830 Bite of Rome; Heart of London; Spirit of Portugal

Something delicious to eat is never far away in Rome. Coming up, the founder of one of Europe's first companies to offer food tours tells us what to look for in the city's neighborhoods. The shops that weigh pizza slices by the kilo, that's a good place to start. You could try five or six different little bites, and it's a great way to have a mini pizza tour right on one plate. You don't have to walk far to step into the vivid history of London. Everything you want to see is in what they call the City of London. It's conveniently close by. That's where London started, that's where the Romans settled. While the colourful streets of Lisbon still offer a taste of the old world in Portugal's capital. When I walk outside of my doorstep, I can still see the ladies hanging, the laundry on the cobblestone street, and I sometimes hit my head on their aprons. The relaxed pace of Portugal, the historic heart of sprawling London, and the flavours of Rome are all just ahead on today's travel with Rick Steves. Portugal prides itself on being open to the world while welcoming to newcomers and affordable to visit. Coming up, a Lisbon-born and raised tour guide recommends how to get in touch with the relaxed vibe of Portugal, while also understanding what it faces as a society today. And a guide from London points out how the sights you'll want to see in the British capital are mostly all within a few miles of the heart of the city. Let's start out today's travel with Rick Steves, getting an authentic taste of Rome. When travelling, you can learn about the culture through museums and you can learn about it through the local taste treats and street food. Rome is a city that can be brutal and overwhelming, hot, crowded, and chaotic at times with a history that's long and complex. And for a more sprightly approach to Rome, the eternal city, you can learn about its story and its culture by experiencing its food culture. There are lots of creative and hard-working little companies to choose from that take you on food tours when you're in Rome. And today I'm joined by Kenny Dunn. Kenny runs a food tour company called Eating Europe, and he's dropped by our studio right here in North of Seattle to tempt us to eat our way through Roman culture. Kenny, thanks for joining us. I'm glad to be here. So, let's just say I'd like to join you on a tasty and experiential food tour of Rome, but only for the imagination. It seems that Rome really lends itself to food tours. It seems like it's an ideal city to be enjoying the culture on the street. Italians love to eat. It's just a main topic of conversation, isn't it? Seasonal, local, slow food. What is it about Rome that makes it such a great place for nibbling food culture? I mean, Rome is truly one of the best places in Europe for a food tour. And there's a lot of reasons. I mean, the food in Rome, the Roman cuisine itself, as well as all the other food from all the other parts of Italy is there on display. There's some phenomenal street food, soup li, pizza autoglio, fried cod, fried baccala. The other thing is, so many places in Rome are family-owned, so you really have an opportunity to meet the people behind the food, the food artisans. You know, they're there. Family-run restaurants. That's when I look at my favorite restaurants in a place like Rome. Most of them would be family-run. So let's just kind of go on this imaginary food tour that I was talking about. I'm just going to mention something, and you can just kind of take us there. I love the piazzas in the neighborhoods, which have a little bakery right there on the piazza. Tell me about your visit to a bakery. Yeah, I would take you to one of my favorite neighborhoods is Testaccio, and they have a neighborhood bakery called Panaficio Passi. You walk in there and you see all of that. You see the pizza bianca, which is kind of like focaccia, but not as airy, drizzled with olive oil, salt. It's just simple but delicious. You'll see some other pizza. Then you have all the deli meats, the fresh mozzarella di bufola, and around lunchtime they start bringing out the kind of prepared stuff. So you might have saltian bocca. Can a place like that generally make a sandwich for you? Yeah, absolutely. So you just ask them, penino. Yeah, exactly. I like in Rome the what's called pizza rustica, where they sell the pizza by the weight. Yeah. It's fast food, and you see six or seven different kinds of pizza, and you say you get to know what is your serving, and you're using grams. A hundred grams is a quarter of a pound, like a quarter pounder, and in Italy they've got the word for a hundred grams, an eto, right? Yeah, an eto is a hundred grams. I think what you're referring to also is known as pizza autoglio, or pizza by the slice. Oh, there you go. Yeah. Can you get good pizza that way? Absolutely. Okay, good. So really with pizza, the quick thing with that is at nighttime you have the wood-fired pizza, and that's pizza tonda, round pizza, very thin, crispy. During the day you go into one of the places you're referring to, and you can try, or in the evening, but you can try a lot of different kinds. So you've got pizza with potato and rosemary, pizza with mortadella, and soft cheese like strachino. You could try five or six different little bites, and it's a great way to have a mini pizza tour right on one plate. Speaking of a mini pizza tour, here's it. I don't know if you've ever done this, but I did this thing I really was proud of. I had eight people on a tour. We went to a great little pizzeria. We ordered, and the people worked with me here, the waiters. I said, I want to order all the pizzas, all eight pizzas on your menu. I'd like them to come every one, every five or ten minutes, and I want them cut in eight slices. So every five minutes a new pizza would come, and it would have just enough slices for everybody. Everybody just got one slice, and then everybody ate their way whole through the end. The beautiful thing was they were always hot because they came every five minutes, and we ate them right away. It was just a beautiful experience. If you can be creative, you get that in a, what do you call it, pizza taglio? Pizza taglio. If you like. Trappizzino. So trappizzino is kind of new on the block. It started around 15 years ago by a guy, Stefano