, important women. Then we have Sophocles, who finds kind of a balance between the human and the divine. And then we go to Euripides and Euripides is the person that started what we perceive today as psychological theater. So what is psychological theater? What do we mean by that? We're talking about a theater which is based on real characters, real people. People that have the same dreams that we have, the same fears, the same agonies, the same problems in their lives. The characters start becoming more easy for us, aspectators to identify with, to see ourselves in them. This is Travoth Rick Steves. I'm talking with Philipos Kanakatos and he's a Greek theater director and a tour guide who joins us in our Travoth Rick Steves studios. Our phone number is 877-333-7425 and Jory is calling from Raleigh in North Carolina. Jory, thanks for your call. Thank you. So I have a master's degree in theater history and of course I studied many of the ancient Greek comedies and tragedies as part of my work. And over the course of my studies I built up a bucket list of important historical theaters to see. I've already seen, of course, Shakespeare's Globe and I have seen the Tatro Olimpico in Vicenza. So of course the theater Dionysus is on my list of theaters to see, the theater in Athens where they have the annual play competitions every year. So I wanted to know how easy is it to visit and do they still do performances there? So the theater of Dionysus, that's the theater that's just on the side of the mountain of the Acropolis, right? And we all walk by it when we go up to the Parthenon and you look at this and it's normally in the middle of the day it's just sun baked and it looks quite uninhabitable. But are there still plays there and how easy is this to see a play? No, unfortunately we don't have any theater being presented inside the theater of Dionysus, but if you want you can visit it. There is an entrance fee so you can go there and see a very well preserved stage and the first row of seats because there's still a high number of seats that are still buried underground. But what you can see that you don't find in most other ancient Greek theaters is the thrones that they were building for the very important citizens of Athens. The VIPs, ancient VIPs, AVIPs. Exactly. Now, Philippos, if you were Jory's tour guide and you were walking her through this theater, what could we appreciate about Greek theater by looking at the remains of the theater of Dionysus right there in the middle of Athens? What would you tell her about it? We can appreciate the fact that these shows are not presented with lights, they're not presented with a musical score that you press play and you hear it. These are theaters that are exposed, open air, the performances are taking place during daytime with the light of the sun and they may be at certain parts be late in the evening. The fact that in these empty, exposed venues without any embellishments, you connect with a text that has really important things to say to you. It's completely against the idea of creating an environment which is lit with the perfect lights. You see why this place still remains in time. So it's more vivid and real because it's more candid and honest? Absolutely, candid, honest and you see that it's all about what has been written and how clear and clean it is to be given to the audience and communicated with the audience. How many people would be sitting in the ancient theater of Dionysus when it was full and did it have some backdrop to help the acoustics? How did they manage the acoustics for such a crowd? Well, the actual backdrop of the ancient theater of Dionysus is the rock of the Acropolis because it's built on the slope. So this was very convenient. How many people could do the comedy? The maximum capacity they believe, though they haven't unearthed all the seating, it would be between 10 and 12,000 spectators. So you just turned the volume up on your microphone or how can you hear somebody with 10,000? The acoustics, there was a lot of thought being placed. Actually, I would recommend to Jory after she visited this theater, I would take my car and drive her all the way to the ancient theater of Epidavros. Because this is a theater situated to the southeast of Athens. Epidavros, and it's a couple hours drive away, but it's where you really hear the acoustics. You hear the acoustics and the show's been presented still. They start being presented from mid-June all the way to late August every Friday and Saturday. The biggest theater companies in the country present a work over there. And you have the chance to go and see ancient Greek tragedy, ancient comedy. And I've been there where you can have a tour guide just talking at a regular voice in the center of the stage and the acoustics are very smart. Yeah, you can go all the way to the top and this is a theater that has a capacity of 12,000 people. And you go all the way to the top and you can hear the slightest sound, the slightest whisper. Wow. It doesn't matter if it's in a different language, you will be blown away by the magic of the acoustics. And then another theater that's quite astonishing to go to is the theater of Dodoni. Dodoni is situated about three and a half hours drive north of Athens. Dodoni. Yes, it's within an archaeological park. It's a stunning ancient theater. They still do shows over there. And then if I wanted to be more adventurous, I would go to the Greek island of Lemnos. And over there you can see a theater that was built in the classical times, 5th century BC. And it's been four years that it reopens. Amazing. It's amazing that these are still being used. And in fact, all around the Mediterranean, you can go to the great theater in Epidavris. You can go to the theater in Ephesus. Absolutely. And there are Roman theaters and Greek theaters even in southern Italy. Yori, thanks for your call. Yeri, bye. I know. Filippos Kanakaris is the director of the Sin Dromos Theater Company in Athens. He's our guide to the world of ancient Greek theater right now on Travel with Rick Steves. This week's show notes include a link to his troops' website with a short video trailer from their production of Medea. You'll find it at ricksteves.com. It's fascinating to me, Filippos, to let our studies of culture and travel take us back and to think that theater was a way for people to teach their children to have a good morality. Theater was a way to criticize your political leaders, if necessary, without being thrown in prison for it, to make a commentary on the day. We understand there's only like 40 ancient plays surviving from four great playwrights from five or six centuries before Christ, and 2,500 years later we can still be inspired by that value of ancient Greek theater. Filippos Kanakaris Epherestro. Epherestro Pouli. You can experience the timeless charm of