781 Potsdam; Emperor of Rome; On the Hippie Trail

Travel with Rick Steves

Rick Steves

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

4.3 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 February 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We hear why the city of Potsdam — home to elegant Prussian palaces and parklands, all in quick reach of central Berlin — is worth a day's visit. Then we get a sense of what life was really like for the emperors of ancient Rome, with the help of classicist Mary Beard. And we travel back to 1978 with Rick and his longtime buddy Gene Openshaw as they retrace their post-college adventures along the infamous "Hippie Trail" from Istanbul to Afghanistan to India, all the way to Kathmandu.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It was the opulent playground of Frederick the Great
0:03.8	and a hotspot during the Cold War.
0:06.2	Come along as we explore Potsdam,
0:08.1	a short ride away from Berlin.
0:09.7	When they enter Potsdam, they are entering the city of a king.
0:12.9	How do they control such a vast territory
0:15.2	from Britannia to Palestine?
0:17.8	Historian Mary Beard has been looking into the day-to-day lives of the Roman emperors.
0:22.3	I'm as curious and fascinated by the stories of luxury and sadism and violence as anybody is.
0:32.5	And for the ultimate summer adventure in the 1970s, let's relive what it was like to wing it
0:38.2	across Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan
0:40.2	all the way to the Himalayas.
0:42.4	It was a rite of passage we called the Hippie Trail.
0:45.5	The end of the Hippie Trail,
0:47.1	the ultimate Mecca of freaks and hippies and us,
0:52.1	Kathmandu.
0:53.4	It's all just ahead on Travel with Rick Steves.
0:59.6	Hey, Rick Steves here.
1:01.4	In 1978, I was a 23-year-old piano teacher,
1:05.0	dreaming of trekking the fabled hippie trail
1:07.2	from Istanbul to Kathmandu.
1:09.7	With my buddy Jean, we booked the tickets, packed our rucksacks,
	...

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