Caligari. It's basically, he used pizza dough, made kind of like a focaccia, and you fill it with all these different classical Roman things, like polo, chicken alla cacciatura. You have parmesan, eggplant parmesan. You have meatballs. Is that, was that first place in Trastevere? The very first one was in Testaccio. Oh, because there's that big thriving place right by the bridge. Yeah, now there's one in Piazza Tillilusa, which is always slammed. There's a lot throughout the city and also throughout the country, and they've even expanded outside of Italy. Huh, so trappizzino. And so it's new, but it's local and it's good. This is Travel Trick Steves. We're eating our way through Rome now with Kenny Dunn. Kenny started his food tour company, it's called Eating Europe, after moving to Rome in 2011. Kenny's company is one of countless great food tour companies offering food tours almost wherever there are tourists. Back to the streets of Rome with Kenny Dunn. Supley, this is a word I keep hearing when I'm in Rome, supley. So supley is probably the most popular street food in Rome. Supley means surprise, and it's a fried risotto ball where the rice is cooked in a meat sauce and then it's filled with mozzarella. And you bite into it and you know you have a good supley if when you bite into it the cheese stretches. So that's when it's made to perfection. Is that like a Sicilian eroncino? No, they're different. So the supley is more oval or egg shaped. The addoncini are more kind of, it's like a big cone. It's almost twice as big. Does the eroncini have that nice stretchiness? No, it doesn't. So you don't have that magic because you bite into a supley and you get to be a six year old kid stretching it out. Oh man, it's amazing. Hey if I wanted to sit down and have three classic pastas that are proper to eat in Rome. Or in Italy eating ethnic or going for foreign food or whatever you call it, you could do that within the Italian peninsula. I mean, you know. 20 regions, each region has its own food. So most Italians when they're going to eat, you know, what we would call foreign food or ethnic food, they're just going to another part of Italy. And you look forward to trying whatever is local in that region. Okay, so in Rome what would a couple of local pastas be? So you've got a matricana which is made with guanciale which is the pig's cheek, tomato sauce and pecorino or sheep's milk cheese, carbonata. Carbonara, that's it. Take out the tomatoes, add egg and then the other one, well there's a couple others, but one of the more famous ones is cascio pepe. That's what I love. When I'm in Rome, it's sort of homecoming for me, cascio pepe. I like to almost judge a restaurant by the quality of its cascio pepe. Yeah, it's not easy to do. It's only three ingredients, black pepper, pecorino cheese, the pasta, but very hard to pull off. So fun to know the story, the folklore behind the different pastas. Porchetta, that's a popular thing these days. Absolutely. Roasted pork, another popular street food. Roasted deboned pork, cooked for about four hours, usually served on that pizza bianca we talked about. And my favorite spot is in Trastevere, a guy named Piero, who's known as the king of porchetta and he is such a colorful character. That's a beautiful thing about travelers. Piero, yeah, in Trastevere. And it's for real. It is. There are people who are ... There's the queen of ... What's the chickpea pancake in the French Riviera? Oh, right, right. Well there's a woman there that she's just the queen of that sort of thing. And there's like the king of paella on the south coast of Spain. And you've got your ... And Piero in Rome. Piero in Rome. Gelateria. Now, gelato, everybody's going to be enjoying their gelato. If you're a food tour guide, you want to make sure it's a teaching moment, I think. What's the takeaway when you take somebody other than the gelato, but what do you want them to take away? This is one of the teaching moments people like best on our tours, which is distinguishing the difference between real gelato and the fake stuff. Tell me. So there's a few things you want to look for. I'm saying tell me because there's so many tourists that are just conned. And they pay $15 for the wrong stuff. Absolutely. You came all that way. So here's what you're going to want to look for. So real gelato does not come in these big mounds. You see these big mounds of gelato and it might look appealing. Bright green, bright blue, bright purple. All these unnatural colors. So the mounds, it's a lot of stabilizers and really just air. Real gelato comes in small quantities, which means that it's made fresh. You want to look for flavors like pistachio. And pistachio should be an earthy green. Sometimes it's this bright ninja color, turtle green. So colors actually found in nature. Yeah. That's pretty fundamental. Absolutely. And if it's a big mountain of it, it's got preservatives in it. Yeah. Preserve it. You want it in a metal bin with a lid on it. Right. Ideally. With the lid or without the lid, both work, but that it's a small batch. Is there a seasonal dimension to that? Yeah. The flavors should be in season and the real authentic gelatidias, the flavors change throughout the season. Absolutely. And finally, I love biscotti. And biscotti can be appreciated. How do you appreciate biscotti? Well, one thing to know in the US, biscotti or biscotti are just those kind of hard cookies that you dip in your coffee. In Italian, biscotti means any kind of cookie. It literally means cookies. Oh, so I was thinking of the almond... Tocetti. Yeah. Tocetti. Yeah. Or cantucci. Cantucci. Right. Okay. I'm thinking cantucci and I'm thinking dolce vita. Yeah. Not dolce vita. I'm thinking dolce vina. What? No. Vin Santo. Vin Santo and cantucci. Exactly. That's a classic Tuscan dessert. So if I was a food tour guide, I would make that be the standard after you've had your dessert here one more. Yeah. One more. You always have room for some. For gelato and for cantucci. Absolutely. But Kenny Dunn, thank you so much for taking us on an imaginary swing through the taste treats of Rome. I got to say there's a lot of cities that you could do the same thing with a person who knows that food scene. But you'd be hard pressed to find a better city than Rome for that extravaganza of street food delights. Can I agree with you