Watching the Tourists: I

Tourist Ballet, Piazza Venezia
 

If you're visiting Rome in the high season, the tourists can be irritating.  They clog the sidewalks and the top attractions and by their very presence define the restaurants you don't want to go into because they're "tourist traps."  The other side of this is that tourists can be entertaining, part of a rich tourist experience if you will. 

Here's an example.  These girls on the scooter may be Romans, but they're not sure where they are or where they're going. They're sitting at a light at via Ostiense, looking west up via del Porto Fluviale. They're got about 30 seconds to make up their minds.  If they tip over there'll be some serious skin loss.

Some things are just irresistible, especially for young men.  This scene was enacted in a small park off Piazza Venezia.

Rome tourists like to be photographed with gladiators, even at the Trevi Fountain, which was constructed about 1500 years after the last gladiator.

Some things are irresistible, especially for older men.  I liked this pose in front of the Altare della Patria (the enormous monument to Italian unification) in Piazza Venezia.

Bill

Roman or Romanian? Will the true gladiator stand up?

We can't help but get a chuckle out of those guys hanging outside the Coliseum, persuading (amazingly enough, often successfully) tourists to pay to have their photos taken with them. Guess they're centurions, tho' everyone calls them gladiators, and, whatever, they add to the local color.

But this year they also added to the Roman/Romanian debate. Turns out there is territory to be protected and with tourism down, the pie to be divided is smaller. Today's Romans solicit business outside not only the Coliseum but other places, like Castel Sant'Angelo (Hadrian's Castle)--where the photo above was taken.

And, the Roman centurions decided it was un... well, unRoman, for Romanians to be horning in on their business. The Romanians were taking up positions outside Castel Sant'Angelo, leaving the Coliseum to the "Romans" (and how "Roman" are they, one could ask?).

All this can seem a bit silly, when Italians often complain the Romanians don't engage in legitimate businesses and um.... that they're not really "Romans". Romanians, on the other hand, claim a special tie to Rome, going back to Trajan (conqueror of Dacia, present-day Romania) and, of course, to their related Latin language. The tourists, of course, can't tell the difference.

So should we care? Let the games begin.

Dianne - for more on the Romanian immigrant presence, see Bill's post.