Greek life in its smaller, less touristy towns. Among the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, there are dozens of options to choose from. Just ahead, a pair of guides recommend their favorites, where the tourist infrastructure may be modest, and daily life revolves mostly around the needs of the people who actually live there. It promises to help you slow down and relax. We'll find out where, next, on Travel with Rick Steves. I'm heading for the Greek Isles in a couple of months, and like everyone else, I'll be visiting Mekinos in Santorini, the touristic superstars. But rather than complaining about the crowds I'll encounter, I'm also complimenting those islands by making a point to visit some untouristed islands nearby, a half hour away, a couple hours away by boat. And I've got a couple of experts with me here to help. Nikki Vlachau grew up on the mainland in a small coastal town, and now she lives in the ancient city of Olympia and part-time in Athens. And Victor Romagnoli was raised in Canada, but now he's found his way to the tiny island of Tinos in the Aegean Sea, and he's been living there for 25 years. Both of them lead tours and help visitors understand what they love and respect most about Greece, and its ecstatic islands. Nikki, Victor, thank you for being here. Thank you. As I mentioned, I'm going to Mekinos, and I'm going to Santorini. But I want to use that as a springboard for another island. How realistic is that? I mean, Victor, you live on Tinos, what, about 20 or 30 minutes by ferry from Mekinos. That's right. Every day when they're in the season, there's a cruise ship. How many people on a cruise ship? Oh, there's thousands on the cruise ships, and there could be five or six cruise ships there. Wow. So let's say there's three cruise ships, and there's 3,000 people on each cruise ship. You've got six or 8,000 people. That's right. Prouling the streets of Mekinos on a busy day. And then right there in that port, you've probably got a ferry that goes over to Tinos, where you live. That's right. And it's a 20-minute ride, so you're right there. 20 minutes away, is it a radical difference? Totally different. Day and night. A lot less people, and a much larger island is twice the size. There's not as much traffic. And when you get to a beach, for example, it's not going to be full of the umbrellas and chairs. You're going to be able to actually walk on the beach like you used to, go to a taverna, and it won't be just serving the kind of food that's gearing directly for people that are coming for a few days. It's a real Greek family. So it's beautiful. It's rural, and it feels like what Greece used to be like. You've almost got a self-congratulatory smug face here when you talk about how great Tinos is. Everybody else is in Mekinos. I know that feeling. Whenever I'm just, stones throw away from all of this intensity and all these people complaining about the crowds. I have this idyllic image of you living in this little island paradise, knowing your interest in birdwatching and natural history. What's your advice to somebody who wants to do a little birdwatching or appreciate the natural life? Well, that's a great question, Rick, because a Tinos is probably one of the best islands you can choose if you want to get into nature. There's over a hundred miles of old walkways that link all the different villages on Tinos, and dotting the landscape around the villages because of our Venetian history are a collection of dove coats. And these are one of the most beautiful example of Venetian architecture you'll ever see in. Dove coats. Dove coats. There's little homes for pigeons. Pigeons probably originally brought from St. Mark's. Like condominiums, many homes? There's one structure and the outside of the facade has openings. How many? Oh, maybe six. Okay, yeah. And why would people build those? Guano. Guano. Yeah. Fertilizer. You actually got physically excited when you said pigeon poop. No, can you imagine? What with that? I'm an organic farmer, but yeah, Tinos is famous for its dove coats, and they're beautiful. And the walkways that link all the villages are a great way to experience that island. Nicky, now you've traveled all over the Aegean as a guide with your family on vacation, and let's say I'm going to Santorini. If I wanted to, I want to see Santorini, but I understand that a couple hours away by ferry, there's sort of a small overlooked version of Santorini. You're referring to the island of Folligandros, which is one of the most iconic islands of the Cyclades. There's a group of islands called Cyclades, and one of them is Folligandros. Same goes for Santorini, which is a must-see. Everybody has to see it once in a lifetime. It is so unique. But I keep on hearing more and more people that I meet after they have been there that, you know, I was dreaming of going there. I went, never again. I put it all out of my list. You said iconic. Of course, Santorini is iconic. If you look at a calendar with a Greek island scene on the cover, it's probably going to be that scene in Santorini with the blue domes and the beautiful white buildings. But Folligandros is very much like that. The architecture is exactly the same. What makes Santorini completely different is the fact that it's all built right next to the caldera from the explosion of that volcano in the ancient times, and the views from some parts of the island that are overlooking the caldera are unique. The architecture, though, of Santorini is the same as in most of the Cycladic islands, like Folligandros and many, many more of the islands that you can find around Santorini and Mykonos. And because they don't have so many cruise ships or any cruise ships at all visiting them, because they don't have such a fast connection to the port of Piraeus, or they don't have an airport. There are islands that very few people visit each time, and you can get more of an authentic experience. There is. You just made a very good point, Nikki. If it has an airport, if it has a direct ferry connection with Piraeus, the port of Athens, or if it has a deep port where a cruise ship can drop the hook, you then have that easy access where everybody goes. So maybe the fact is you've got to earn your island paradise. You can't just fly in. No, you have to work. We have to take one more ferry ride. You take the fast boat from Athens out to here, and then you hop on the little ferry to there. Exactly. But the rewards are quite nice. This is Travel with Rick Steves. I'm joined by Nikki Vlakao and Victor Romagnoli, and we're talking about tips for enjoying the Greek islands. And I happen to be going to Mykonos in Santorini, and I'm fully aware that that's going to be a touristic mess. I'm still going to go there because I think they're both beautiful places, but I'm going to settle down by taking a ferry, 30 minutes, two hours away. I don't care. I'm just going to get on a ferry and take an extra step to get rid of 90% of the crowds and triple the Greek culture that I'll be able to enjoy. Now, I'm a little confused because when I look at the map, I keep seeing towns called Korra, C-H-O-R-A, right? Yes, Korra in current Greek means country. But in the past, each one of the islands would have its own Korra, 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 ship's dock, from where the pirates could get to and attack. So for safety reasons, they used to build the Korra on top of a higher position, many times invisible from where most ships would go by, and would be surrounded by walls like forts. 