more? Well, I was going to say bon viaggio, but I'm going to say bon appetito. Bon appetito. Hey. Bon appetito. Kenny Dunn pioneered food tours to his favorite backstreet eateries in Rome back in 2011. Kenny now also has a crew of guides hosting food tours in another 20 culinary capitals of Europe. Details are on his website, that's eatingeurope.com. We'll explore the laid back feel of Portugal right after we're guided around the bustling heart of London. That's just ahead on travel with Rick Steves. Siasdok, Gjörgy vagyok is Sriksdí velutasom. This was Hungarian and I just said I'm George and I'm from Budapest and I travel with Rick Steves. So once again in Hungarian, Siasdok, Gjörgy vagyok Budapest vagyottam is Sriksdí velutasom. Navigating London can be challenging, but it becomes more manageable when you think of it as a collection of neighborhoods or districts. The two districts at its heart are Westminster and what Londoners call the city. These two districts are a blend of the future and the past. It's a wonderful blend. It's where you'll find quintessential London sites like St. Paul's Cathedral, the Tower of London, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace. You'll also notice a move toward the future as the city's changing landscape is becoming a forest of skyscrapers. Joining us now to define what truly is the heart of London and all there is to enjoy within it is great London guide Deborah Habern. Deborah, thanks for being here. Thank you very much. Hello, Rick. Nice to be here. Yeah. Now when people talk about London, they talk about Westminster and then people refer to the city. But the city is not the city. It's like a one square mile district. How do you define the city? It is. You have to be really careful because I think most people when they think, oh, I'm going to London, I'm going to the city of London and they think this huge city of 9 million people. Right. But as you said, it's actually a collection of little villages and two cities and the city of London is the original city of London. That's where London started. That's where the Romans settled. That's where the Anglo-Saxons had their medieval city in a very small area. And that's where we would find the Tower of London. And that's where we find the Tower of London. That's right, the first skyscraper in the city of London built by William the Conqueror. So that is the historic core of London. And then Westminster was like a different town. It was. Way outside in the countryside. There was always something there, hence the name West Minster. It was a minster, a church in the west to the west of the city. And it started off with the Abbey of Westminster and then Edward the Confessor. He built a palace there. But nothing else ever happened there for hundreds and hundreds of years. It stayed in the country. Uh-huh. Eventually London grew so big that it became engulfed in this megapolis. Yeah, exactly. And they still are, are they still sort of administered as separate boroughs or districts? They are separate boroughs. Yes. There are, I think, something like 30 or 34 boroughs in London in total. And one of those is the city of London, otherwise known as the Square Mile. So now if we're like in the know, we can say, yes, I was at the city and people know that's the, that's that, that, that old historic core. We'll talk about that in a minute, but I want to talk about Westminster first because this is what people, when people go to London, they make a beeline for Westminster Bridge, for Big Ben, you know, the tower of an extra, the halls of parliament and Westminster Abbey. Let's talk about the highlights of Westminster. As you guide people around, people hire you for half a day to show them Westminster. What would you show them? What's on the checklist for Westminster? Okay. If they've never been before, I'd probably start off at Westminster Bridge. I would walk them into the square under the newly renamed Elizabeth Tower with the bell of Big Ben inside. I didn't know that. So Big Ben, we always call the tower Big Ben, but that's the bell. That's the bell inside. And I didn't know it has this new, what is the new name? Queen Elizabeth. Oh, is it? That's beautiful. Yes. Queen Elizabeth Tower with Big Ben, the bell inside. And it's beautifully restored. Oh, beautiful now. Yes. Absolutely. When you look at that, it looks medieval, but it's actually romantic. It's neogothic, right? Neogothic, yes. Most of the houses of parliament and the tower are neogothic. They're Victorian. So that's from the reign of Victoria? Absolutely, yes. And she ruled for 70 years in the 1800s? Absolutely, yes, yes. 1836 or 7, she came to the throne, died at the beginning of the 1900s. English monarchs, women live a long time on the throne. They like the power. Elizabeth I, Victoria, Elizabeth II. How long are those reigns? Yes, I can't remember. Well, Elizabeth... For the longest. Queen Elizabeth. Is Elizabeth II. 70 years. I know. Yeah, wow. So you got Westminster Bridge, you got the Queen Elizabeth Tower. A house of parliament behind it. And that just kind of marks the house of parliament where we have the House of Lords and the House of Commons. That's right. So that'd be like the rich landowners and the people, or how do you define the House of Lords and the Commons? Historically, yes, I would suppose. But the House of Commons is made up of the members of parliament who are elected in our elections, in our general elections by general suffrage, by universal suffrage. And the House of Lords, they are peers of the realm. However, there is a lot of reform going on at the moment. Is that right? Yes. This is interesting. So you've got the House of Commons would be probably like our House of Representatives. Yes, that's right. And voted by the people. But what we don't have, we have the Senate, but in England you've got the House of Lords, which are people that are... How do you get into the House of Lords? Well, they are born into it, but now they are selected. You can't just be in the House of Lords by virtue of birth. If you want to learn more about this, you can actually visit the House of Commons. I was going to say yes. You can visit the House of Commons. There's a website. The office is right by the bridge in Westminster Pier, so it's not actually at the House of Parliament itself. But it's remarkably easy to do. Very