How Can We Be Better Travelers in Europe? Rick Steves Has the Answers

[GoneOffShore]

5. There are places in Italy and France where you can buy a house for 1

Usually rural, but occasionally in cities that have lost population and businesses. That single Euro house is going to need a lot of money to make it habitable. And as to neon signs and pizza parlours? There are a lot of bureaucratic hoops and hurdles - usually flaming ones or topped with broken glass - to be gotten through. I'm glad that I'm not trying to start a business or rehab a house here in France though Italy is apparently 3 times more difficult.

Oh, and things do indeed stop for lunch, for hunting season, for coffee, and for bureaucrats. So American energy is often redirected.

We are looking forward to the tourists coming back, even though they will make parking hell and café tables hard to get.