What I learned on my most recent European vacation

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
61

Indeed, it is not surprising to hear the British bitch about the French and vice versa.

France is greatly admired by the British, a land of great food and wine and lovely countryside. It generally thought to be wasted on the French, who are grumpy and awkward at the best of times.

The two countries had a love hate relationship for centuries and relations are quite tetchy at the moment with all this Brexit business. Blaming the French is the default political position in the Conservative party at the moment as they try to implement a very ill thought out immigration and border policy.

Now, if you having a ‘which country has the rudest tourists’ there is a lot of competition out there!

62

I get the impression that a lot of American tourists are doing “once-in-a-lifetime” type trips and feel like as such, they should get the royal treatment everywhere they go. However, they’re doing a normal tourist activity, and don’t seem to get that they’re the 32,763rd family that’s eaten pizza in that restaurant since May, and that Luca the pizzaiolo DGAF about their trip, how much it cost, or how special it is to them. He just wants to get them good pizza and service (as a European sees it), and get them out the door appropriately, in order to get the 32,764th family in and do the same.

You see this within the US as well. I recently got back from a vacation that was half in Alaska, and I was frankly amazed to hear people bitching to our tour guide about how imperfect the lodgings/food were, despite them being pretty good on the whole, and the whole state suffering from labor problems as well as the usual issues associated with Alaska- remoteness, etc… It’s like because they spent a shitload of money on their tour, they literally expect lower 48 high-end service and lodgings in fucking Talkeetna, Alaska. Boggled my mind; I was expecting something less than what we ended up with, so I was pleasantly surprised, even if it wasn’t maybe the sort of thing our tour company has a reputation for providing.

Interestingly enough, Europeans tend to think I’m one of their own for some unfathomable reason. Tall, fat white guy wearing blue jeans with a Texas accent, and I get taken for English, Dutch, German or Czech somehow. More than once. I don’t see it- to myself, I’m about as obviously American as I could be, except if I was wearing a flag across my shoulders like an Olympic medal winner.

That’s changed, I think. I only remember them making me fill out some forms for the overall value, and then making me declare food/alcohol type things at customs, to which I totally… uh… told a certain highly edited version of the truth in which my 3 bottles of genuine Cuban Havana Club rum were temporarily forgotten.

Were you lucky enough to make it past US Customs in less than 2 hours? That’s always been my biggest gripe- everywhere I’ve ever landed and had to go through Customs (O’Hare, Houston Geo. Bush, and Dallas Fort Worth), has been a COLOSSAL wait before you go through, fib a little, and keep on going. All this after an eleven-ish hour flight from Europe.

63

For many Americans, international travel is a novelty. For Europeans it is a part of daily life. Many Americans are great travelers, but many expect a Disney World experience where everyone speaks English and you can order a hamburger anywhere.

I have heard all these stories about how rude Parisians are. I have been to Paris two or three times (as well as Lyon, the Loire Valley, and Toulouse) and have never experienced rudeness from the French. I speak some French, not very fluent but enough to be polite. Many French people speak better English than my French and will switch to English, so I just go with it. But I have never had one French person be rude to me. The trick is just to not be rude first. Sometimes this involves knowing a little about foreign customs. For example, it is expected that when you enter a shop you greet the shopkeeper (if they don’t greet you first), and on the way out thank them and wish them a good day, even if you didn’t buy anything. If you do not do these things they will either take it as a slight, or just assume you are an American with no manners.

64

Global Entry plus CLEAR is amazing. Through in minutes.

65

Lots of scams.

I am pretty sure that an Italian taxi driver ran a money-switch scam on me. I handed him a 50 lira note and he showed me a 5 lira note and said I owed more. At the time I thought I made a mistake but after counting it up in the hotel I’m certain he did a deft switcheroo.

Another taxi driver in the Naples train station asked me where I was going. Rome. He said he could drive me there. I said I’m taking the train, the taxi would be too expensive. He said there was a rail strike an no trains were going to Rome. I went to the management office. They said there was indeed a strike, but only the local trains; my train to Rome would be on time.

I was waiting for an airport bus at the bus stop in Rome. A taxi driver pulled up and said the buses don’t run on Saturday so he could take us. We did. After we got out of the car I saw the bus pull in.

And lots and lots of pickpockets. A woman tried to steal my camera in Florence; little kids started to come after me in Rome but I said, “Get lost!” and they laughed and left; I had my wallet stolen on a Lisbon sidewalk.

Duty-free by definition means if you do not live in that country you don’t have to pay local taxes. So you have to prove it.

Also if you buy anything anywhere in Europe, and save the receipt; there is an office at the airports where you can get a refund of the VAT. Although it’s often not worth the bother unless you have really splurged.

66

While it’s true, it’s also misleading, and portrays Europeans as somehow more sophisticated, and Americans as more untraveled.

Europeans can hop on Ryanair or the rail networks and travel much like Americans can internally. Flying from London to Paris is about like flying from Dallas to Kansas City- 1 hr 20-30 minutes. And Dallas to Chicago is about the same as London-Rome. And I’d be willing to bet they’re comparable in prices as well.

