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Have you ever been in Italy?
Bikers,
Some of you might already know that I'm about to start my 6-month adventure in Italy. (www.ridesoul.net/fammi-strada/?lang=en) I will start this trip without an established itinerary, so I'm keen to know - Have you been in Italy before? which part of it? - Are there specific places would you be glad to read my reports about? ...I will take notes, I promise! Alessandro |
OK, I'll kick things off - Back in the Jurassic era I caught the ferry to Greece from Otranto a few times. Everytime I was there it was straight in, find the port and onto the boat. I've often wondered whether I should have spent a few days discovering the area. Maybe you could do it for me and report back.
Oh, and while you're there, I lost a great pair of bike gloves somewhere in the port. You couldn't see if they're still there could you? :rofl: |
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About your "great pair of bike gloves" I should warn you that you have lost them in Italy. Any chances to have them back? :nono: Alessandro :thumbup1: |
yep
i fell out with itally after my first visit.
i was doing a low buget trip about europe, landed in italy from france. i was going to go down italy and cross over into greece or something, but.. first day in, i think it was somewhere called PARMA? it was nice and warm so i took my boots off and had a lie down on a park bench... woke up and my boots were gone, just a wore out old pair of hiking boots. but i damn well liked them! after that i moved on, each day after that, in each place i left the bike over night, someone had been through everything not locked on my bike and stolen what they could, which at this point was just my food and water in my tank bag. not a happy experiance. i know thats not what you asked for but i fancied a rant. other than that, lovely country. |
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By the way I hope italians aren't "all" that way:thumbup1: Alessandro |
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Usually I'm not used to defend my country, but this kind of things happens everyday in ALL the western countries, especially in the big cities. |
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I agree with you but I have met many bikers during my trips and it seems that they always told me "Italy it's a very beautiful country, but I got robbed or the italian drivers are crazy ecc..ecc...you know that stuff" Then, even though I'm here to fire back all these "way of saying" because all the italians definitely aren't thiefs , when it comes to read stories like Rymm's one i can't deny his displeasure! Alessandro, RIDESOUL |
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true, it does happen everywhere, but on my trip italy was especially bad. after a month in spain only my tent was stolen (at a festival, so i let that slide) but no one ever opened my tankbag i stayed much longer in germany, and even in the big cities like hamburg, i could leave my clothes out on my bike to dry all day and nothing was missing. dont get me wrong, i'm certainly not saying all Italians are thieves, or that they arent nice people, just that i had a bad time with them there. enough for it not just to be bad luck (at least 3 times in 3 cities i think) just fair warning to others, who knows? maybe i was just extremely unlucky there and lucky elsewhere? lovely country though, i was sad to miss it. |
Usualy the locals are not the (only) "problem" . In "more tourist" places gather scum from all europe (better opportunity to steal something) . I have "the same experience" as rymm on Montenegro coast (inland no one touch anything) .
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+1 to that. In something like 15 visits to Italy on bikes and open topped kit cars, I have never had anything stolen, but I have always avoided the tourist hot spots.
I've been mostly in the north, around the lakes and the Alps, but have been all the way down to Sicily, and around the Targa Florio circuit. There is just so much to see, and the best bits, most people don't see. |
I ve been in northern italy (Dolomites), nothing was ever touched. some ppl even left their cellphones in the showers to charge at the socket to use for shaving at the mirror - after some time someone walked around and asked who had forgotten his phone....
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Yeah, the northern Italy it's special. People respect other people, it's going to the south that the situation gets worse.....and I'm a center italy writer from Rome, saying that! Alessandro |
well i guess ppl also live from tourists in nortehrn italy..
i will see what i will find out in croatia soon... but i guess one can have bad luck everywhere... |
The problem that we have in Italy lies in the weakness of our Laws, that are not updated anymore to nowaday's crime levels.
