ItalyLetterP1

2005 Letter from Italy on miscellaneous subjects,P1: Before we go further, we need to make a few general comments about Italy and Italians. We already noted that talking is a National Sport. We stand by that observation. The fact is that we love Italy, though it does have some oddities. For example, as we walked through Florence on day two, we saw a hair salon and we stopped. Adelle needed a haircut. The sign on the door proclaimed that they were open Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 1700 (5 p.m.). It was 10:30 a.m. We stopped in – but the young man cleaning the floor said to return at noon when the place will open! What did we miss?

Italians are very helpful. It wasn’t only the construction guy and the truck driver. When we bought a telephone card, we couldn’t get it to work. We looked at each other and at the incomprehensible message on the telephone. The man in the next booth came out, pulled out my card, broke off the correct piece and we were in business. When we are standing looking at a map, help is offered. When we can’t figure out anything, someone will step in. It’s a nice feeling.

The other thing about Italy is the amount of time we end up standing and waiting, and what seems to us to be irrational uses of time. We already mentioned the bus in Verona that came 70 minutes late. Why was it scheduled so early in the first place? After waiting for an hour in the campground, we still had to wait two hours before the performance began. In Bologna, the bus ran from the campground directly to the downtown area. Very convenient, except that it only ran every two hours. The trip in either direction took 20 minutes. What in the world did they do with the bus driver and the bus for the next hour and a half?

But people who insist on coming to Italy in August probably have no right to complain. There are unbelievable numbers of tourists everywhere. In fact, we hear many Americans talking as we pass them on the streets and in museums. Venice was loaded with tourists. Besides Americans there were tourists from Italy and every country in Europe. There are also large numbers of Asians – often in large tour groups. We’ve met people from all over – including Australia and New Zealand. When we originally decided to go to Italy earlier than we had planned, we were worried about the temperature. It would never have occurred to us to worry about the number of tourists because we had no idea how many people come to Italy for vacations. Although we have traveled a lot, we have never seen anything like this!

We think this will change next week – when people start to go home from vacation and children need to be in school. We’ll still be in Italy for a while longer. It will be interesting to see if the number of tourists goes down. Continued..........