easy to do, much easier than you think. You can book online. Yeah. It shows us being full online. It's still worth going to the ticket office. On certain days you can go around with a real-life person as a guide, but the audio guide is brilliant as well. That's great. Yeah, and it's, I believe it's free? No, it's not. It's not. No, it's not free. Sorry, no. Because, yes, I... It's probably free to watch the House of... House of... Yes, you can go in as a member of the public to the House of Commons or to the House of Lords just to sit there. To witness democracy in action. Wow. This is Travel with Rick Steves. This is Deborah Hayburn, and we're digging a little deeper into London now to understand better what is Westminster and what is the city. Okay, so you got that, the House of Commons, the House of Lords, Queen Elizabeth Tower. Yes. And across the street, Westminster Abbey. And across the street, Westminster Abbey, at the little church of St Margaret's in between. Yeah, but there's so many important people. There's so many important people buried in Westminster Abbey. I just, for me, it is a tripped down English history lane. Yes. What do you enjoy about taking people through? It is. Because it must be fun because you know all of these characters to take an American through it and you can just go, here's so-and-so, here's so-and-so. What are the top four or five people you like to make sure people see when they go to Westminster? Isaac Newton. Yeah. I love visiting his tomb and seeing his tomb, but the other two that are brilliant, I think, are Queen Elizabeth sitting on top, Elizabeth the first this is, sitting on top of Mary Trudeau. Is that right? Yes. Two tombs on top of each other. Yes. Wow. Okay. One squashing the other over time. Well, there must be hundreds of tombs there. I mean, if you can think of a great person who made Britain great, there's a good chance they're buried in Westminster Abbey. Yes. Yes. Okay, so that's the big sightseeing. And then you walk along this grand boulevard, Whitehall. Whitehall. And Whitehall is actually the name of a palace that used to stand there, right? It is, yes. Halfway up on the right-hand side is going up towards Trafalgar Square. There used to be a huge palace there. It was built by James the First as the Royal Palace. Yes. Hundreds of years before Buckingham Palace was ever thought of. And it was decorated by his son, Charles the First, and he got the paint of Rubins to paint the ceiling. And what I love about it is they've got beanbags on the floor inside, and you can lie on beanbags and look up at the ceiling and Rubins paintings showing James the First as a representative of God on earth. I love it. I love it. And then you walk by all of the echoes of this great palace, which is today so many contemporary governmental buildings and monuments along this grand boulevard, and you get to a column. And on the top of that column is... Is one of our great heroes. Lord Nelson. Yes, Lord Nelson. Armless. One arm, one leg, and one arm. And he's looking out at Trafalgar, and he was just so thankful to give his life for England. Yes, that's right. Yes. But that's Trafalgar Square. That's Trafalgar Square, yes. Named after that battle. Named after the Battle of Trafalgar against the troops of Napoleon. And that to me is one of the highlights of London, to go to Trafalgar Square and then to pop into a couple of museums. Oh, the National Gallery is right behind. Behind that you've got the Portrait Gallery. And I just was in the National Portrait Gallery a month ago, and wow, it is renovated and it is up and it is new. It's given women much more importance, both women painters and women subjects, and all of the descriptions are up to date. It is one of the most impressive remodels of a museum I've seen anywhere in Europe. Really? I haven't been into the Portrait Gallery this year. You've got to go in it. Yes, wonderful. I haven't had a chance. Deborah Hayburn is guiding us into the historic core of London. Stay on travel with Rick Steves. You'll find photos and articles about London and a list of our favorite sites in the city on our website ricksteves.com. Matt's listening in from Birmingham, Alabama joins us on the line at 877-333-7425. Matt, I understand when you were in London you enjoyed getting to Greenwich on a river tour along the Thames. Hey, Rick, thanks for having me on. I went to London with my in-laws who were in their 70s last summer and my wife and our two kids who were seven and three last year. I'm normally a pretty anti-touristy section of town guy. I don't really love guided tours, but I saw you were talking about Central London and I just wanted to say we were down by Big Den and Buckingham Palace or Westminster Abbey and we saw the river cruises and so no big prior planning. We just walked down to one of the boats, bought tickets, got on the cruise and it was just a really great way to see London. We took your advice. We took it all the way down to Greenwich, saw the Cutty Sark and had a great afternoon. I love it. Did it have any kind of narration on it as you sailed? Oh yeah. We had two tour guides. It was cheesy enough that both our in-laws and our kids had a great time. It is cheesy in a great way. The point is Matt just went down there underneath the Westminster Bridge and saw when the next boat was gone, paid the price, hopped in with his family and they had a great trip all the way to Gounder Greenwich. Yeah, and it's a very, very easy way to see the city and if you've trod the pavements all morning to have an hour to two hours on a boat like that, it's just the rest you need to keep getting you going for the rest of the day. So Matt, what else did you see? You left from Westminster Bridge. That's in the middle of Westminster where we've been talking about and you went down past the city, past the Tower of London. Tower of London, yes. Tell us what you remember from the trip, Matt. I'm trying to remember. I could have told you everything we'd seen if you hadn't just asked. One other thing I will point out though, we get on board and immediately on the boat, there's a snack bar and a bar. So my kids get snacks, my wife and I get beers. We're good to go for the next couple of hours. I love it. You can also go the other direction to Kew Gardens. You can take boats up and down the Thames from many different spots. Deborah, do you have some sort of a practical tip for taking a tour on the Thames? For taking a tour on the Thames, the practical tour I would say because unfortunately it's not always hot and sunny in London, is be on deck. Be underneath, be on deck and you need to make sure whatever the weather is doing, you're warm enough so you can enjoy being on deck. Good advice. In fact, that's good advice whenever you're touring in London. Yeah. Assume you'll get different weather during the day and part of that's going to be rainy. Matt, thanks for your call. Thanks. Enjoyed it. