Conservative Demands For Austerity In Italy Are Destroying Tourism-- Pompeii Crumbles, Rome Taxes Tourists

Berlusconi uses the same image consultants as American right-wingers

It was just a year ago that we spent a few weeks living in Monti, a less-known central Rome neighborhood tucked away behind the touristy Forum, very close, much oddly inaccessible to anyone not looking for it. We rented an apartment, although when we returned to Rome a month later we stayed at the Parco dei Principi down by the Borghese Gardens.

It's been kind of scandalous that Italy's clownish Prime Minister has botched the state's preservation and tourist promotion efforts with his breathtakingly corrupt and right-wing austerity agenda. The solution to a potentially crumbling tourist sector-- a major underpinning of the Italian economy-- is a new tax leveled against (non-voting) tourists. The new tax on accomodations began this week.

Tourists will pay an extra €2 per person per night if staying in hotels up to a three-star rating, and an extra €3 per person per night if they have chosen a four- or five-star hotel.

Even campsites fall within the tax’s remit, with campers paying an added €1 per person per night to sleep under canvas-- although youth hostels are exempt from the charge, while the fee does also not apply to visitors younger than the age of ten.

The tax will be levied on the first ten nights of any hotel stay in the city-- or the first five nights for those staying on a campsite.

Local authorities hope it will raise around €80million (£69million) per annum, which will be used on the maintenance and promotion of a city that attracts some 30 million visitors every year. Rome has some 3,800 hotels, guest houses and bed-and-breakfast options.

Although the fee is theoretically small – for example, a three-night weekend away for a couple in a three-star hotel will equate to an extra cost of €12 (£10) at the end of the break, an amount that will barely pay for two cappuccinos in a central coffee shop-- the tax may cause a certain amount of inconvenience when guests come to pay it.

The fee must be settled on checking out of a hotel at the end of a stay-- and only in cash, meaning that 21st century travellers used to paying for everything with a credit card will need to remember to hold back a little paper money to take care of the extra amount.

Some foresee problems with the charge.

“These increases-- especially tax on accommodation-- will make it more difficult to compete with countries such as Spain and Greece, which have more competitive hotel prices,” Giorgio Sansa, a Rome-based tour operator, told The Scotsman.

“Tourism is our main income and prices in Rome are already high enough, so although it appears only a small increase, for a family on a break in the city it will add more to the final bill and be noticed.”

“I don’t think it will stop people coming to Rome,” Mr Sansa continued, “but I think we will see groups choosing to go to other destinations instead, as we now have to add the charge when we sell tours.”

Nor is the accommodation charge the only new fee that will hit visitors to the Italian capital in the pocket this year. January 1st also saw the adding of a supplementary €1 to the price of museum entry in Rome for non-residents.

Since Berlusconi's rightist, corporate government took power half of Italy's cultural budget has been cut to placate Berlusconi's wealthy, selfish backers who simply do not think they should be taxed. The results have been catastrophic. Look at Pompeii, which draws something like 2.5 million tourists a year. Neglect contributed to the collapse of a 2,000 year old frescoed building used by gladiators after heavy rains weakened the foundations.

It's been just over five weeks since the House of the Gladiators collapsed at Pompeii on November 6. Then, in smaller incidents on November 30 and December 1, two walls also crumbled at the site. Outrage over the historical losses led to calls for the resignation of culture minister Sandro Bondi, but Bondi, a close ally of prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, has refused to leave his post. How was this disaster allowed to happen, and-- with Berlusconi having just narrowly avoided a vote of no confidence in the Italian parliament today-- how does Italy plan to cope with what has quickly become a matter of worldwide concern?

Heavy rains were said to have been responsible for the collapse of the House of the Gladiators, but underlying issues of drainage and maintenance worsened the structure's ability to weather the storms. As early as 2005, a Naples newspaper reported a commission's findings that almost three-quarters of the site was at risk of collapse, and that 40 percent of its buildings were in severe need of restoration.

Experts have had harsh words for the Berlusconi government's maintenance of the site. An emergency commission was created in 2008 to cut through the red tape and handle Pompeii's many problems. But as journalist and archaeological expert Luigi Necco told NPR, the people in charge of the site have been more concerned with investing in flashy multimedia accessories than archeological preservation.
"This Disneyland here in the center of Pompeii," Necco said of the ill-spent funds, speaks of a "disdain for culture, disdain for the past, disdain for history."

The head of the emergency commission, Marcello Fiori, has specifically been accused of spending too much money on flashy features such as a restaurant and a controversial renovation of the amphitheater, the Art Newspaper reports. Among the changes made at Pompeii, one that came under particularly sharp criticism was a plan to rid the site of stray dogs. After a staggering outlay of €86,000 ($114,000), many dogs still remain. 

