Emily White Decades of travel. Not the resort kind. The kind where you show up with a backpack, eat where the menu is handwritten, and stay long enough to actually understand a place. Rick Steves has done this longer than most travel writers have been alive and somewhere along the way he developed very strong feelings about where Europe gets it right and where it genuinely does not.
Vernazza, Italy
Five villages on a cliff and this is the one he keeps going back to. Nothing dramatic about it on paper. Small harbor, narrow streets, no real beach to speak of. He just loves it. Has for years. Early morning there before the day trips arrive is apparently something else entirely.
Bruges, Belgium
Came out of the twentieth century looking almost exactly like it went in. Rick has a soft spot for places that did not knock themselves down to build something more modern and profitable. Bruges is his favorite example of that probably anywhere in Europe.
Gimmelwald, Switzerland
Everyone goes to Interlaken. He thinks that is a bit of a waste. Small car free village above the valley, no hotels you have heard of, people who have lived there their whole lives. He said once it changed something in how he thinks about travel. Coming from him that is not a small thing to say.
The Dordogne, France
Southwest France, rivers, old caves, villages that feel genuinely untouched. Most people fly past it heading somewhere more famous. Rick thinks skipping it is honestly one of the bigger travel mistakes you can make in Europe and he is probably not wrong.
Dubrovnik, Croatia
He has walked those walls many times now. What keeps bringing him back is that real people still live inside the old city. It has not been completely hollowed out and handed over to tourism yet. That matters to him more than the views do probably.
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Brings it up all the time. Compact little capital, river running through the middle, nobody pushing you anywhere. Most people do not even put Slovenia on their Europe list. He finds that genuinely unfortunate every time it comes up.
Santorini, Greece
The photos are accurate. It does look like that. Peak season though is a different story and he has started quietly pointing people toward other Greek islands when they ask. Draw your own conclusions from that.
Paris in August
Loves Paris. Always has. August is just its own thing. The people who actually live there mostly leave and what shows up to replace them is not quite the city he fell for. He says this carefully but he does say it every time.
Venice Rushed
Not Venice itself. The day trip version of Venice that most tourists do now. Train in, walk to the bridge, eat something, train out before dinner. He genuinely thinks people are robbing themselves and he is not shy about saying so.
Amalfi in Summer
Road is beautiful. Genuinely one of the great drives in Europe. Also a road that was built long before tour buses existed and the two have never fully made peace with each other. He says go in May. Worth listening to.
Amsterdam Near the Station
The city itself he loves. That one kilometer around Centraal Station though is basically a separate place built entirely for people who are passing through. The Amsterdam he talks about is further in and most tourists never quite get there.
