Venice is a bit pissy about its coffee, and yours...

[Dallas Tex]

I believe the line is crossed once an ‘open flame’ is included in the situation.

I was in Venice a couple months ago. Venice isn’t Rome. IMHO Venice is barely Italy. In Venice I found the food, coffee, vibe, as well as the general aroma to be awful.

[Too Tall]

I'll play. I've seen the police photo. I am pretty sure that is the north side right next to the bridge. I also believe there is the relief of the annunciation and a little shrine relief for the virgin mary where local believers leave flowers. If one of the few remaining locals came to leave flowers, and these two were there with all their backpack stuff strewn about as per photo, yeah I think they get busted. I am pretty sure I get busted if I try to brew a cup of joe on the steps of St Paul's in London.

Venice should just do what Bhutan does and charge a higher fee for day trippers. Cruise ships are really taxing the place now. I hike the rate and charge more than Disney that 's for sure. The city can use the funds to repair the damage caused by all the tourists and cruise ships.

Doug, you gave me a really good idea which applied to Vsalon should drive off the riff raff ;)

[Gattonero]

Italy in general and Venice in particular have tourist problems. You would not believe the "no photography" violations now that everyone has a cellphone attached to their bodies. A lot of the problems are in places of worship. When you have a hundred thousand or so folks a day tromp through your village. Eat samwiches on your church, fountains, gov't buildings and disrespect the religious order of things to get a good selfie some rules need to be enforced. We like going to Venice and over the last 20 years tourism is being hard on a very old and fragile city. I shake my head and am saddened at all the rude behavior. What if 1,000 campers all want to fire up the stove and brew some joe around the bridge every day? Is that ok? People need to think and respect the places they go and things they do. Gotta support the city on this one.

^^^
This.

What most people is missing, is the facts of years ago.
There was a time when the main squares in Venice would have hundreds -no joke- of people sleeping in a bivvy (if not sleeping on the ground on newspapers). It's not nice to see people mistaking a city for the countryside and setup their own camp in a public space.
You are a tourist, in a very particular town, and there's hundreds of you. To think that you can dodge a regular accomodation and use the streets as your dwellings is plain wrong.
If you can't afford a B&B, then plan a different place to stay. It's simple.

On the same lines, if you're so addicted to coffee you may as well go in a bar and pay as much as €1.50 for it. Which will also relieve you from buying a stove and carry around a gas canister.

C'mon

[Gattonero]

I believe the line is crossed once an ‘open flame’ is included in the situation.

I was in Venice a couple months ago. Venice isn’t Rome. IMHO Venice is barely Italy. In Venice I found the food, coffee, vibe, as well as the general aroma to be awful.

Oh don't you worry, you can get fleeced everywhere in Italy!

p.s.:
I come from this part of the world (0:22 is one of my favourite spots)

and I have no problems in seeing a few backpackers/cyclotourists camping around as long as they are discrete and leave no trace.
I'll have a big problem in seeing dozens of them and concentrated in a small area. It's a different story.

[j44ke]

I think Gattonero is on it. The whole thing with Venice is that the accommodations on the island(s) are key to the economy, and anyone unpacking a backpack and making food is likely seen as trying to skirt the expectation (if there isn't in fact a rule requiring) that you take an accommodation to stay overnight in Venice. Otherwise, you have to take the train or boat back to the mainland and stay there. As far as I know, Venice has decided the exclusivity of staying in the historic center is a commodity, and I can't entirely fault them for enforcing boundaries that maintain that exclusivity.

Rather than comparing what these tourists did to making coffee in any other city, a better comparison is these tourists making coffee in Disneyland. Because Venice isn't any other city.

At the same time, what is depressing is that a lot of cities have decided that the only way to create revenue is by leveraging their cultural infrastructure that has been created over decades (if not centuries) by its residents for the sake of tourism without spending appropriate percentages of that revenue for the improvement of the city's infrastructure required to support the weight (in very real terms, not just symbolic) of that tourism. NYC is made of stone and concrete and iron, but the city's decision to shoot for 75 million tourists a year is literally pounding those materials to dust.

You can still probably make coffee on any street in NYC, but I don't think you'd want to, what with all the dog piss and shit smeared all over the place. I am just glad NYkers no longer keep horses and cattle.

[SteveP]

Funny new addition to this...
Saw in The NY Times today that there is now a E450 fine for sitting on the Spanish Steps in Rome.
They are trying to bail out the Italian economy by fining tourists.

Recalling 5-6 years ago I got fines totaling just under $500 while driving in Florence for (5) infractions such as...
"Stopping in front of our apartment to drop off luggage before moving in 5 minutes..."
never what I would call a real infraction like speeding or going through a red light.
" followed a taxi cab on a cut through that was commercial only..."
Cameras are everywhere in Europe now...never interacted with actual police...
I got the tickets 4 months after coming home.... last laugh.

stuff like that. I love Italy but would not consider driving in one of these iconic cities again.
Countryside/small towns are great to drive in.

[vertical_doug]

I work in a building on St Paul's Churchyard. We get destroyed on a daily basis with tourists just leaving garbage everywhere. It's awful. At least people aren't peeing on the buildings anymore.

As the officer was quoted: ' You see one stroller, we see a million. '

[sk_tle]

Funny new addition to this...
Saw in The NY Times today that there is now a E450 fine for sitting on the Spanish Steps in Rome.
They are trying to bail out the Italian economy by fining tourists.

