Rick Steves' Europe

Leaving Lisbon for the countryside, we eat barnacles in the salty old fishing town of Nazaré, march with pilgrims to Fatima on the anniversary of a miracle, ponder the local Romeo and Juliet in Alcobaca, sample university life in Coimbra, and rummage through the riches of Portugal's Golden Age.

From the white cliffs of Dover to Land's End, we ponder Roman, Norman, and Nazi invasions. After exploring Admiral Nelson's flagship in Portsmouth, we chase wild ponies across the moors and discover an ancient stone circle in Dartmoor. For refreshment, it's cream tea and Cornish pasties in Cornwall.

After King Arthur country at Glastonbury, we go back in time to prehistoric Stonehenge. We sample hard apple cider in Wells, meet an eccentric lord in the Cotswolds, and visit an evocative ruined abbey in South Wales.

After visiting Germany's greatest Gothic Cathedral in Cologne, we'll enjoy the good life German-style at a top mineral spa and try our luck at the Versailles of casinos in Baden Baden, crank some old time music and explore the Open-air Museum in the romantic Black Forest.

In Scotland, legends of Bonnie Prince Charlie swirl with pipers and kilts around crumbling castles. We remember Highland massacres in Glencoe, and try tossing a caber (log) at a Scottish clan gathering in Culloden. We play hide-and-seek with the Loch Ness Monster, tour a whiskey distillery in Oban, and take a ferry to sacred Iona.

Bulgaria is a time warp of old and new--from chic shops in the city to donkey cars in the country. We hike to a mountain monastery in Rila, meet two sculptors (dad does Stalin, son does nudes), and enjoy a traditional dinner feast at a local home.

Sweeping across Eastern Turkey, we'll learn a Kurdish folk dance, see a silk road palace, watch a little oil wrestling, visit the 4,000 year old home town of Abraham, ponder a megalomaniac king's attempt to join the gods... and hangout with nomadic Kurds.

After going fishing for anchovies off Cefalu, we land in rough-and-tumble Palermo. Marveling at the eerie skeletons in a Capuchin crypt, airy mosaics of Monreale, enchanting ruins of Segesta, and the fiery rim of Mount Etna, we enjoy the best of Sicily.