Walking difficulty

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Rick Steves' Europe, Inc.

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I was about to suggest the same as Edgar. I would call the office directly so you can completely explain what you CAN do and what you might have the issues with. I have always found each and every person I ever talked to in the tour office to be beyond helpful, friendly and happy to help out with any thing I needed to discuss.

By all means check with the office for details on specific tours.

Your concern is not the distance you can walk but rather the pace of the group. 4-5 miles in a day would be a very busy day for most tours. In general, I have not found the tour groups to move very fast. The logistics of keeping 25-28 people more or less together necessitates a leisurely pace and frequent stops and, of course, there are usually frequent stops to talk about the sights. The guides are well aware of distances and difficulties of specific tours and one always has the option of sitting out any particular activity. Nevertheless, all Rick Steves tours will have a lot of walking every day, often on hills and uneven ground.

Note also the requirement to be able to handle your bags and walk a fair distance from the bus to the hotel. Can you do that with a cane? Can you use a backpack? I use a roller bag and sometimes find myself cursing the cobblestones.

Most hotels have elevators, often very small but usable. The office should have this info. Also, the guides assign rooms so you can ask to get a room on the lowest floor.

Hope you are able to do it,

Robbie

You might want to consider a my way tour. The logistics of getting from one place to another is taken care of, but you set the pace when you arrive. That way you can go at your own pace and rest as you need.

I was going to also recommend the My Way tours. Sometimes getting on and off the bus can be an issue on any of the tours, as can some of the smaller hotels. But check with the super helpful people in the office. They will give you the straight skinny.

I have knee issues. Thanks to some fresh injections and drainage, I was able to do just fine on our recent Best of Venice, Florence and Rome tour. But I swear we were up and down thousands of marble steps for days on end. I kept up with no problem, but my right knee was barking the last several days. If you have trouble with stairs, this might not be the tour for you. But, as others have advised, contact RS office directly. Hope you find a good fit.

Stout: ...Thanks to some fresh injections and drainage....

I'm not a Doc but our friend is a Orthopedic. His lifetime limit is three Cortisone shots into a given joint for any one patient. Or friend is more conservative than some docs. Mayo Clinic talks about Cortisone shot limits:
http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/cortisone-shots/details/risks/cmc-20206857

There's concern that repeated cortisone shots might cause the
cartilage within a joint to deteriorate. So doctors typically limit
the number of cortisone shots into a joint.

In general, you shouldn't get cortisone injections more often than
every six weeks and usually not more than three or four times a year.

Hi can you stand for long periods of time? When you are touring at museums etc there will be long times of standing. Also on our BOE14 day tour at least two of the hotel's did not have elevators.
Hope you can find a tour that works for you.

You might want to reconsider the idea of using a "tour" -- travelling at your own speed may be easier and more satisfying (and not that hard.) I do independent (non-tour) travel so I can sit down frequently, avoid climbing stairs, and not worry about keeping up with faster-moving tour members.

Thanks all for the responses. I can do stairs, with a rail. Climb the 52 Story Comcast Tower in Philly twice a year. (Even though they wouldn't let me take the elevator up the Eiffel Tower because I couldn't get down if there was a problem).

Often travel by myself for work, so have no issues lugging a suitcase through airports.

issue is stairs when there is no rail. I can stand for a couple of hours. Have done the Louvre.

But fast walking tours or really off roading is not good and I feel bad about slowing down fast paced groups.

Will look into the options presented...

And hope when we do tour, we run into helpful and friendly people like you... Thanks again

Road Scholar offers very similar tours to Europe but activity level is posted and they take health into consideration. For example, they offer three meals daily, for blood sugar issues. They take mobility into consideration, as well. The groups are down to earth, helpful, too.

"Thanks all for the responses. I can do stairs, with a rail. Climb the 52 Story Comcast Tower in Philly twice a year. (Even though they wouldn't let me take the elevator up the Eiffel Tower because I couldn't get down if there was a problem).
Often travel by myself for work, so have no issues lugging a suitcase through airports.
issue is stairs when there is no rail. I can stand for a couple of hours. Have done the Louvre.
But fast walking tours or really off roading is not good and I feel bad about slowing down fast paced groups.
Will look into the options presented...
And hope when we do tour, we run into helpful and friendly people like you... Thanks again"

Based on what you say above I think you would have no problem with any RS tour. Your only concern seems to be holding up a "fast paced group". Given the age mix and size of the groups RS tours are not particularly "fast" walkers.

Enjoy, Robbie

I would echo what a previous poster said about standing for long periods of time on sidewalks or in museums. I've done five RS tours and you really do notice how just being on your feet for several days does have a physical impact (especially for those of us who work at a desk the majority of the day). And standing around is different than time spent walking or running. Not so much mileage but just solid being up and about. And I'm saying this as a youngish person.

With that said, RS tours are fairly flexible--particularly the city tours where you're in one hotel all week--in that if there's something you think you need to opt out of, you can just let the guide know and then you can do your own thing for a while and meet up with the group later for dinner or wine tasting or whatever the afternoon or evening event is.

Agreed that you should reach out to the office and explain your situation and/or ask the questions you need.

Years ago on the seven-day tour of Florence, one of the members walked with a stick. She would talk to the guide each morning to find out how quick of a pace she would be setting (e.g., leisurely stroll vs. we have a 10:00 a.m. entry time so we need to move), and if she felt she wouldn't be able to keep up, she would simply order a taxi and wait for us at the destination. She only did that a couple of times, but it meant she was comfortable enough to tour whatever we were seeing that day, and she also didn't hold up the group.

I have similar issues, need rail or cane to cope with stairs/steps. I did the South of Italy tour...lots of steps, steep streets etc but managed pretty well, took a break on the day they diid a waking tour of the Sassie in Matera. A number of people said they would've joined me had they known how much climbing there was! Greece and Italy (Rome) can be tricky because of visiting archaeological sites; the Greeks and Romans did not do handrails! But I find my cane usually works for me - don't leave home without it!

I will offer another perspective. I just returned from a month-long visit to Spain. One of the things I noticed right away were the many places there were stairs with no railings. Also, stairs with no walls along either side. These were usually in old venues, but not always. Some stairs were stone, not poured concrete. Some stairs had very high risers. . Could be inside or outside. Many were long runs of stairs. some were not.

I agree with those who've suggested a My Way tour. You can set your own pace, do what you want. Either way you can not count on always having railings on stairs. If you can work around this, go for sure.

The advice to talk to the office is well taken. Over the nine RS tours we have been on there is a wide range of difficulty in the walking involved. On some tours it hasn't been the length of time on one's feet as much as the issues with the terrain. On our Greece tour we had a person who had a significant issues with an ankle and he just was unable to do a couple walks. By telling the tour folks at the RS office exactly what you limitations are, they should be able to advise you about any particular tour.