I believe they still use CDG for the rendition flights to CAI and AMM

As I said in my post:
The USA had a facility at Istres AB in France for years. It just closed (as a US base) at the end of 2004. U-2s used it in the mid-90s for example.

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?storyID=123009454).

Even though the US closed their facilities there, Istres is still available for transit and tanking. Has been for decades.

edit-oh yeah and Rick Steves is kind of a douche' but he knows his market so he is a smart douche.

Ciao,
FH

Exactly. He knows his piece of the market and sticks to it. If you want a show on luxury, adventure or in depth cultural travel, you're going to need to find someone else.

Why I hate Rick Steves: Platitudes

...' and so, we say farewell to the Vatican...blah blah blah'...

...'you can take the funicular to the top ...'...

...we had a four-course dinner with a glass of red wine for just $25'...

...'you'll find it easier if you learn a few words of (...take your pick) French, Polish, Slovenian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Hungarian, Finnish, Urdu, Latin, Sicilian, Sardinian...'

Well, what can one expect when his sponsor is American Airlines!

I'd be a bit slower to belittle the experience or the perspective of present and former US military personnel who have visited or been stationed in Europe.

Once, long ago, too long for most here to recall, France was a fully participating military partner in NATO and there were a number of US bases in France, the most significant of which was the headquarters of the US Navy's 6th Fleet in Villefranche. By 1962, France had essentially withdrawn from military participation (but still maintained a shadow force in W. Germany/Berlin, a remnant of the old Allied Occupation Forces). USN ships regularly called in Cannes, Nice, Toulon, Marseilles, Villefranche and Ajaccio, occasionally calling in Atlantic ports, with routine air operations out of Merignac.

Generations of USN sailors - dating back to the 1790s - have likely spent more time in France than most US tourists ever do, although the clubs of Golfe Juan used to be a bit rowdy for the tourist trade. A series of port calls enabled me to see the sights in Gras, Aix, Carcasonne, Avignon, and other tourist draws mildly inland. A couple of visits as a very junior Ensign, by the luck of the draw assigned as the ship's Shore Patrol Officer, provided a couple of weeks in close contact with the flics, both the local gendarmerie and the plain clothes security types (an obnoxious lot, were they DST?).

When France withdrew from NATO, USN command structures moved down to Naples, the base in the suburb of Bagnoli, and the NATO command at Casserta in the old Royal Palace. There was (and still may be) a great little US enclave, Camp Darby, between Livorno and Pisa, with the luxury of dairy products from the US Army's dairy facility in Austria, IIRC, and US bacon.

Between 1944 and today, millions and millions, of US servicemen have spent tours, some short, some for many years, in Western Europe. While most may have been young and naive, the existing or acquired sophistication of them and others, perhaps below the lofty standards of many FTers, was notable. I attended the funeral of retired nurse, a USArmy Colonel, a couple of weeks ago. She had first come to Germany with the USArmy in 1945, returned in 1949 and because of her acquired German had spent almost half of her career there (and returned frequently after retirement). I suspect that she was far more familiar with Germany (and Germans) than almost any German visitor to the US becomes with this country, even the German Army and Air Force types who do long tours at Fort Bliss and the adjacent air base, for many years with regular Luftwaffe flights back to Germany. I imagine that even Elvis learned more about the Germans than most Euopeans ever acquire about life in the US. Even my kid sister and her husband, young Army docs staioned at Bremerhaven and near Frankfurt for a couple of years in the early 80s, became and remain pretty good resources for planning German travel.

Steves is also very pro-pot legalization. He was the keynote speaker at the NORML convention last year (I read this online, I swear!!)

I’m not much of a TV person, but I did see a few episodes of that. If it was ever re-broadcast I would seek it out. I keep meaning to watch Bourdain’s show. I read his first book about the restaurant business and really enjoyed it.

I find Mr. Steves' books and TV programs just dull, so I didn't care enough about him to hate him until a few years ago. That's when I discovered that my favourite hotel in Paris is often full of folks on Rick Steves tours, which makes getting a reservation occasionally tricky.

When they're in residence, there is a schedule posted next to the lift. A sample entry:

"7:00 am. Gather in lobby for orientation on how to use the Metro."

I'd sooner gouge out my own eyes than get up at the crack of dawn to be taught how to ride a subway.

I have often wondered if Rick Steves drives a Volvo.

Has any one at Volvo contacted him about doing a commercial for them?

Somebody who has just flown in from Oshkosh probably DOES need to be taught how to use a subway, and it's a lot cheaper than taking cabs everywhere.

+1

While most subway lines/systems are intuitive, coming from anywhere far away where a different language, logic and system is used can be intimidating, particularly for Rick's target crowd. Plus its annoying for those standing behind clueless tourists (i've been one more than once) who have no idea how to buy a ticket.

While I too would rather gouge my eyes out than waking up at the crack of dawn, but for many its a valuable service..

On one of his recent radio broadcasts, when a caller made mention of Star Alliance, Rick replied something glib to the effect, " ...oh, so you mean, a group of 5-6 airlines?" He may have said, "major" airlines, but it piqued me enough to write him and ask if AA's sponsorship of his program were responsible for his ignorance of the largest (much more like ~20 carriers) such alliance, and one of which AA is NOT a member.
But I didn't.
Considering how unsatisfying/distasteful I find his product, for reasons others have voiced, I've already wasted too much psychic energy on him. I've decided he's become the man I love to hate.

(Bolding mine)

It took you how long to figure that out?

I agree that Rick Steves' books, videos, tours, etc. have a kind of "Travel for Dummies" quality -- or perhaps rather "Travel for Dumb Americans."

However, there are also many good things about RS's travel philosophy. I've found his products useful over the years and continue to purchase them, even though I don't happen to fall into the "Travel for Dummies" category. Lonely Planet guidebooks tend to be more detailed and comprehensive on a given country, but sometimes Rick S. is all I need for basic practical information.

If you think Rick's works fall into the "Travel for Dummies" category, I'd love for you to read the collected works of the USS SHANGRI-LA (CVA-38)'s Special Services Officer's Informational Brochures (distributed to each crew member prior to entering port) for each of the ship's Liberty Ports during her 1963-64 deployment to the US 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean. I don't recall much about the author. Duty, even collateral duty, as the Special Services Officer, was not career-enhancing, but his 3 pages describing Rapallo, Sta. Margarita and Portofino are gems, veritable classics in the Stevesian vein, almost as pithy as his words of wisdon for our the port call in Cannes during the local "Film Festival" where the novelty of occasional topless starlets attracting photographers and mobs of young sailors, back then rarely exposed to the sight of bare breasts, was a principal diversion from sight-seeing, etc..