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Travel with Rick Steves

726 Orkney Vikings; Favorite American Cities; Chopin's Piano

Travel with Rick Steves

Rick Steves

Rick Steves, Public Radio, 721132, Europe, Society & Culture, Places & Travel, Npr, Travel

4.32.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 September 2023

⏱️ 51 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Consider your options for encountering the thousand-year-old culture of the Vikings on a visit to Scotland's Orkney Islands. Then listen in as a frequent domestic traveler explains why he believes that visiting all 50 states is a worthy endeavor for all Americans — not merely for fun but as a powerful way to overcome political division. And hear about Frédéric Chopin's struggles with a clunky piano on a Spanish island, where he still managed to compose pieces that changed how the world listens to music.

For more information on Travel with Rick Steves - including episode descriptions, program archives and related details - visit www.ricksteves.com.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Get to know folks in another part of the country and what's special about their hometown.

0:05.0

That's Daniel Sadek's advice for America after taking dozens of cross-country trips to every state.

0:11.0

I don't like what I see in media now because it's showing that we are very polarized

0:16.0

and that is not the country eyewitness.

0:18.0

Just offshore from Scotland, you can encounter Viking culture from more than a thousand years ago

0:23.0

on the wild and woolly aisles of Orkney.

0:26.0

One thing Orkney did have and it still does today is very fertile farmland

0:30.0

and that's why the Vikings found us such an attractive proposition.

0:34.0

The weather turned foul when Frederick Chopin went to New Yorker to finish writing his piano praises.

0:39.0

He composed some of the most beautiful piano music ever written, but it wasn't easy.

0:45.0

Chopin is composing on this local piano which causes him more vexation than pleasure.

0:50.0

Chopin's piano, Viking history in the North Sea, and the differences that make us American.

0:55.0

It's just a head on travel with Rick Steves.

1:00.0

Visiting every state in the Union can give you a perspective on what makes it the United States of America.

1:06.0

Daniel Sadek has gone back to each of the 50 states over and over again.

1:11.0

He shares what he likes best about his favorite cities and just a bit on today's travel with Rick Steves.

1:17.0

Later in the hour, Paul Kilday tells us about the obstacles Frederick Chopin had to overcome

1:22.0

to compose his sublime preludes during a working getaway to Mallorca.

1:27.0

They take their Viking heritage seriously in the islands that lie just off the north coast of Scotland.

1:33.0

Some political leaders in Orkney are even suggesting they should become part of Norway now.

1:38.0

10 or 1200 years ago the Vikings were a thriving society in Scandinavia.

1:43.0

With their navigational skills they traded and plundered far and wide.

...

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