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. 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? 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, and 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. The guys are stuck up there with the olive trees. You got the olive trees, they 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 up there in the older town. What are the pros and cons? What would you do? I'd definitely go up into the town because the nightlife is something you won't find if you're staying down on the beach and what you'll meet 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 in the water near the harbor usually and then you got the beautiful, and I know, you know, rush hour for romance on Santorini is at the cliff in horror, watching the sun go down, but you could have that same kind of romance without all of that intense day of tourism at the horror of the little island that doesn't have the cruise port. 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. A little further around. Yeah, named Icarus. Yeah, Icarus, I was going to say, doesn't that have a feeling that we've went 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. That's what you need, 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. Once you get there, the first time I got there, I was shocked by the Jora appearance that looks like time has stopped. It looks like Mykonos 40 years ago. Then apart from exploring the little alleys that look like a labyrinth inside the Middle Ages castle of the Jora of Kimolos, you can drive to so many different beaches where there is nobody around. This is it. 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. 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. You can find the traditional life. Can you get an idyllic taverna on the beach? Yeah, you sure can. 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. You don't get that in an island which is absolutely overrun by tourists. Oh no. You got your own special little spot. If you stay there a couple of nights, you'll find your favorite spot for the sunset. You'll find the taverna where the father is the one that goes out with his boat and brings out the first fish or octopus and the mother is the one that cooks it. You can enjoy it with your feet right into the sun, not having to worry even your shoes. That's one of my favorite memories in Greece is to settle my chair into the sand. You have to kind of wiggle it down, right? Yes. If you don't want to fall. You'll wiggle it down and then, okay, now I'm settled in. Then you have a glass of Uso. Try an Uso. I mean, I think Uso is great. I always like to say I don't let a sun go down on the Greek Isles without a nice cloudy glass of Uso. This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're talking with Nikki Vlakao and Victor Romanoli. 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. And Victor is Canadian-born, but he 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.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. Or 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 going and out of 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. And 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. How do you say skinny dip in Greek? Yimnos. Let me get that down. Yiminos. Yimnos. Yimnos. How do you say be careful? Skin that has never seen the sun is very tender. You can get terribly sunburned. Oh, true. I bet there's a lot of tourists that have a hard lesson than 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. 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 who... Mykonos. Mykonos has that. 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. They came running back. Back yelling, mom. Mommy. There are these older people that wear nothing. Once you see that, mom, you cannot unsee it. Yes. Victor, one thing 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. 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. 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 A, G, and C by sharing a moment on a boat, on a ferry, sunset, on a 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? 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 bee hives. 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. He said to me, you know, thank you so much. 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. You didn't have to. He said, yes, yes. Next Friday there's the party in the village. You must come. And he ended up being a friend for still for my life. Oh, that's a beautiful thing. I can see. I think I can understand why you've for 25 years made a small Greek island your home. Yeah. Nicky, what's a 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. 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. Absolutely. Victor, Nicky, 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? Callo. Callo. Taxidi. Callo taxidi. Oh, you're good. Is that right? Yes, you're really good. Victor, let me hear you that with a Canadian accent. Callo taxidi. All right. Thanks, you guys. Callo, so thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Rick. Nicky Vlakao 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 Romanoli 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. 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 sight 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. She's found a traveler's need and filled it with her guidebooks Explore Europe on Foot and now with her latest book, Home-Based 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 and I'm excited about your new book, Home-Based Hiking. So I know your first book, Well, Explore Europe on Foot, and that's 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 seven to ten 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. 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. 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. 