Rick Steves' Europe — Season 9

Taking you on a spring journey through Spain, Slovenia, Switzerland, Italy, and Greece, "Rick Steves' European Easter" celebrates this 2,000-year-old story in a variety of cultures. You'll feel the emotion of this special time as the Passion of Christ unfolds during Holy Week. We'll join Andalusians carrying parade floats, Greek priests tossing showers of flower petals, and villagers blessing olive branches, plus feasting, fireworks, and more. Exploring a rich and fascinating mix of traditions — from its pagan roots to its glorious finale — "Rick Steves' European Easter" sheds new light on this timeless holiday.

In this special, travel expert Rick Steves explores five of Germany's most important cities: Hamburg, Dresden, Leipzig, Frankfurt, and Nürnberg. From Baroque palaces to stunning modern skyscrapers, and from riverside promenades to rowdy beer halls, these cities are wonderful places to explore the country's fascinating culture.

In this exciting special, join Rick Steves as he delves deep into the Italian heartland, the place where la dolce vita is a way of life, touring Umbria, Assisi, Siena, and the Cinque Terre.Starting in Umbria, we connect with rustic, traditional culture: sleeping at an agriturismo (farmhouse inn), seeing how prosciutto and pecorino cheese are made (and eaten), and hiking down into ancient and fragrant wine cellars. Then we visit Assisi, with its inspirational story of St. Francis, stop-and-smell-God's-roses spirituality, delicate Giotto masterpieces, and awe-inspiring basilica. In Siena, we enjoy a front-row seat at its wild horse race — the venerable Palio — and marvel at cultural treasures from the city's glory days, when it rivaled Florence for dominance in Tuscany.We finish with the ultimate Riviera getaway: the Cinque Terre, where we get to know each of the "five lands" — from dramatic, vineyard-surrounded Vernazza to hardscrabble Riomaggiore to the pint-sized resort of Monterosso. Fishing for anchovies, sipping wine out of rustic barrels, bringing flowers to hilltop cemeteries, and savoring twinkling Mediterranean vistas, we enjoy Rick's favorite stretch of Mediterranean coastline.From hill towns to harbors, and from vino rosso to Giotto, "Rick Steves' Heart of Italy" savors the good life in the Italian heartland.

In this 30-minute buffet of taste treats, Rick Steves eats his merry way through Europe. One delightful taste at a time, we'll learn how food is a prime ingredient in what defines cultures all across the Continent.Join Rick as he slurps seasonal raw herring in Holland and then savors a "zero kilometer," farm-to-table country feast with a noble family in Tuscany. We'll drink some local firewater during the salad course in Bulgaria. And then we'll enjoy the elegant simplicity of steak tartare and foie gras in the garden of a French château. From dining al fresco in Rome to joining the locals on a Madrid pub crawl to learning the secrets of a wine lover's enoteca in Verona, Rick learns that slowing down to appreciate what you eat is truly an essential part of any great travel experience.With this special, the welcome's warm, the kitchen's jammin', the table's set, and you are an honored guest. Sure, there are many calories, but they're far from empty, and you'll never forget this endless feast. 

Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther kicked off the Protestant Reformation, which contributed to the birth of our modern age. In this one-hour special — filmed on location in Europe — Rick Steves tells the story of a humble monk who lived a dramatic life. Rick visits key sites relating to the Reformation (including Erfurt and Wittenberg in Germany and Rome in Italy) and explores the complicated political world of 16th-century Europe — from indulgences to iconoclasts, and from the printing press to the Counter-Reformation. It's a story of power, rebellion, and faith that you'll never forget.

In this one-hour special, it's party time in Europe. In addition to all its epic history and high culture, Europe also knows how to celebrate — and it does so with amazing gusto. Joining Rick, we drop in on the Continent's top 10 festivals, each one rich with tradition, great food, and fun with the locals. We run with the bulls at Pamplona, don a mask in Venice for Carnevale, dance with Spaniards at the April Fair, cheer on the horses at Siena's Palio, hoist a frothy stein at Munich's Oktoberfest, toss a caber at a Scottish Highland Games, and join European families for their traditional Easter and Christmas celebrations. No museums or galleries…just Europe at play. Filmed on location across Europe, this promises to be a very entertaining hour.