Recalling 5-6 years ago I got fines totaling just under $500 while driving in Florence for (5) infractions such as...
"Stopping in front of our apartment to drop off luggage before moving in 5 minutes..."
never what I would call a real infraction like speeding or going through a red light.
" followed a taxi cab on a cut through that was commercial only..."
Cameras are everywhere in Europe now...never interacted with actual police...
I got the tickets 4 months after coming home.... last laugh.

stuff like that. I love Italy but would not consider driving in one of these iconic cities again.
Countryside/small towns are great to drive in.

You need specific authorization to enter most italians cities with a car. It has been like that for more than 2 decades now.

[SteveP]

You need specific authorization to enter most italians cities with a car. It has been like that for more than 2 decades now.

Clearly true but never mentioned when I rented the car right in downtown Florence.
Advice.. rent the car at the airport and don't drive in the city!!

[sk_tle]

Clearly true but never mentioned when I rented the car right in downtown Florence.
Advice.. rent the car at the airport and don't drive in the city!!

They happily takes the money that's for sure. No wonder the mafias are so hard to get rid of in that country. :)

[j44ke]

In Hokkaido I heard a couple people blame Chinese tourists for leaving their "lunchboxes" (plastic shopping bags containing wrappers and uneaten food) along the road. I thought hah, classic xenophobia. Then while riding through the countryside, I could see that as we came close to a scenic overlook or waterfall, there was a sprinkling of white plastic bags full of food garbage sitting on the side of the road. I thought okay maybe these things come from cars, but then I saw someone in a tour bus drop a bag out a window as it went by.

This contrasts with 99% of the road on which we saw no garbage at all and only two spots on the entire trip that had any glass.

Japanese red foxes don't seem to mind. They've learned the bags contain an easy snack. But it is definitely driving the Japanese residents nuts.

[j44ke]

Clearly true but never mentioned when I rented the car right in downtown Florence.
Advice.. rent the car at the airport and don't drive in the city!!

Definitely. That goes for almost any major Italian city. When we'd drive from the country villa to Florence, we'd park at the airport and take a taxi into the center. But then we found there is dependable parking right near the center that works well at Stazione Santa Maria Novella. Lots of spaces. All day parking.

[SteveP]

Definitely. That goes for almost any major Italian city. When we'd drive from the country villa to Florence, we'd park at the airport and take a taxi into the center. But then we found there is dependable parking right near the center that works well at Stazione Santa Maria Novella. Lots of spaces. All day parking.

That is quite a church, huh?

[j44ke]

That is quite a church, huh?

Yes indeed. And it seemed to me it doesn’t get the respect it should, partly because the train station is so nearby perhaps. And Florence has no shortage of amazing spaces.

I know the center is emptying of residents like a lot of historic Italian cities and being changed to an expansive AirBnB, but I’d really like to spend a month living near the Mercato Centrale or on the south side of the river in San Frediano. Markets are great in the latter district.

[SteveP]

My favorite is
Santa Croce...
The tombs of... Galileo, Michaelangelo, Dante and Machavelli along the walls..
Talk about the Renaissance!

What a city.

[Gattonero]

Cities like Florence and Rome are great if you want to see "something" in a short time and not involving driving.
Since you'll have a car, do yourself a favour and explore what's outside the towns. If driving in Italy, and missing the countryside in Tuscany, should be a reason to be fined in its own right!

[SteveP]

Cities like Florence and Rome are great if you want to see "something" in a short time and not involving driving.
Since you'll have a car, do yourself a favour and explore what's outside the towns. If driving in Italy, and missing the countryside in Tuscany, should be a reason to be fined in its own right!

Ha. The irony is we stayed in the city for weeks without a car but were picking one up to travel out and explore Tuscany... Tickets were earned between picking up the car and exiting the city and returning the rental car. We picked up the car and left the city. Anyway, cab to the airport and rent car there the correct method.

[jerk]

Venice is a wonderful place but my advice is to have a Venetian in tow. My pal Chris was born and raised in Venice and I’ve certainly never had a bad cup of coffee or a meal that didn’t deserve its own Netflix documentary. Actually- I take that back you don’t really need a Venetian. You just need some common sense and yoi’ll able to figure it out.
As for those frucking assholes with the propane and the coffee. They should have been hanged from lamp posts as an example.
All jokes aside- if you want to make an Italian or Frenchman irate ask them their thoughts on Dutchmen with campers who bring their own potatoes on vacation. The only way you can still see the existence of borders in post Schevengen Europe are the lines of Dutchman with diesel golfs pulling caravans lined up at the last gas station in any given country- somehow the Dutch know that wherever they’re going the gas is more expensive and they’ll Be damned if they’re going to spend a centime in the place they’re choosing to holiday.

[sonicw]

All jokes aside- if you want to make an Italian or Frenchman irate ask them their thoughts on Dutchmen with campers who bring their own potatoes on vacation. The only way you can still see the existence of borders in post Schevengen Europe are the lines of Dutchman with diesel golfs pulling caravans lined up at the last gas station in any given country- somehow the Dutch know that wherever they’re going the gas is more expensive and they’ll Be damned if they’re going to spend a centime in the place they’re choosing to holiday.

How do you know they are vacationing, and not just broke-ass cycle racers trying to fit in a full season on a budget?