THEY want to sit out in the midday sun. They insist on ordering a cappuccino after dinner. They tend to go a blotchy pink after two days in the Mediterranean heat. They like to trip around central Rome in basketball shoes, grubby T-shirts and skimpy shorts as if heading for the beach. Who are they? Northern European tourists, of course.
I have often read that during the second World War, Allied prisoners of war on the run in Italy rarely managed to slip through army controls. It was not that their forged documents failed to fool the Fascist military - it was usually their clothes. The colour of the tie or socks, or maybe the texture of the shirt or the length of the trouser-leg would give the foreigner away. To the sophisticated Italian eye, such sartorial infringements are crimes that cry to heaven. The poor old PoW might as well have gone around with a sign on his head.
To a certain extent, and even to the infinitely less discerning eye of the long-term expatriate, the modern-day tourist in Italy tends to stick out with equal evidence. Even if their skin was not a whiter shade of pale and even if they were not wearing shorts in fashionable, downtown Rome, you would still know that the people at the cafe table next to you were tourists because they insist on sitting out in the midday sun to drink beer.
For the Italian, the sun is for sitting out in only when you are suitably dressed, or rather undressed, while alcohol and hot sun have never struck Mediterranean man as a winning combination.
A couple of weeks ago I found myself helping a BBC television crew. While filming at the seaside resort of Viareggio, the TV crew stopped for a break at a fashionable seafront cafe. Three or four of the crew, fresh from the grim grip of a wet English summer, immediately wanted a table set out in the afternoon sunshine. When the waiter arrived, I explained that we wished to eat. He looked perplexed: "OK, but you'll come inside under the awning and sit in the shade to eat, won't you? They don't really want to eat in the sun, do they?"
I am afraid they did. Mad dogs and Englishmen are still at it. Being a long-termer, I opted for a compromise and cannily positioned the table so that it was half-in and half-out of the sun. Each time the waiter came to serve us, he came down to my end of the table and smiled sympathetically at me, obviously convinced that I was in charge of a collection of weirdos.
When one of the group then ordered a cappuccino after his lunch, the waiter's mystification was complete. Now, folks, there are rules and rules about Mediterranean living but, as all the Ireland-based members of the extended family will testify, there is no rule as sacrosanct as the cappuccino rule. Basically, you can have them up to midday, or maybe even as far as one o'clock, but that is it.
To an Italian, the idea of someone wanting a big cup of frothy, milky coffee immediately after their desert, be it lunch or dinner, is simply absurd. You might as well ask for a big helping of cabbage and spuds along with your strawberries and cream.
Members of the family can be sceptical about the cappuccino rule. Last summer, one sister-in-law (I was not present at the scene of the crime) dared to order a cappuccino late in the afternoon at our local bar. Jolo, the owner, was immediately worried and asked my wife if there had been a death or an accident in the family. The family have now learned. Will someone please inform the rest of northern Europe?
The high-visibility factor of the tourist inevitably works against him or her, and not just from the point of view of their over-worked digestive system. In Italy, as elsewhere, the tourist is subject to dreadful rip- offs, especially in Venice, Florence and Rome.
The ice cream man, for example, can see a tourist coming half a kilometre away. Last week, the sister-in-law bought four in central Rome for the price of a modest lunch for two.
This is a norm anywhere in the tourist world but a peculiarly Italian twist is added by the ricevuta fiscale (fiscal bill) factor. Strictly speaking, whenever you pay the bill in an Italian bar or restaurant, you should be given a ricevuta fiscale, a registered receipt which will show up on the restaurateur's income tax returns and which you must take with you when leaving the restaurant or bar.
For obvious reasons, it has long been a favourite trick just to slip the unsuspecting tourist any old bill, without fiscal code or any such nasty business, which will later be dumped in the bin. All of this helps relieve the tax burden and all of which we understand.
Now, as a tourist, you can choose to ignore the whole business and just pay up. Or you can ask for the ricevuta fiscale and then pay up. Or even better, you can accept the informal bill but immediately look for a reduction. Remember, when in Rome...