This Reuters story caught my attention, about a woman who was fined more than two hundred dollars for
There appears to be some dispite over whether she was with a group of friends or talking to complete strangers, but AFA the law is concerned it doesn’t apparently matter.
A Rome newspaper quoted is quoted as advising residents:
Maybe I’m overly sensitive, but I think this is outrageous advice, and an outrageous law. Doesn’t Italian law offer anything similar to a constitutionally protected freedom of speech? How about just courtesy and friendliness?
I lived in Washington, DC and worked among the Mall museums, which is about as close as we come in this country to the Roman tourist areas described in the article. Many of my most interesting and worthwhile personal encounters during those years were with tourists, though my job didn’t directly involve interecting with them. I simply can’t imagine brushing people off like that – unless of course I’m on the clock and running late. Also, when you live in a very high-profile place, when friends and family come to visit they have certain expectations of your expertise in being a tour guide.
The law would make sense stopping people charging for tour guiding without license. Maybe the woman charged was not saying the truth, and had been seen charging for her guiding services? But it should be up to the authorities to show that payment had been received for giving the guided tour. There is not enough info in that article to be sure of what realy happened, whilst the news paper report might be typical journalism (making a mountain out of a molehill)
I agree that the crux of the issue is non-licensed tour guides giving tours and expecting payment. That’s what the law is trying to prevent anyway. Whether that was what that woman was doing is impossible to say.
99.99% of stupid law news stories lame email chains leave out information that actually make the law reasonable.
I lean toward thinking that the newspaper’s “warning” was tongue-in-cheek. When I was a kid my family went to Rome, and I remember that we couldn’t get many of the locals to talk to us…but that was only because none of us spoke Italian. I also distinctly remember every tour starting at the Trevi Fountain.
What makes you say that? According to the article, “police said she was standing in for a professional guide.” It’s her story vs. theirs, but there seems to be no dispute as far as the law is concerned. Taking this article to mean that Italians are not allowed to talk to tourists is a bit of a stretch, IMHO.
From personal experience: it does add a bit of excitement when you have an illegal guide. You huddle in closer and keep looking around for the dreaded tourist police.
Not when they start aggressively hitting you up for money half-way through what you thought was a pleasant conversation with a local, and demanding that you go to their cousin’s discount jewellery store, and get threatening when you tell them to fuck off. Fucking Bangkok touts. Never been to Rome, but from what I’ve heard similar scams are pretty rife there - reading between the lines, I suspect that’s what this woman was up to.
I had an incident in Cairo. This bloke walked in front of us and chatted. It was all very friendly. When the walk finished he insisted on payment for the “tour”. There are arseholes everywhere. It’s a good thing they are not in the majority.
I had an experience similar to what the law is presumably to counter in Tunisia: friendly person shows you around the market and then demands payment. I think I gave him a few coins, about 20p. He complained, we walked off, no big deal.
Instead of those “undercover officers” pouncing on people telling stuff to their friends, I’d suggest that they would be better off simply walking up to whoever looked like they were pulling this kind of stunt, asking them for their license and, if none were forthcoming, telling the group that they should not pay any money to that person: The genuine “friend or helpful stranger” will take such a request and the accompanying advice with a smile, as will their audience, whereas the unlicensed guide or pushy trickster will be highly inconvenienced.
Hm. Maybe this is why people sometimes seem so frightened when I ask them if they need any help, when they’re huddled around a map or staring at directional signs and speaking English. I love to help out tourists, and of course I wouldn’t dream of asking for anything in return.
I agree. I love helping tourists, that’s why the cairo incident was a bit of a shock. I suppose you can’t blame someone when tourism is the main form of income though.
We were in Rome last year and there seemed to be more tourists from Japan than anywhere else. Language barrier could be a problem; not as many Italians speak English than say the Dutch or Danes. However nobody offered my husband and I (travelling alone, walked all over Rome on our own and counting on just my very basic Italian and a map) any ‘help’.
The police may have a reason for concern in that some of this ‘pseudo-guides’ could actually be pickpocketers or con-artists, this conclusion based on the warnings about pickpocketers all over Rome (specially the Metro).
Here in the Colonial City - the first European city in America - it is not rare to see these friendly guys doing just that (offering help, then charging for the tour), but to their credit they seldomly become obnoxious.
I think this is another example of shoddy journalism.
Read the article just now, and what the flying feta cheese? How is that lady ‘standing in for a professional tour guide’? She was just talking to her friends!
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Well, now I can scratch one place off my list of countries to visit in the future.
I also distinctly remember every tour starting at the Trevi Fountain.
