The Italian Romantic Ideal Invaded

You can’t help but hear them: they’re the ones laughing so loudly they bring the room to a hush and make the sedate elder Italians reconsider their choice of seats. You can’t even help but take notice of them once they’re finally quiet, everybody looking on to see if perhaps they’re all getting up to leave just yet. Who are they? They’re groups of chattering English or Americans.

I read it somewhere that in Italy, as a whole, English and Americans aren’t that bad in small groups (2-4 people on average). It’s when you get them in large groups (6-100 or more) that an entirely new and altogether obnoxious mentality begins to take root. Having lived here now for nearly four years you can see how true this information is. Small groups of English-speaking tourists seem to respect the fact that they are the minority and will try to fit in with another society. Large groups become comfortable in their numbers and being amongst like-minded individuals they collectively remove themselves from respecting the native culture and traditions around them.

As I sit here in a small neighborhood just outside of the center of Padova and away from tourist centers I can easily become absorbed by the Italians around me. A young Italian couple sits a table away sipping thick, smooth hot chocolates and escaping the chill of winter. Beside me sit two older men enjoying a sunset-orange spritz (a bitter or sometimes sweet drink enjoyed in the afternoon in Padova bars and piazza’s), their eyes occasionally straying to the nearby television showing bacci ball highlights and even commenting “bello” if a particularly nice shot has been taken.

It is a place one would expect to find in Italy, a certain timeless feel amongst the worn wooden bar, the shelves of wine beside me and the stir of baristas behind the counter. Though this peaceful absorption can only be short-lived as the group of English crowded into a nearby corner chat louder and louder. Unfortunately moments like this are becoming more and more commonplace is the large and medium cities of the north where an increase of foreigners and a decrease of the Italian population make it exceedingly difficult to find places to glimpse that romantic ideal of Italia that film and novels insists exists. While moments of complete immersion do still exist—I know because I have found them in the outskirts and in the countryside—this was one of those times where the influence of the outside world invaded.