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye. We should not lose sight of the fact that all of our kings and queens, they lived here for more than 500 years. Deborah Hayburn is our certified guide to the heart of London right now on Travel with Rick Steves. A year in the southwest of France, right out of school, launched Deborah's career as a world traveler, learning about and sharing how people in different places live. Today, Deborah offers tours of Devon and Cornwall in the southwest of England. That's from her home base in London. We have contact information in the notes for this week's show at ricksteves.com.com. So Deborah, we were talking about Westminster and there's actually kind of a pageantry ritual relationship between the ... What is the deal when the Lord Mayor goes somewhere or what happens at the border between these two districts? The Lord Mayor is the mayor of the city of London. Okay. Okay. He is not a political figure. However, he is the leader of the city of London, which is basically a local authority. Every year, he is appointed in November and a few days later, there is a huge Lord Mayor show and it is a huge procession with medieval costumes full of pageantry and it goes all the way from the city of London all the way to the edge of Westminster where the mayor paces allegiance, swears his allegiance to the monarch. Still today. Still today. Still today. Hey. Finding those little bits of pageantry in which we'll are so fun and London seems to specialize in it. Oh, and this is one of the best. Really? That's great. So people can learn about that when they go to the city and when we walk through the city, I'm thinking it's like a series of great streets. You've got the Strand, you've got Fleet Street. Yes, Fleet Street. You come to St. Paul's. St. Paul's. He's cheap. You look around and you see all of these amazing spires. I know, yes, yes. And 23 of them were still built by Christopher Wren. Christopher Wren. So the city burned down in the famous fire. The Great Fire of 1666. I don't know many dates. 1666. Yeah. And Christopher Wren was an ambitious young architect. He was, yeah. He wasn't even an architect at the time. But he was just Johnny on the spot and he said, I'm a smart guy. I could rebuild this city and it was the best thing that could happen for his career. I know. I know more than 50 churches, other buildings. And they're just gorgeous. Yes, I know. And they're just gorgeous. He made London modern. And then at the far end, you're going through all of this historic, I mean you can even see Roman ruins. But you also see a forest of skyscrapers. And one thing I do now, every time I go to London, I have to check in on the skyscraper forest because there's new skyscrapers. Can you give us a rundown on the most famous skyscrapers and what are their nicknames? Because I love how each one has a little thing. In fact, hardly anyone knows what the real name of them is. So what are these nicknames? The real names are boring. Well, we've got the cheese grater because it looks like a cheese grater. We've got the walkie-talkie that looks like a walkie-talkie. We've got the guerkin. It looks like a guerkin. And what's a guerkin in American? A guerkin. Oh, it's a cucumber. A cucumber, yeah. So there you go. It looks like a cucumber. Good. All right. And the shard. The shard is the tallest at the moment. And it looks like a shard. It looks like a shard of glass, absolutely. And you know, one place I found, I understand that if you're going to build a skyscraper, in order to get your permission, you've got to have a sort of a public space or a place where people can enjoy a view or have some kind of access. Oh, yes, yes. And I love to find these different public spaces. And the changes, some of them are expensive, some of them are free, some of them used to be there and no longer there, you know. But I found a great one. It's called The Garden at 120. At 120, yes. It's so good. It's really good, isn't it? It's like a garden at 120 meters in the sky. I don't know what 120 means, but it's way up there. And it's an amazing view. It is a fantastic view. I mean, it's lower than a lot of the others, but who cares? It's high enough. And the garden is beautiful. And you're looking down on what's it called Leaden Hall. That's right, Leaden Hall, which is a lovely. Leaden Hall, in the middle of all of these, you know, just jaw-dropping iron and glass structures. We've got this beautiful, centuries-old market hall that is protected, and in its day, it was a big deal. Yes, and also made of iron. It survives. It is so cool. Just about out of time here, I would love one little tip from you about how to make the walk through the city a little more intimate. What would you do to just, what's a little nook and cranny you would grab? To walk through the city of London, I would look for some of the churches that were never rebuilt after they were destroyed in the Blitz that have been turned into what they call pocket parks. And there are lots and lots of them in the city of London. So wait a minute, they were destroyed in the Blitz? They were destroyed in the Blitz, and so they haven't, some of them were so badly destroyed. They have just created pocket parks, a little quiet enclave. And the city of London has planted them with plants, tropical trees, et cetera. Lots of the churches also have coffee shops in them. Pocket parks and coffee shops and churches. There you go. Deborah Haveren, thanks so much for joining us and give us a better understanding of your great city, London. Thank you very much, my pleasure. This is London. If that tune sounds familiar, it's a British folk melody called Lily Bolero. And it was used for many years as the theme music on the BBC World Service. Our next stop on Travel