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Check your local public television station for this Rick Steves’ Europe episode or watch it on https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read.... Siena, once a proud and independent city-state, retains its confidence and unique traditions. We’ll enjoy a front-row seat at its wild horse race — the venerable Palio — and marvel at cultural treasures from the days when it rivaled Florence for leadership of Tuscany. Then we’ll head into wine country for a little dolce vita under the Tuscan sun.

At http://www.ricksteves.com, you'll find money-saving travel tips, small-group tours, guidebooks, TV shows, radio programs, podcasts, and more on this destination.

This week, we’re giving you a peek into some of the fun we had filming Season 8 of our show. Hopefully watching all of my on-camera screw-ups will brighten your day just a little bit.

We’re starting off today with a series of clips from France and Italy. You’ll see how much fun it is to travel with Steve Smith, how we sometimes have to beat up our sidekicks a bit to get just the right soundbite (“in the Cinque Terre, when you know the weather...you don’t need no weatherman”), and how the enthusiasm can bubble over into giggles. You’ll see how — when there are too many gawkers (as in the shot from Versailles) — we sometimes just invite everyone in to help out on camera. And you'll see how, when a drunk wants to sing as you’re trying to explain grappa, sometimes you just have to play along. By the way, I posted a photo of the crazy student searching for an American girlfriend here on my Facebook page…and it actually worked: blog.ricksteves.com/blog/just-call-me-signor-match-maker

Watching all of these, I can’t help but smile. I'm so thankful for how Simon Griffith (our producer/director) and Karel Bauer and Peter Rummel (our cameramen) make it both gratifying and enjoyable to bring home the wonders of Europe. I can’t wait to join them again later this month to continue filming Season 9. Thank you for traveling — and laughing — along with us.

We’re having an amazing time, filming “The Best of Romania” for a new TV show (which will air with our new series on public television this fall). In this video clip, step with me into the biggest building in Europe — the gargantuan palace of the dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. Our job today: to take the script (below) and cover it with beautiful images or me doing “on cameras” where it’s difficult to “cover.”

We said this about the palace in our script:

Thriving as it is today, Bucharest's Old Town was lucky to survive the communist period. Most of the historical center was wiped out by the dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu so he could build a grandiose new town perfect for a megalomaniac.

From uneducated peasant roots, Ceaușescu rose through the communist ranks to take power in 1965. During his 24 years in power, Ceaușescu's ego ballooned. Later, in the dark days of the 1980s, he became addicted to massive projects without budgets, creating a cult of personality inspired by the nearly deified dictators of Communist China and North Korea.

In six frenzied years in the 1980s, after an "inspiring" visit to North Korea, he ordered the city to rip out 80 percent of Bucharest’s historical center — that’s tens of thousands of houses, schools, and churches. In its place, Ceaușescu created his enormous new Civic Center — with wide boulevards, miles of fountains, stone-faced apartment blocks, and a Pyongyang aesthetic.

The culmination of Ceaușescu's master plan was a palace fit for a megalomaniac. At around four million square feet, and with more than a thousand rooms, the Palace of the Parliament is the largest building in Europe.

Ceaușescu, throwing resources at his pet project like a crazed pharaoh, literally starved his people to build his dream. From 1983 to 1989 thousands of laborers worked on it 24/7. When it finally opened in 1994 — five years after Ceaușescu died — the Romanian people, whose food had been rationed for years to help pay for the palace, were both wonder struck and repulsed by this huge and opulent edifice.

Ceaușescu planned the perfect balcony from which to deliver speeches...while looking down a boulevard grand enough to match his ego. This palace, and similar projects around the downtrodden country, created a powerful anti-Ceaușescu sentiment.

In late 1989, the winds of change swept the Eastern Bloc. Armed revolution spread across Romania. An angry populace rose up. They arrested their dictator and shot him on Christmas Day.

Today their dictator is a distant memory, and Romania has joined the European Union. While its challenges are big, the country is moving in the right direction. Joining local families on a sunny Saturday morning in the park, you feel optimistic — and that its people are counting on a promising future.

This is Day 55 of my 100 Days in Europe series. As I research my guidebooks and make new TV shows, I’m reporting on my experiences and lessons learned in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Bulgaria, Romania, and beyond. Find more at http://blog.ricksteves.com.

I’m heading off to Europe and I’m wearing plaid. I explain why in this video clip — along with a quick overview of Europe’s best 3,000 miles and three weeks (as I review the itinerary of the Rick Steves Europe Tours Best of Europe tour I’ll be leading), and a peek at how I rip up my guidebooks (part of the critical art of packing light). And I explain why, when people tell me, “Have a safe trip,” I say, “Have a safe stay-at-home.”

This is the first post of a three-week series as I’ll be packing you and the rest of my traveling YouTube and Facebook friends along. I’ve been traveling like there’s no tomorrow for the last few decades — making guidebooks, designing our tours, and producing TV shows. And for the next three weeks, I’m going back to my travel-teaching roots — personally guiding the granddaddy of our many tours: The Best of Europe in 21 Days (ricksteves.com/europe-tour). Please let your traveling friends know that we’ve got a fun series of videos coming your way starting right now.