Rick Steves shares the essential skills for smart European travel: itinerary planning, venturing off the beaten path, packing light, avoiding crowds (and thieves), transportation tips, finding hotels and restaurants, and much more. In this practical lecture, Rick shares lessons from a lifetime of travel so others can learn from his experience and travel smarter.

Hamburg, Germany's mighty port city, has risen from the ashes of World War II with a gleaming new skyline and a brisk creative energy. From there, we visit the great historic sights of Martin Luther and the Reformation (Erfurt, Wittenberg, and Wartburg Castle) before finishing in the capital of Franconia: wine-loving Würzburg.

Saxony, part of the former East Germany, remains a secret to most travelers. We'll visit the two great cities of the region: the capital city of Dresden, with the opulent palaces and art treasures of the Wettin dynasty, and Leipzig, with its Bach heritage, a massive monument to the day Europe beat Napoleon, and museums remembering its communist heritage.

Skyscraper-studded Frankfurt — with so much commerce it's nicknamed "Bankfurt" — has a delightful-to-explore old center. We'll also visit Nürnberg, a capital for both the First Reich (the Holy Roman Empire) and the Third. From its towering castle and playful fountains to its Nazi Documentation Center and maze of underground bomb shelters, Nürnberg is a fascinating study in contrasts.

Bulgaria, so mysterious to most Americans, has a vivid identity as a crossroads of the Balkans. We'll trace the country's complex history, from ancient Thracian tombs to medieval Orthodox Christian monasteries to Soviet monuments. And we'll enjoy an intimate taste of contemporary culture: the yellow brick road of Sofia; the gregarious craftspeople of the medieval capital, Veliko Tarnovo; and the thriving pedestrian zones of cosmopolitan Plovdiv.

We'll tour Romania's vibrant capital, Bucharest, with its "Little Paris of the East" architecture and lingering reminders of a brutal communist dictator. Then we'll head into Transylvania, where we'll visit fortified churches, cobbled merchant towns like Sighișoara, and castles made famous by an imported German king and the real-life Dracula. Finally we'll explore Maramureș, where everyday life still feels like an open-air folk museum.

In the Italian countryside, we'll connect with rustic, traditional culture: enjoying an agriturismo (farmhouse inn), seeing how prosciutto and pecorino cheese are made, and hiking to the bottom of deep and ancient wine cellars. We'll end in Assisi — the hometown of St. Francis — which retains its spiritual aura to this day. Like pilgrims, we'll explore its stony center before trekking to its awe-inspiring basilica, built on the tomb of the beloved saint.

Siena, once a proud and independent city-state, retains its confidence and unique traditions. We'll enjoy a front-row seat at its wild horse race — the venerable Palio di Siena — and marvel at cultural treasures from the days when it rivaled Florence for the leadership of Tuscany. Then we'll head into wine country for a little dolce vita under the Tuscan sun.

The quintessence of charming England is the "West Country": quaint Cotswold villages with their fine churches, manor homes, and gastropubs; Wells, England's smallest cathedral town; and the New Age capital of Glastonbury, with its legends of the Holy Grail and King Arthur. We'll finish by pondering the dramatic prehistoric stone circles of Stonehenge and Avebury.

Arcing along the southeast coast of England, we'll travel from Canterbury (with its famous cathedral) to Dover (stoutly fortified from Roman times to the Battle of Britain). Then we'll hike the trails that top the towering chalk cliffs of the South Downs, wander into the beachy resort of Brighton (England's Coney Island), and push on to Portsmouth, whose naval heritage has left it with the best collection of historic sailing ships anywhere.

The far southwest of England is a world unto itself, with a persistent Cornish culture. We'll explore a world of flowers springing from towering hedges, a tin-mining heritage going back to biblical times, salty pirates' towns and fishing villages, and the Land's End of England. Then, side-tripping deep into the vast and mysterious Dartmoor National Park, we'll hike to forgotten stone circles and chase wild ponies.