with Rick Steves takes us to the laid-back pleasures of Portugal. Stay with us. For a small country, Portugal sure offers plenty to see and do in its culture and sights. And it offers an intriguing contrast between its rejuvenated cityscapes in Lisbon and Porto and the laid-back, humbler Portugal you find in its traditional villages, with economies rooted in fishing, winemaking, textiles and growing cork. To offer a Portuguese perspective on its culture, as well as on the issues Portugal's tackling today, we're joined now on Travel with Rick Steves by tour guide Adriana Madeira. Adriana, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me, Rick. I'm so excited. Yeah, now I love Portugal. And all of us who go to Portugal, I mean, Lisbon is the first stop. It's great. And then I really think Porto has to be seen. So it's just a wonderful city. But tell me your, first of all, your situation in Portugal. Where do you live? Where do you raise your child and so on? So I do have a six-year-old boy that I'm raising. And I was born and raised in Lisbon. So I've always lived in big cities. About two years ago, I made the decision to move to a smaller town in the outskirts of the city of Lisbon because I wanted to experience a more calm lifestyle. But I now consider to be authentic Portugal. I wanted to leave the rush of metropolitan Lisbon behind. And I wanted to connect to my family's roots. So I moved to a village that my grandmother was from, a village that I can take the train from and to to access Lisbon City Center in only 30 minutes. But a village where when I walk outside of my doorstep, I can still see the ladies hanging, the laundry on the cobblestone street. And I sometimes hit my head on their aprons. And there's just this beautiful sense of community. And this is what makes me love my country. That sounds almost like a postcard of old-fashioned Portugal, still alive. Absolutely. In our modern age. I know when you, almost any country, Adriana, they've got a, you know, how New York City is just so high-powered and exhausting if you're not used to a big city. Totally. Big cities are that way. But also more diverse. I mean, Portugal has quite a big colonial heritage. I mean, Portugal ran a lot of countries in the global south. And that colonial empire is gone now. But you've got a lot of color and personality and fun food in the big city, along with a lot of big immigrant communities. How does that compare to a small-town Portugal? So Portugal has a lot of flavor to it. Although we're talking about a country that is made of 11 million people, nearly 11 million, we have lots of different layers to us. And one of the things that our Portuguese people appreciate the most about ourselves is our openness to the world. So just like how you put it now, we have such a beautiful community of Brazilian people and Angolans and people from Mozambique and most recently from Asia and Macau and Pakistan and Cambodia and India. And it all just comes together beautifully. And when did the end of the Portuguese colonial empire happen? It was like one year, wasn't it? 1974. 1974. And suddenly, you're no longer the colonial ruler of all these places. Exactly. But you still have the connections, the cultural connections. Now let's compare the sense of community and economics with small-town and big city in Portugal. So when we're talking about the countryside, we're talking about mostly fishing, the quark industries, the number one industry in the country, and the port wine industry. So these are the thriving forces of Portugal's economy when we speak of the countryside. And how is that doing? Is there a hard times where people in the small towns are leaving and depopulating the countryside to go to the promise of better jobs in the big city or is it healthy in the countryside? It's actually fascinating to see because this transit is happening in the two directions. Really? It's very curious because you have younger generations that are having a hard time finding a job in the countryside and they're moving more and more to the city center. But there's a big problem right now is they cannot afford to live in metropolitan areas because of the increasing prices of the real estate. And so they're moving to small villages like myself. Is part of that ability to work remotely so you can get a cheap apartment or house and still get a big city job? Absolutely. So as a Portuguese person you wouldn't think that there's a crisis of everybody leaving the countryside now? No. Okay, because that is a crisis in other countries like in France I think. I remember one time Adriana that I was talking to an old fisherman in Salema on the Algarve. And I was asking him about what it was like before the tourists came. And he said it was really hard. I mean this is such a charming village now. It's probably quite wealthy because there's a lot of tourists there. But it's a humble town. And I remember he looked out at the sea and he said life was just the wind and sardines. That's all they had was the wind and the sardines. And it was quite poignant. That's a beautiful description of Portugal. It is. You know, and there's a lot of towns that that's what it used to be 50 years ago as some of those old timers remember. Right. And it's changed so much. Portugal's face has changed so much. So if I'm a tourist and I want to go to Portugal and I want to experience not the poverty of wind and sardines. Sure. And I have a good firm that you've got in your life in a small town that probably doesn't have many postcards and many tour groups coming in. Not one. Not one. Not one. I cannot think of one. You could go there and have a perfectly good time as a tourist. Absolutely. You might not find an English menu. No. So we go back to the old notepads where you have to draw something on it and just show people the picture. See that's fun. It is fun. Adriana Madeira is our guide to the delights of Portugal right now on Travel with Rick Steves. She was born and raised in Lisbon but recently moved to a more rural area outside the city to reconnect with a more traditional side of Portugal. Speaking of the delights, the edible delights of Portugal, what's the fish stew, the fish soup? Caldeirada. Caldeirada. Caldeirada. Caldeirada. How do I find that and what's the trick? You would have to go to the oldest neighborhoods in the city of