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'll 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, Beric Descartes 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. And then I really like foothills as well for abbeys and castles and different cultural sites. And that's one thing, my one downside about hiking around Mont Blanc, it was too high. It was gorgeous from a nature point of view, but I didn't get any of 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. And the Dolomites is simply amazing because you have these shockingly incredible views and these jagged rocks. So this is in the north of Italy. These are the Italian Alps. 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 got pizza and wine. Right. 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. And then how about the foothills experience? I really love Berchtesgaden National Park. So Berchtesgaden is near Salzburg and Innsbruck. Right. It's in this very, very south of Germany. Very south of Germany. Right close to the border. Two hours south of Munich. So you'd just go there on a quick train ride from Munich. Yeah. Hitler loved Berchtesgaden. Right? And then there's Eaglesnest is built right there. Yeah. Which you can go up and see. It was the heart and soul of the German people. Yes. But just because Hitler liked it doesn't mean we don't go there. So he had good taste in mountain resorts. Well and there's so much around there. I 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. Okay. So that would be our foothills. And then what did you say you said beach. Now that's interesting that you like beach hiking. Yes. 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 hot spot 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. Costa Brava. I was there because Salvador Dali lived there in Cateches. Yes. And you can actually you can hike from his house out to a lighthouse. So 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 way. 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. Mm-hmm. Probably we would 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 the whatever your hub city would be. Right. So and you don't need to rent a car. Right. For any of your trip you can use public transportation and you can still see all of the best. 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. And then I'm going to take a bus 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. I'm going to go four nights, 300 divided 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 and 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 an occasion. 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, 300 divided days home base hiking. 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. 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 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 Ortizae 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. That takes you up to Ceceta. Yes. Right from Ortizae. That's my favorite bit of the Dolomites because you're walking on this crazy ridge. It's amazing. Oh man. And that's just using the lifts like you talked about. So you go from Ortizae up to Ceceta 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 Cecelungo Massif and you can do, some people do all the way around it, but actually... Cecelungo. Oh, I love it. It's the most amazing sight. I've seen it from LPD Susie forever but I've never hiked around it. 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 and 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. So there's like Cecelungo and Cecelilidl 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 and you've got great food and you get to know Ortizae. Then you go up to Munich and you side trip it down and you get settled and do 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 they're later hosin. And they're felt hats with little feathers. Right, right. And so it really... And they yodel. They actually yodel. Very much like an authentic German outdoor village that's for Germans. It's true. Berchtesgaden is very touristy, but it's very touristy with Germans. Yes. And that's nice. Quickly, what would the hikes be from Berchtesgaden? 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 Ramzao. And from there, you just walk from hut to hut along this ridge. And there's no elevation at all. It's a salt brine path. And you get apple strudel as you go. 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. You could even hike for six hours, come back and go to Salzburg for dinner. That's the thing, don't underestimate public transit. Okay. We, 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 Callea de Palafruzal. And this is kind of a bedroom community of Barcelona. It 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. 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? Right. 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, 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. Right. 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's 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. She also offers trip consulting and route guides at her website, exploreonfoot.com. We have links to Cass's 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. Okay, your books are so full of wisdom. We're out of time except I'd like you to just blitz through 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. Yeah. 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 that will... Fix it before it's a problem. Right. Fix it before it's a problem. 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 on a little fence in the farmland or on a bluff. When I do that I stop enough to actually take it in. You drink wine from your platypus? I do. What is it? That's a horrible image. So platypus is basically a plastic bag that people use for water when they're on trail 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 extra hour on the trail because what's better, an hour at the hotel or an hour just to be in the moment on a trail without hiking. I love that. Okay, third word of wisdom. So I would encourage people to be a visitor rather than a tourist and 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. So 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. It's important and I think it's powerful. 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. Yes. 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 recreate that in your own life. 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. I'm so committed to stretching when I'm hiking. I don't 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. 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. So your hip flexors get tighter than they normally would. So though 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 on a boundary along the mountain track. And as I go I love to see my backpack on my back. I love to go on a boundary along the mountain track. I love to go on a boundary along the mountain track. Sandra Wakeling and Sherry Court upload the shows to our website. Sherry 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 phrase books and planning maps. 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