But unless we’re flying to wherever is closest internationally, the prices and flight time jump dramatically. DFW-LHR is something like a 9 hour, $750-1000 flight.

So international travel, with the exception of maybe Canada and a handful of Mexican cities is a totally different ballgame for most Americans than for Europeans. For Europeans it’s about like going interstate on Southwest Airlines, but it’s not like that for Americans.

Ultimately though, you’re right. If you’re not a dick, Europeans are just like everyone else and are kind, gracious, etc…

67

The last time I entered the US through O’Hare, I made a note to myself to never, never book another flight through that port of entry.
And I was coming back from a week in Japan. The contrast between Japanese politeness, with everything running like clockwork, and O’Hare surliness and efficiency, was an unfortunate “welcome home to the US”.

68

I agree with this, to a point.

Paris is my absolute favorite city in the world. It’s an easy trip from where I live; we go two or three times a year. We’ll be there in two weeks, in fact. As much as I’ve visited, I still feel like it’s an inexhaustible destination. Every neighborhood has its own character. Every museum and art gallery has something to offer. The variety of food is vast. My French is crap, but I know enough to get by and show I’m making an effort.

And for the most part, as long as you follow the expected customs and are deferential to the locals, if you are polite and respectful on their terms, they will be polite and respectful in return.

But… Paris is one of the most-visited cities in the world, by perhaps the widest range of tourist nationalities. Everybody goes there. If I were a full-time resident in Paris, I would find this absolutely exhausting, trying to live my everyday life while constantly navigating around an endless flood of out-of-towners. Paris is a much-touristed city, but it’s also a real city, where real people carry out ordinary lives and careers and are not part of the travel and service industry (in contrast to somewhere like Venice, which has zero daily life except to serve visitors). I am generally a patient person, but I can see how trying this would be, each and every day, without pause.

And that’s the thing — Parisians aren’t rude, exactly, as a matter of course, but they do have a very short fuse, simply because that’s their learned reality. As long as they can get through their day without hassles, everything is fine. And if you, as a tourist, can slot yourself into their world without adding to their hassle, that’s also fine. But when you step outside the bounds of expectation, when you put a speed bump in their way, they categorize you instantly as Tourist Type A, B, or C, and deal with you accordingly.

And, honestly, it’s hard to blame them.

69

Meh, I lived in London for years, which gets almost as many foreign tourists, and it’s actually fairly straightforward to dodge them. You just avoid the main tourist areas, and keep your head down in a book on the Tube/Metro.

70

So, exactly like New Yorkers.

71

In London the locals reluctance to working in the hospitality business means tourists can spend their whole visit without meeting anyone who was born there. The staff are often from a wide range of other countries with those from nearby European countries with a hospitality tradition much in evidence staffing the hotels and restaurants. Though I expect they are having serious problems finding the staff after Brexit changed the rules and youngsters from the EU cannot so easily just pitch up and walk into a job.

The tourist areas are pretty overcrowded at the height of the season. Working in those areas is stressful. It is somewhat like a theme park. For a local it is better to work in the business districts where everyone, at least, knows where they are going.

Parisians have famously superior attitude to the rest of France, never mind any other nation. They can be impatient and in a hurry and sometimes snotty. Their attitude reminds me of visits to New York or Hong Kong that have competitive city cultures.

Sharing your city with a gazillion tourists is stressful, especially when they are herding in large groups. The Chinese are comparative newcomers to tourism and for many it is their first experience. So they tend to join these intensive tours to cover a list of European cities in quick succession. Just as other nations have done in the past once the middle classes can afford to travel and get time off work.

Tourist cities can become like theme parks. Some actively encourage quite low grade tourism because it is easy and they can get the numbers. The worst target the ‘celebration’ market for Batchelor and Batchelorette parties (stag or hen parties in British English). These are often pretty debautched affairs and it is safe to say the participants are not unduly concerned with exploring high culture.

I hired some builders in London and after the job these guys were off on a stag weekend in Tallin, Estonia. I am pretty sure they were not much interested in the history of this pretty Hanseatic port. Their expectations were simple: cheap beer and meeting ladies of negotiable virtue. They had previously had a lot of fun in Prague. If I was visiting those places, I certainly would not want to see these guys out on the town. But they had the cash and they knew were to go for a party.

So yes, there are some awful tourists out there, but there are some places that really do not handle tourism well. It is an important business and has to be managed.

There is a big difference between a open minded, curious traveller who is on an long stay and a tourist who has little time and has already has decided what they want to see and do and stick to well worn paths.

International travel takes a bit of practice.

72

@filmstar-en, wonderfully written observations.

73

Sure, but even when I worked 1 minute walk from Oxford Circus, it was relatively straightforward to keep to the back streets and avoid the Oxford Street hordes. It’s the benefit of London being a warren of confusing streets - locals use them, tourists avoid them.