Lisbon for example. You're a poor little but you need to stay closer to the coast. Closer to the coast. Because that's where they will add up to six different types of fish into the fish stew. And it depends on what they caught today. Absolutely. And of course, if I was thinking of one iconic thing to eat, it would be the pastéis de Belém. Yes. Pastel de Nata. Denata or Belém. But this is a little cream custard. Fresh out of the oven with their own... You hit it right there. Fresh out of the oven. Yes. You'd be out in a restaurant for six hours. No good. No good. No good. Not at all. You want it hot, literally hot out of the oven. We have so many stores that sell these. They sell it like hotcakes. Absolutely. We say they sell it like hotcakes. They sell it like pastel de nata. That's how you buy them. So you'll see it. Don't miss that. One of my favorite things is vino verde. Yes. Because I just like the word green wine. Yes. Sparkly bubbly from the north. Very fresh. Very fresh, slightly acidic but beautiful wine. Is there fine vino verde or is it all just kind of table wine? No, they produce some fine vino veritas but at its origin it was more like a workers wine made by the workers for the people. Very refreshing. For the villagers. Very rough. Very rough and young. That's the right word. Walking through the back streets of Lisbon, my favorite smell sardines. You got to pick the good months for it. But absolutely. What's the month? June. June is a sardine month. I love it. It's just everywhere you go. People are celebrating those little sardines. That's the beautiful thing. That is a beautiful thing and tasty. Tasty. Ah. Adriana, I'm fascinated by the dynamic that's going on in Europe right now with far right people that are upset with the way things are going and they want some sort of a populist kind of government. Yes. And I know it's not unique to America. Many countries in Europe have the same dynamic going on. Yes. And Portugal comes from a heritage of Salazar, the fascist dictator, which is really far right. When did he get out of power? He died in 1974. So that same year that the empire was over? Sorry, he died in 1971. And we carried on with the dictatorship for three more years. Okay. So that was the turning point, the 74. No more colonial empire? No more. No more fascist dictator? No more. Freedom. Freedom. Happy. And we have been up until now where things are starting to turn around. Problem being the country is more and more divided. So those who are getting the votes are the extremists. And one of the people, it's an extreme right. And one of the most preoccupying things that this candidate has said is that the country now needs 10 times what Salazar did in the days of the dictatorship. And people are believing it and buying it and voting for him. This is the very clever populism of our age. Absolutely. And I've been in Portugal many times when there's been a demonstration all over Europe. I mean, I think demonstrations are an illustration of freedom. People in the streets raising their voices together. And if you're traveling around Portugal and you see a demonstration, what should a traveler do? A traveler should observe and take it all in. Although I must say, Rick, in Portugal we are such laid back, relaxed people. We sometimes comment on the French's ability to lead revolutions and demonstrations. That is not our forte. No, because what I was going to say, now when I look at your energy and the smile on your face right now, I'm remembering the demonstration I remember best. It was like a birthday party in the streets. Everybody was just sweet and happy going down the streets. We are sweet and happy people. With banners, you know. But I just asked them what's going on, you know, and they said, oh, they're making us retire later, you know. So they have a demonstration. Yeah. Adriana, I'd love more of your insight into the dynamic that's fueling the political tension in the division in your country today because so many countries are dealing with this. Is it related to immigrants and people who are struggling economically that are natives arguing over the same limited resources? Yes, this is a really good point. I think Portugal's struggle right now, what's going through Portuguese people's minds is the government is not protecting their own, but still, and yet being so very open to the world and to everybody else that indeed needs our support and needs our help and wants to come and move to Portugal. So I mean, to put it simply, too many refugees and not enough welfare. Yes. That's a reasonable concern if you're struggling in your country and all of a sudden there's twice as many people struggling, but the world's a big and complicated place. In Portugal, Portugal's connected to the global south. Very much. Speaking of immigration, a lot of Americans dream of retiring in Portugal. Yes. And I've got friends that have lived beautiful retirement years on the south coast in the Elgarve. It is extremely popular. Almost to a fault because if you go to certain places on the Elgarve, local people might say I can't find the Portuguese man because it's catering to people who are looking for a change in climate, but not a change in culture. Very true. So that's one thing you got to be careful of. I mean, there's people who want to embrace the local culture and fit in and people who just want to camp on it because it's sunny and cheaper. And comfortable. And they can have their own community with their own radio and their own newspaper. Speak English. Speak English. Yeah. Coast to Del Sol. That's right. Spain's same phenomenon. Elgarve in Portugal, the south coast. Yes. Adriana Madeira has been a tour guide now for more than 10 years. Raised in Portugal, she's lived abroad since she was 14 and even worked as a ballerina in France and the U.S. She's living near Lisbon now and specializes in guiding visitors to experience the sights and spirit of today's Portugal. Adriana, what would your advice be to somebody that wants to really gain an appreciation for the Portuguese way of life in them? It's just such a wonderful temple of life. It's such a delicious culture. It is. What are a few tips of yours when you have friends that are going to be visiting Portugal? Be curious. Be mindful. And just have this open mind, want to embrace the culture. Learn how to cook the Portuguese