The Italians are disgusted with our holidaymakers

As the holidays draw to a close, Italian newspapers have been reporting with perplexity and distaste on the outlandish behaviour of foreign tourists in Italy, by which they mean young people from northern European countries. One report told of a couple making love in broad daylight on a bridge over the Grand Canal in Venice, the Ponte degli Scalzi (which, as a commentator pointed out, means ‘Bridge of the Barefooted’, not ‘Bridge of the Bare-bottomed’). Other reports talked of people sunbathing naked in public places or picnicking in large groups under the colonnades in St Mark’s Square. Venice suffered most from these excesses, but nowhere was immune. Florence and Rome were also invaded by drunk and rowdy foreigners, who camped in the squares and used the fountains as bathing pools. Why were they doing it, asked one newspaper? This kind of thing wouldn’t happen in Paris or London.

Well, actually, it would, if the weather was hot enough. But Italians have a curious faith in the orderliness and civility of life in northern Europe, especially in Britain, and an unshakably low opinion of the way their own society is ordered. It is not that they are not patriotic. They believe with equal fervour that theirs is the most beautiful and desirable country in the world. But most of them have nothing but contempt for the way in which it is governed.

This gives them an inferiority complex that manages to survive even the annual summer invasion of barbarians from the north. The Corriere della Sera complained of their ‘lack of respect’, but still managed to lay part of the blame for this on the Italians themselves. The tourists would see the huge illegal rubbish tips defacing much of the south of the country and so wouldn’t see why they shouldn’t throw rubbish, too.