...The largest archaeological site in the world, Pompeii is estimated to receive between two and three million visitors annually. Pietro Giovanni Guzzo, an archaeologist who supervised Pompeii for the culture ministry between 1994 and 2009, told the New York Times that it would cost about €260 million ($348 million) to safeguard the excavated city. In an atmosphere of stringent cuts-- the Italian culture budget was reduced by almost 30 percent this year, according to AFP figures, and almost $400 million in cuts to culture are planned for 2011-- there is intense concern that Berlusconi's government will not find the sums of money needed to preserve Pompeii.

Italy's cuts contrast sharply with the approach of France and Germany: this fall, Germany pledged to leave cultural funding unchanged, while France actually increased its culture budget by 2.7 percent. Maurizio Quagliuolo of Herity, an organization that promotes preservation of Italy's cultural heritage, told AFP that "the problem today is that Italy has still not understood that its cultural assets should not be considered a luxury when the economy is in crisis, but rather as a fundamental part of recovery."

UPDATE: More Berlusconi... How Could I Resist?

Looks like Berlusconi has more in common with American conservatives than just image making. The newest investigation is about his romps with underage prostitutes and, of course, the coverup.

Italian prosecutors are investigating accusations that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi paid a 17-year-old girl for sex and abused the powers of his office by trying to cover up the liaison, officials said Friday.

...The public prosecutor's office in Milan said in a statement that it was investigating allegations that Berlusconi and Lombardy regional councilor Nicole Minetti attempted to conceal encounters between the prime minister and a then-underage Moroccan dancer known by the stage name Ruby Heartbreak. Police searched Minetti's office and home as well as sites tied to unnamed "other people" involved with the case, the prosecutors said.

Berlusconi is also suspected of trying to obtain the girl's release after she was arrested on theft charges in May, with his office reportedly falsely telling police that she was the granddaughter of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and that her detention would cause a diplomatic row.

Where To Stay In Rome (And Albania)

Palazzo del Grillo (left) & Parco dei Principi

I suppose this post should really be something like "Where I Stayed In Rome (And Albania)" but I'm hoping that some of the ideas-- even if not the specific locales-- will be helpful to travelers even beyond people looking to experience a vacation vicariously. But let me start at the very end of my trip, one night in Rome before catching a flight to London and then on to home in L.A. You see, the trip this time involved an extended stay in Rome in the beginning-- and I'll get to that in a moment-- followed by a week or so of busing around Albania. But it was that one night in Rome at the end, basically insurance against unreliable airplane travel, that had me worried.

I've been to Italy many times in the past, first when I lived in Innsbruck, Austria and could easily drive down to Verona or Venice for a weekend and later when I was running Reprise Records and could never find enough excuses to visit our wonderful affiliates in Milan, where I became so well known at the hotel, the Principi di Savoia that my suite was always my suite. (The Four Seasons Milano is also spectacular, arguably the best Four Seasons in Europe, and many of our bands preferred to stay there which is why I did sometimes as well. But in the end, it was the classic Principi I always preferred.) The Principi was a relative bargain too. They always gave me a room for around $600/night while the Four Seasons charged around $850. I felt I was doing the TimeWarner shareholders a solid by staying at the bargain hotel.

But Milano isn't Rome. And I'm no longer an employee of TimeWarner and now pay for my own hotels. In the past when I've gone to Rome on TimeWarner's dime I stayed at the Russie, conveniently located between the Piazza del Popolo and the Spanish Steps. I would have been happy to stay there again on our one night in Rome at the end of the trip. The cheapest double in the joint was almost $1,000/night (breakfast not included). And it wasn't that fabulous, not when I'm putting up my credit card. Andre, the wonderful travel agent who first found me the Russie when we were both at TimeWarner, suggested a hotel nearby that he says is the only 5--star bargain in the whole city, the Parco dei Principi right on the Borghese Gardens surrounded by mansions, many of which are now embassies. It's just outside the Aurelian Walls-- so the $40 set fee taxi ride doesn't apply and the minute and a half it takes from the gate costs you about $25 in the cab-- but the hotel is just as nice as the Russie and much quieter. It cost us around $350 for a double which they upgraded (a courtesy to Andre) to a deluxe room. Roland wasn't a huge fan of the decor, which he termed "Louis XIV meets Liberace," and the antiquated awkwardness of not having a viable, usable Wifi system makes it a no-go for business travelers. But they did have the absolute most wonderful bath towels I've ever used and everything about the hotel is absolutely elegant.

One of the things about Rome that few tourists realize-- and the Romans never talk about (if they even realize it themselves)-- is that the city is tiny and as complicated as they try to make it, once you get the hang of it, you really can walk anywhere. Someone might tell you that the Borghese Gardens are a million miles from the center; it's a 10 minute walk to the Spanish Steps. We decided to say arrivederci to 2009 at an intense Michelin-star restaurant, il Convivio Troiani on a tiny pedestrian street near the Tiber just north of Piazza Navona. The concierge at the hotel was delighted we were eating at such a wonderful restaurant-- and was it ever!-- but he was horrified when I asked him if we could walk there. In his mind it would be like walking from the Four Seasons in Manhattan to Chinatown or from the Four Seasons in West Hollywood to the Water Grill downtown: undoable. It turned out to be a super-direct 20-30 minutes gorgeous stroll that added to the glamor of the evening.