74

Best as I can recall, it was a 9 day, 8 night trip with London-Vienna return flights on Saturday going out and Sunday going back. Three nights in Vienna. Boat trip and overnight stay in Bratislava. Three nights in Salzburg, travelling there by train. Overnight stay in Linz on the way back to Vienna.

Vienna’s beautiful, but Salzburg was the highlight of the trip. We probably enjoyed the boat trip to Bratislava more than we enjoyed the city. The castle’s pretty, but it was pretty much empty. But hey, I’ve been to Slovakia. The Linzer torte in Linz was very good, but the rest of the place wasn’t worth the stopover.

I’m not sure if that’s an American itinerary or not, but that’s pretty typical of how we travel.

We went to Linz specifically to have a Linzer torte. We also has a Sacher torte in the Sacher hotel in Salzburg, but didn’t know the original was from Vienna until we read it on the menu. (I’d never heard of a Sacher torte before my wife spotted the hotel cafe.) We could have made it to the Cafe Sacher Wien on our last day, but it would have meant skipping breakfast and rebooking already paid for train tickets.

In general, we do touristy things such as that because often the touristy things are quite good. We did do a gondola ride in Venice, which is supposed to be a rip-off, but actually really enjoyed it and thought the price was expensive but not outrageous. The coffees in St. Mark’s Plaza, on the other hand, were ridiculous and we skipped that experience.

75

I live in London. I’ve got nothing against tourists, but I’m intolerant of tourists doing stupid things. If a tourist wants to take a picture of the Elizabeth Tower at the Houses of Parliament, aka Big Ben, go for it. I’ve taken that picture a few times myself. But if someone exits Westminster tube station on a busy morning, and stops at first sight to take a picture, blocking everyone else leaving the station, they’re actually the ones being inconsiderate. And yes, I will and have walked in front of them and into their photo. So I understand locals being unbothered if they’re unfriendly to a tourist who hasn’t thought about their surroundings.

Having said that, there’s an attitude in Paris hospitality enterprises that I’ve not encountered anywhere else. I love Paris and something like 97% of my hospitality experiences there have been positive. But I remember waiting 10 minutes for a hotel receptionist to finish her phone conversation before deciding to check us in. I remember waiters in what seemed (and charged) like a nice restaurant gathering undrunk wine from surrounding tables and pouring it into a grog bucket while we were finishing our meal. A couple of times at bars when we wanted to pay for drinks, but the bartender put us at the bottom of his to-do list after talking to people at the bar and then loading the dishwasher or getting something from the backroom storage. It’s infrequent when we run into bad hospitality service in Paris, but it’s happened enough for us to understand the reputation. And, for us at least, it’s happened nowhere else in France.

76

I have found French tourists in Canada to be reasonably polite and cannot report any negative experiences. My experiences in France are consistent with the post above. Enormously positive with the occasional strong display of indifference, but mainly in Paris.

The worst tourists are hooligan types who travel in loud, drunken packs with a complete indifference to culture or consideration. I don’t tend to go to those places, but have seen a few different nationalities involved. Since they are atypical, I do not hold their country responsible. But the ones I saw were not Americans (outside of the US).

77

Only 37% of Americans have a valid passport, and I don’t know how many of them have actually used it to travel abroad. And 38% have never had a passport.

I don’t know the numbers for other countries but in the EC you don’t even need a passport to travel to member countries so that would be a hard comparison to make, but IME a German is as likely to go to Italy or Amsterdam as I am to drive to New Jersey or the Outer Banks.

78

That’s sort of my point- I’d bet Americans and Europeans take similar-length trips with similar frequency, but for the Americans, that’s almost entirely internal travel, while for Europeans it is almost all international, due to the dramatic difference in scale between countries.

I think it’s misleading, because people always use that as some sort of club to beat Americans as ignorant and Europeans as cosmopolitan, but it really just means that where a US person might go to Vegas for a long weekend of debauchery, the European just goes to Prague. Roughly the same flight length… just that one’s internal, and the other is in a different country.

It’s a consequence of distances, not cosmopolitanism vs. ignorance.

79

My favorite tourist advice for NYC.

80

I’m planning my first trip to Europe since The Before Times, to take place this October. Hopefully the chaos at the airports will have abated somewhat, being the off-season. I’m flying into Brussels only because the airline I use doesn’t go to Germany; but to get there from Toronto I’d have to do a stopover in Montreal. I’m not risking even that one transfer, either missing it or giving the airline another chance to lose my bag, so I’m taking the train to Montreal that morning and just taking one flight. Pearson Airport is becoming world-famously embarrassing for the lines, missed connections, cancelled flights and so forth, though a lot of the blame lies with Air Canada, with whom I’m not flying and haven’t flown in nearly 30 years.

At any rate…I’m bookmarking this thread to read more in depth later. As I mentioned in another thread, I’m very wary of transgressing social codes in Germany, and I’m sure my disused French will be more of a liability in Paris. I’ve been to London 7 times already and pretty much know the lay of the land there, so that part doesn’t worry me. Still, until I’m actually at Brussels airport with my suitcase in hand, heading to the lower level to catch the train to Zuit and then Cologne, I won’t be able to relax.