Travel Notes for Italy
We love Italy and are sure you will too!
But they do have some customs and standards you might find a bit unusual.
So read on and don't get caught off-guard!
Drawing the Line: Throughout Italy, and especially in the south, most people seem reluctant to stand on line in an orderly fashion. They often crowd around bank teller windows, ticket booths, food stands and cashiers with little respect for the fact that somebody else arrived there first. (This even happens at McDonalds, usually the epitome of efficient service.)
Common Courtesy: Italians are generally nice people, but Italian society is essentially socialist in its outlook. Certain employees of public services are sometimes careless about the way they treat customers. This is something you may notice in the post office or elsewhere; the bus ticket inspectors are infamous for this. Like many Italians they seem to presume that everybody is dishonest.
Restaurants: In most restaurants you'll be charged a "coperto" (cover charge) equal to one dollar or pound for each person seated. This nominal charge appears to have originated as the fee for the staff to "cover" the table with a table cloth and serve bread. Tipping is separate, of course, but the coperto persists because Italians are notoriously cheap tippers. One of the reasons that many waiters prefer foreign customers, particularly Canadians and Americans, is that these diners are usually more generous.
While we're on the subject of restaurants, don't be surprised by the lack of a bread plate at your place, and don't bother asking for one because the staff may not know what you're talking about. The bread will arrive in a basket or plate from which you should serve yourself; don't worry about getting crumbs on the tablecloth. It's expected.
Air Mail: Certain public services are rather inefficient. The postal service, for example, is terrible, with frequent delays and theft. If you have to send anything much more valuable than a post card or letter to another country, use a courier service. There are MBE (Mail Boxes Etc.) outlets in larger cities that can send a package abroad via UPS or FedEx, and they also handle Western Union money transfers; these are more efficient than bank wire transfers, which in Italy can take weeks. Consult the local phone book for an MBE store near you. If you do send a post card, you may have to purchase your stamps at a tobacco shop because post office windows, which usually have long lines but no automated stamp meters, sometimes run out of stamps in certain denominations (usually the ones you need).
The Law: Italy has peculiar laws that could affect you as a traveler. These laws are not especially cumbersome but (to Americans in particular) some may seem like invasions of personal privacy. In practice, Italian laws presume that everybody is dishonest (and therefore guilty of something).
For example, if the Financial Police (Guardia di Finanza), a military agency with wide-ranging powers, ask to see your receipt (scontrino) as you exit a restaurant or shop, it is because they want to ensure that the appropriate taxes were charged. Sales tax (value added tax) in Italy is almost 20%, and is included in the purchase price of most goods and services. Not having a receipt doesn't mean you're in any trouble, but it could mean an on-the-spot audit and court summons for the merchant. A bit bizarre, since the uniformed officers issuing the summons are armed with fully automatic sub machine guns.
When you check in to a hotel, the desk clerk will ask to see your passport, which he may hold for a few hours since he is required by law to compile a form that must be presented to the police. (You may provide a photocopy to avoid this inconvenience.) This is actually an ineffective anti-Mafia law, enforced throughout Italy, intended to track criminals' movements. The senators who proposed this law apparently forgot that criminals travel on fake identification documents.
In the event that you visit a library or public archive, you'll be asked to complete a form which requests information such as your profession and place of birth, as though this personal information were somehow relevant to your consultation of books or other items. Surprising they don't ask your weight.
Money: One of the funnier aspects of spending your money in Italy (until it happens to you) is that many supermarkets and other stores often cannot change a large bank note. (Twenty euros are less than twenty US dollars.) Supermarket cashiers will frequently lose a sale before they'll try to break a larger euro note. Owners of smaller establishments prefer to pocket as many of the immediate profits as they can, as soon as they possibly can, and in their hasty greed fail to consider the needs of their customers. They may even presume that you'll wait for ten or twenty minutes until a customer comes along who has the smaller notes the store needs to change your larger one! Fortunately, the change problem is less severe at restaurants, hotels and other establishments that serve foreigners.
Public Lust: During the passeggiata (afternoon stroll) in larger Southern cities, it's not unusual for undisciplined young men to call out to attractive young women they don't know with remarks like "Bella!" and "Pupa!" Sicilian women are quite accustomed to such behavior, though they usually don't encourage it. In itself, such practices may seem innocuous, but they do reflect the persistent attitudes of some Italian men accustomed to viewing women as potential sexual conquests rather than social equals. Throughout Italy, sexual harrassment is somewhat common in the workplace (or at least more so than in the US and the UK), and southern men seem to do it more openly than northerners.
You might observe that many Italian women, though well educated, conform to "traditional" roles in society. Some of these things are quite subtle, others less so. Legally, of course, Italian women have the same rights as men. Socially, that's not always the case. In such an old society, old habits disappear slowly.
Crime
As far as violent street crime is concerned, Italy's largest cities are quite safe compared to London, Paris, Moscow, and certainly New York and Los Angeles. Since purse snatchings are commonplace (the creative Italians even use motor scooters to ride by as they snatch handbags), women are advised against carrying large purses, especially in the cities. Though assaults are rare, they do occur, especially in certain parts of Palermo and Catania. An attractive young woman walking around some parts of these cities alone after 10:00 PM could be a tempting lure for an unsavory male. The prevalence of violent street crime shouldn't be exaggerated, though its potential presence is worth a bit of prudence.
Organized crime doesn't pose a threat to visitors. Mafia shootings are quite rare; you're far more likely to see one described in the newspaper or on the evening news than to witness one firsthand.
