I wish to be clear that there was not one city, region, or time that I felt threatened in any way. Safety was not an issue for me. I understand that dealing with tourists day after day for years must be difficult. But for the tourist, he must ask whether the ferry will stop there and whether he needs to have an assigned seat on the train (or end up standing because he did not ask), etc etc. - all without being shouted at as intemperately as possible.
To some extent, the Italians themselves are less to blame for the displeasures of visiting cities like Rome than modern circumstances. If you have not recently been to Paris. Mont st. Michel or Rome, you will not be able to appreciate how badly these major destinations have been overwhelmed by tourists. At the Vatican (esp. The Museums), the Louvre, and so many other important sites, the crowds are so tightly packed that you cannot see anything. This is also true of the city itself - Paris is now basically 50 baseball stadiums with full houses exiting all at once, so the sidewalks everywhere are a sea of humans holding up little things for a photo or acting selfie-deranged.
It is an essential aspect to a memorable holiday that all or at least some food should be pleasant. On this trip, I thought the food was usually badly prepared, low quality (meat that was almost half fat and grizzle and not much of it for $20), often seriously under cooked, and I have no doubt that many sauces and some entire plates of food came out of cans or bottles.
Every restaurant has a cover charge of $1.50 and up. Sometimes (rarely) that includes the basket of bread they set on your table, but more often the bread is 2 E + the cover. But if there is a cover, then you can avoid a tip. If. for example you order veal, that is all you will get unless you choose from a range of sides at now considerable cost.. I like Penne. I finally found a wonderful plate of Penne Ariabata in Trastevere Rome) after several dreadful attempts.
The sauce was original and delicious and the penne was cooked al dente - the right way. But the portion was tiny. I would say there was .50 worth of pasta and less of sauce, and the price was 13 Euros. There was no bread. None of these places will give you a glass of water any more. It has to be a bottle at 2 E. One nice place would not even sell me a bottle smaller than for four people, which was in heavy glass meant I could not take the remainder with me, and they were refilling the bottles with tap water.
At the same nice restaurant in Rome, I saw what looked like an interesting chicken offer on the menu. I asked the waitress what part of the chicken it was for 15 E., and she had a fit. I persisted and pointed to my legs, and chest and arms suggesting parts that might be offered Finally, she decided that it was wings, but resented my enquiry into what I might be buying.
The Drivers of the deluge of humanity
I have read some amusing comments on what is driving this mass tourism today. In all of the endless print media and TV reality travel shows, have you ever seen someone like Rick Steeves (such a creepy person I admit) or Anthony Bourdain bite into one of their meals and say "Gosh, that is undercooked, mediocre, or poor value for the price." Same with wines - they are always wonderful
Arthur Frommer's blog is less ossified positivism and he mentioned one example of tourism drivers. He said that Cinque terre in Italy has v. limited historical and cultural significance, but since one TV personality (initials seem to be RS) made it an important place to visit, it has been so badly overwhelmed that it is now about to sell timed tickets to visit in order to reduce the annual flow of visitors by "one or two million." But I must add that cruise ships also contributed massively to the crowds.
Since to onset of the set-in-concrete paradigm of positive, positive, positive, happy, fun, no negativity please more than a decade ago, little or nothing is real. The New York times flatly prohibited its travel writers about 10 years ago from ever writing anything negative about any country or travel. As a result, travel writing assigns no Bs, Cs, D, or Fs, only As. Trip advisor has come along to put some modest - if occasionally fraud or foolish - perspective on some areas of travel.
Whatever you do, avoid taxi cabs
I had a poor impressions of Italians from the 60s and 70s. It is somewhat amusing to think that in the 60s, I was travelling on pennies, considerably more in the 70s, and a lot more in '16. The hassles in number and intensity were not lessened by spending 100 times more than on my 1965 trip. The worst of the lot are the taxis. At Syracuse, the bus and train station is only, truly, a five minute or less drive to the hotel, and the fare is 10 E. I asked the hotel desk if this was correct and they said they could not believe it themselves, but could not do anything it.
Worse was to come at Assisi. The taxis there charged 18 E. for a five minute drive. I really objected to that one, and the driver came down to 15 E., but that was still robbery.
Ultimately, for a serene holiday with decent value for money and food. choose another country.
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