That’s Where All the Tourists Are

A friend made that statement when I told her we were going to Florence for six weeks in May/June and staying in the Santa Croce area. “That’s where all the tourists are.” She was kind of dismissive, as though I should have known better than to travel when other people travel and stay in a neighborhood where 100 percent of the residents may not have been born there. Or something. It was implied that I would not have an “authentic” experience and I was merely taking a (shudder) vacation, as though getting away from home, staying in a brilliant city that is still the repository of the greatest art in the western world, where people from all over the planet come to learn to cook and to study architecture and history and culture and fashion and design and language. I guess she’s a big expert on travel and tourism, but from what I observe she’s another fucked up person who has a crappy relationship with her cheating boyfriend and she traveled a bit when she was younger and the world was different and, in her opinion, it was better then and now she’s bitter and envious and hates being old and can’t find the right hair color and is considering plastic surgery and when she was in Florence, when she was young and relevant, it wasn’t as crowded. Actually, she was a fucking tourist. I pointed this out.

It’s what I do.

“How the hell did you get to Italy way back then? I mean, you weren’t born there, were you? You were born in Denver, Colorado. If you flew there on an airplane and came back to Denver where all your furniture and clothes and friends are, then you were a goddamn tourist. Tough shit. Tourist, tourist. Get used to it. We’re all tourists the minute we leave our houses. That can be a good thing.

People from Des Moines and Seattle and Canada all want to go to the places where, “The tourists don’t go.” They write about it online, in the travel forums and in their blogs.

“I don’t want to go to the places where all the tourists are.”

My suggestion? Stay the fuck home.

What kind of arrogance does it take for someone to think that they can slip into a popular European city via a major airline, take a cab from the airport to their hotel or apartment, and pass for “locals”? Go ahead, criticize the tourists, but if you weigh 260 pounds and are wearing green shorts and a stupid hat then you are going to be pinned as a tourist and it doesn’t matter what neighborhood you are in.

The “locals”, the residents and citizens, will still treat you well. A lot of them are from the former Soviet Union or the Mideast and they don’t care where you’re from; they’re not making money off of each other. They cash in on tourism and they’ve learned, at least here in Florence, Italy, that if they are civil and treat the vacationers with respect, everyone will have a better time, tips will be heavier and there will be less confusion and animosity. If we can’t all be friends at least we can be friendly.

Yep, there are tourists everywhere here. It’s goddamn May in Italy. There have been tourists here since the Etruscans. A lot of the people who live in Florence are not even from Florence. So are they tourists, visitors, travellers, immigrants, or just guys who sell Gelato to sightseers? It’s nothing to get uptight about.

All the signs and brochures are in Italian and English for a reason. From the airport, to the town and around the block, descriptions of paintings, directions to museums, menus, shops, and advertising are all in English. That makes it easier to see the stuff that is interesting and buy things you like.

At the very reasonable and delicious restaurant Il Pizzaiuolo, the Germans at the table next to us didn’t speak Italian, the waitress didn’t speak German, and so they all spoke English and had a nice dining experience. An American couple came in and the very friendly waitress, sweet, obliging, trying her hardest to understand and be understood, said to them, “English menu or Italian menu?”

The woman, tightly wound, said coldly, “No, no, an Italian menu.”

The waitress answered, “Ah meraviglioso, si parla Italiano e saremo en grado di parlare e non voglio spiegare niente.”

American woman huffed, “Oh no, we don’t speak Italian.”

The waitress smiled knowingly, handed them an English menu and continued to be pleasant and helpful. The couple didn’t fool her, though. They were tourists.

This afternoon a guy passed as we were walking along the Arno and he asked me, “Donde esta Santa Croce?”

I said, "Hey, are you speaking Spanish?"

He laughed. “Yeah, I thought I’d give it a try.”

No one knows for sure and it’s pretty hard to pretend. The man didn’t speak Italian but he spoke Spanish and I know some Spanish and a little Italian and a few words in French and I directed him to Santa Croce in English and we parted amicably. Communication, regardless of how it is accomplished, is what’s important when one is travelling.

I have a friend who speaks French fluently. He lives in Paris, does not consider himself a tourist, but if he asks a question in a restaurant and the waiter speaks to him in English he becomes insulted. His pronunciation of one single word may have indicated that he was from New Jersey. I told him not to be pissed; get used to it. None of us is as integrated as we think. Being a “citizen of the world” means being a tourist most of the time.

I am so tired of the arrogance and elitism and demands of certain types of travellers. Here’s the deal for Americans in Italy:

If you are here, you are a tourist. You can call yourself a “traveller” or a “trekker” or a “student” or a “part-time resident”, but you are just a tourist. If you wear a stupid hat, you are a tourist. If you complain because everything closes down between 4 PM and 7 PM, you are a tourist. If you don’t speak the language, you are a tourist. Enjoy the art, the food, spend money, buy presents, don’t get hurt and stop being so fucking entitled.

All of us are tourists wanting to see as much as we can in a short time and trying to figure out how to get a decent night’s sleep in an uncomfortable bed without worrying too much about tomorrow’s weather.