food. Learn how to speak the Portuguese language. The Portuguese way of living, the quietness, the peacefulness in us, the melancholy in us. Learn to become a little bit Portuguese. Add a little bit of Portuguese spice to your DNA. You can do that. You can put a little spice. Of course you can. I can go to a fado performance and look into the eyes of the old lady who's singing and she can take me out to sea with her song. That's it. Do you know what I mean? That's it. But you've got to let yourself get a little bit emotional because there's a lot of emotion in the music and an emotion in the culture. And Portugal is emotion. Yes. Portugal is a very emotional language. What is the word saudade? Saudade. What is that? Longing. Longing. What do you mean, longing? We long. The Portuguese, this concept of saudade, we're always expecting for somebody to come and save us. It will be better. It will be better. One day it will be better. So this translates into the way we are. We are quiet, calm people. And you can have a festival of saudade when you hear the fado singing. Yes, you can. Traditional. Oh, it's so beautiful. Adriana, it's such a delight to talk with you. And all of these things we've been talking about, these wonderful little slices of Portuguese culture, you can enjoy them equally well in towns that would never be in a guidebook, like your town. That's a town with no tourism where you could get 100% traditional Portugal. Absolutely. 30 inhabitants. 30 inhabitants. 30. Well, my point is you could be at any tourist place and you could, with a rental car, you could drive for 20 or 30 minutes and pull into a town that never saw a tourist. Never. And you could go to the bar, you could go to the café, take a little walk around the square, you could kick the soccer ball with the kids. And you could experience Portugal candid, intimate. Is that fair to say? That is super fair to say. That is the actual truth about Portugal. There's my best budget tip ever. Adriana Rodriguez Mediera, obrigado. I'll see you in Portugal. You can always write us with your questions and comments to radio at ricksteves.com. Listeners Neil and Leslie and Omaha did just that to ask me how I settle into all the hotel rooms I stay in each year to make it feel more like my home for a few days. Neil and Leslie from Omaha, Nebraska email and they ask, you must stay in a lot of hotels. Is there anything special you do after checking in to make it more comfortable for you? Man, that's a little bit of extra credit that makes a huge difference. I always take a few moments. If I'm just one night in a hotel, I don't make a big deal about it. But if I'm settling in for a few days, I'm very careful to get the right room, first of all. Remember, if a hotel sends you to a room and you don't like it, before you settle in, ask if you can see another room. Generally, they want to get you in a room you like. And if you're too close to the elevator or if you want to be higher up, ask about that. If you want to shower and you got a bathtub, ask about it. I would rather be on the back where it's quiet than on the front where there's a view, frankly. I like silence. This is really important. And remember, a lot of Europeans, they'd rather be on the front with all the noise. I like silence to the point that if the mini fridge is noisy, I will unplug it. I've got no qualms about that. I'll dig behind the desk and I'll pull it out and I'll find the plug and I'll unplug it so that I don't hear the noisy fridge going on and off. I clean up all the clutter. Hotels are just more and more filling it with little itsy bitsies and advertisements and extra pillows. Things that I don't really want to use and I don't want to be staring at for my whole stay. So I will stack all that stuff out of sight in the closet. Something else I do when I'm setting up for a few days in a hotel is I go shopping to a grocery store and I stock my on the road pantry. I do it with my favorite drinks and food and it gives me healthier options than the stuff in the mini bar or the expensive options at the bar downstairs. It saves me a lot of money and I find I'm just feeling more at home if I set up a pantry in my hotel room. A lot of times I'm working and I need to arrange the furniture so it works for me. If I want the desk by the window so I get better light on my work when I'm doing my writing, I move the desk. I carefully arrange the room. One of my pet peeves is a mattress, a rubber mat under the sheet on my bed. A lot of times I wake up at three o'clock in the morning and I feel just sweaty. What's going on? Oh, they've put a rubber mat under my sheet so somebody who's going to pee in bed or vomit after being out and drinking too long doesn't ruin the mattress. Well I can understand a hotel wanting to guard against that but I'm not going to pee or vomit in the bed and I don't want a rubber mattress. I remove the mattress and then I put the sheet back on and I don't sleep sweaty. But I have to be careful because when the maid comes in the next day they'll go, oh, how did this rubber mat not be on the bed? It's in the closet. I put a note on the door. I hang that don't bother me in this room for my entire stay because I don't want the maid coming in and putting everything back the way it was when I worked so hard to make it fit my needs. That's the, I suppose you could call it the little Rick Steve's pet peeves list of how to settle into a hotel but it makes a huge difference for me and I enjoy that hotel room a lot more. Travel with Rick Steve's is produced by Tim Tatton, Kaz Murrahall and Donna Bardsley, Ed Rick Steve's Europe and Edmunds Washington. Affiliate relations are by Sheila Gershoff, website uploads are by Andrew Wakeling and Sherry Court. Our theme music is by Jerry Frank. Find links to our guests and search the show archives at ricksteves.com slash radio. And we'll look for you again next week with more travel with Rick Steve's. Rick Steve's Classroom Europe is a fast, free and fun video archive. It's designed for teachers, travelers and students. It gives you immediate access to some 500 short video clips from the Rick Steve's Europe TV show library. Clips cover European history, art, culture, food and geography. Google Classroom Europe or visit ricksteves.com to watch clips and create your own playlist. Teachers love it. Students do too.