Rick's new special

Rick’s ties to PBS programming are stronger than ever, and he’s finding more and more ways to re-show filmed destinations. I’m recording it, and caught the very beginning of the program in the very early hours this morning, part of a late night. It’s a lot like his Monday Night Travels online series over the past few months, with Rick sitting in his kitchen, presenting the travel vignettes and making the PBS pitch, while a PBS co-host talks to him with a remote split screen.

The special kicks off with Palermo, Sicily, and the monastery with skeletons and mummies, followed by having a cappuccino with a Cappuccin. Seems I’ve seen that scene 4 times in the past month, and now it’s the featured opening part of a Special! Rick’s trying to tell me something, but our next trip has too much Tuscany and Umbria places to fit in Sicily as well. Europe Awaits - will we actually get in as planned in September, or are we all going to be waiting some more?

Rick’s TV shows and MNT evenings have helped me get through the Pandemic in one piece (peace). He knew what he was doing with travel dreaming keeping our hopes alive. Smart man on his life’s calling. I’m grateful. Now it looks like we will be able to actually keep on travelin’ not just dreaming. And I’m a huge fan of Public TV.

I’m a RS fan too… but this “Special” is just portions of shows that have been available for a couple years. As Judy said, Rick is a clever man and I appreciate his efforts to keep hope alive as well.

To feed your travel dreams, don't forget Rudy Maxa, Samantha Brown and Burt Wolf. The first two have chatted with Rick about travel recently.

I love Rudy, Samantha and Burt, but I can’t afford their travel budgets - lol. The hotels they stay in and the restaurants they eat in look wonderful and luxurious. But yes, I enjoy watching their shows.

A funny quote from Rudy:

(Star Tribune) Rudy Maxa is launching his own guided tour company. So of course it takes him only about five minutes to start talking smack about Rick Steves.

“If you like carrying your luggage up three flights of stairs, sleeping on the train overnight and making a ham and cheese sandwich in the morning to take for your lunch,” Maxa says in a tone as dry as some of his favorite wines, “then Rick’s your guy.” A downtown St. Paul resident for the past dozen years — he followed a girlfriend here and stayed after they split — Maxa defies the stereotype of Minnesotans as cheapskates. His long-running public radio show, “The Savvy Traveler,” and subsequent PBS series, “Smart Travels with Rudy Maxa,” usually found the fast-talking Maxa staying at four- or five-star hotels instead of the quainter hideaways in that other PBS fixture, “Rick Steves’ Europe.” He often dined at fancy restaurants and would order a rare bottle of wine; then maybe another.