Our country has become the paradise of the scum that comes from some other Countries (Europe and non-European ones) knowing that they can do almost whatever they want and get away with it quite easily, thanks to the fact that our prisons are full, so judges tend to avoid the locking up of people responsible of minor crimes. Being a member of a family traditionally employed in Law Enforcement (Italian State Police) I know what I'm talking about, unfortunately... |
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I'm from the north and I can assure you we have the same problems as in the center and in the south. Big cities are the most problematic, some cities are worst than others, but it has nothing to do with north or south. You can have some BIG problems if you are in the wrong neighborhood in Milan, you can have your pocket stolen in Rome Termini station, or your new expensive rolex stolen in Naples: it can happen everywere, like in almost all the western big cities. Quote:
Are you telling me all the crime comes from people who comes from outside Italy???? This is one of the craziest thing I ever read. There is crime from italians, and there is crime from foreigners, as in all the western counties |
I could write a chapter on the overwhelming hospitality I have received in Italy alone, without a doubt one of the friendliest and most helpful countries I've travelled :thumbup1:
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First of all, you can tell WTF to a friend of yours or to a member of your family, not to me. I don’t know you, so please calm down and use some other expressions. Thanks heaps. Second, I don’t say that all of the crime we have here comes from outside our boundaries, maybe I was not clear and I apologize with everybody. I can say that the weakness of our Laws is not a deterrent for any kind of outlaw, be them from Italy or from outside Italy. We have enough of our criminals, without the necessity to import others from abroad and let them understand (which is what’s happening in these years) that they can do whatever they want. Does is sound better now? |
Northrrn Italy been around the canazei area every year since 2008.
Never chained my bike up left stiff in my tent left say nav on the bike left the keys in the bloody thing overnight as well. We were say in a bar in canazei at closing time the owner just walked out with the rubbish leaving us in the bar with the till all the drinks ect. This is add it should be. Never had a problem in Europe and ive traveled a fair bit of it. Big cities and some really out of the way places. Canazei is one of the safest places ive ever been. I would never leave anything on my bike in the UK and it is always locked to something very solid with a fu.koff big chain at All times. Don't ever bother taking a chain with me anymore when I go out of the UK. Picture of how we left our bikes parked up as we went for coffee in northern Italy. This was the norm and add it should be. Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk |
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It sounded like you were saying all the crime is arriving from the "scum from some other countries". Yes, it does sound better now. Thanks for clarifying |
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No problem, all forgotten. :thumbup1::thumbup1::thumbup1::thumbup1: bierbierbier |
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On a more serious note, I rode Italy from top to bottom (Milan to Sicily and back) a couple of years ago. All in all, it was a pleasant trip. As you move from north to south, the demographics change and the level of prosperity changes. As a result, one needs to be a little bit more prudent as you move towards the south (especially in large cities) than, for example, up north in small villages in the Dolomites. It's really no different than how you would need to adapt in any other country - for example, the level of prudence required in downtown Detroit or the south side of Chicago is different than what is required in Montana or Salt Lake City. Trust your instincts and you will do fine. |
Italy is a nice country.. I'd have spent more time there .. but it was cold and wet .. winter. So it was a a fairly fast tour. I'd spent spring in Scandinavia, summer in Britain, Belgium, France, Germany and on to Turkey.. When it snowed on the hills just outside my tent door in Greece I retreated back through Italy, France Spain France, Britain (got rid of the bike) and took a flight to some where warm .. Sir Lanka! :Beach:
By the time I'd got to Italy I'd experienced some thefts .. so was well prepared for anywhere .. be it Britain, etc. Thefts can happen at home, work etc. My 'instincts' don't work so well in 'strange' cultures. Take care but get out and enjoy! |
There is an interesting article on the English language website of Der Spiegel that might help explain some of the issues that Italy (especially the southern part of Italy) is facing so far as crime, security, theft, and overall social problems are concerned. Here's the link: Europe's African Refugee Crisis: Is the Boat Really Full?
The gist of the story is that more than 100,000 people per year from Africa (primarily sub-Saharan Africa) are arriving in southern Italy each year as asylum seekers or economic refugees. Even though the majority of these migrants may be "inherently good people" (I say this meaning that the majority are not a priori criminals or dishonest folks), the unfortunate reality is that they can't find work and when someone has an empty belly and an opportunity for petty theft presents itself - well, anyone reading this can do the math and figure out what is going to happen next. I recommend the above article to anyone planning to visit Italy, I think it will help readers to understand the broader context and causal factors that give rise to petty crime in Italy today. Michael |
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