I know this post is supposed to be about where to stay, not where to eat, but I can't not mention how over the top we both are about il Convivio. They describe the cuisine as a "modern, revisited version of traditional Italian fare. Don't expect pizza or meatballs and spaghetti. The chef kept sending out goodies all night and every single detail was explained to us by a superb waiter in the tradition of professionals whose job wasn't so much to write down an order and schlep out some dishes, but to make you feel you were having the best meal of your life. I started with orange scented organic barley with porcini mushrooms and black truffle uncinatum (hold the duck tartare) and Roland got going with fried zucchini flowers with buffalo's mozzarella, anchovies creamed, sweet and sour red pepper spicy sorbet. Between the incredibly rich starters and the stuff the chef had sent out, we were already full. My main course was salt cod cooked with artichokes, potatoes, truffle and sweet garlic sauce and Roland had organic oxtail "vaccinara style" with mashed spicy potatoes and mushrooms. He also ate 2 pieces of 6 varieties of homemade bread that he said was mind-blowing. Neither of us was interested in dessert but he wound up eating 12 of them that the chef sent us.

And, yes, Rome is a city you will have to work hard at finding a bad place to eat. Every meal we had there was fantastic, even in the restaurants with no Michelin stars. OK, back to the where to stay thing. If you follow this blog, you already know that my travel preference is to stay in places for weeks at a time and rent houses or-- in cities-- apartments. That's how we started the trip in Rome, a few weeks before our one last night at the Parco dei Principi.

I started my search online months ago, looking at the listings for apartments in Rome. There are tons of them. I found what I was looking for at HomeAway.com, a spacious two bedrooms/two bathrooms flat in an old 17th Century palace in the quiet, funky Monti neighborhood behind the Forum, a hop, skip and a jump from the Coliseum Metro station. There's a highly functional, well-equipped kitchen, a large dining room and large living room... and excellent Wifi (and free local phone calls). Here's the online description:

The aristocratic PALAZZO DEL GRILLO, 17th century, in the very heart of Old Rome OVERLOOKING the archaeological area called the IMPERIAL FORUMS between the Colosseum and Piazza Venezia, is the perfect location for all who want to have one of the great sites of antiquity right outside their windows. The Palazzo del Grillo, decorated by artists of the Bernini School, is a famous example of Roman Rococo architecture. COLISEUM is less than 5 MINUTE WALK from the apartment. Also EASY WALK DISTANCE TO ALL THE MOST IMPORTANT TOURIST SITES. THE APARTMENT: deluxe accommodation for 1-6 persons: 105sq m / 1135sq ft apartment (all modern comforts: dishwasher, washing machine, AIR CON, INTERNET) on second floor with ELEVATOR/LIFT, consists of: the large double LIVING ROOM with dinner area and relax area, 2 BEDROOMS (second bedroom usable as study too), 2 BATHROOMS, KITCHEN. Safe, quiet, easy walk distance public transportations and public garage.

It was a fraction of what two rooms in an equivalent hotel would cost-- or even one room! No, we didn't have the Frette sheets or the fancy towels but with what you save, you can afford to buy them and take them home! And after a few days you start to feel like you're part of the neighborhood and that you're living a normal life, not just a time and space cut-out from reality (which, no doubt, many people prefer).

OK, I know I'm going to give short shrift to Albania now. But let's be real; more people visit Rome in a day or two than Albania in a full year. Most people who do visit go in the summer and hang at the Adriatic beaches. We went in the winter and the beaches we passed, around Durrës on the way inland to Berat (AKA, Berati), looked overdeveloped, commercialized and distinctly unappetizing.

The best hotel in Tirana is the Sheraton. It's a kind of western oasis and makes the inevitable immersion into Albania-- if you plan to leave the capital, which is a MUST-- a little easier. The Sheraton has worldwide centralized booking and they charge too much. But if you book a night through them, you can make a deal with the hotel for further nights based on local rates, which are about half. The hotel is a typical modern business hotel with a great gym and indoor pool, decent rooms, wonderful bathrooms compared to anything else you're going to find in the country, Wifi, etc.

We booked the rest of our trip through Albania Holidays, paying in advance and leaving everything up to them. It couldn't have gone more smoothly. And the hotel rooms out in the country cost around $25-30/night-- so there's plenty of room for errors. We picked what looked like the best and most interesting hotel (mostly bed and breakfasts really) in each town. The one exception was in Fier, an unexpected find that is basically not even mentioned in the tour books but is a prosperous town in the middle of Albania's oil and petrochemical industry. It's kind of the Houston of the country. The Hotel Fier is smack dab in the middle of town and was a real hotel with all the amenities. In Berat and Gjirokaster we stayed, respectively, at the Mangalemi and the Kalemi, each very heavy on the charm, the cultural authenticity and a little light on the amenities. It was well worth the trade-off.

I guess I should mention that the weather is way nicer in Albania than an hour away in Italy, where it was really cold and rained almost every day. Albania is noticeably warmer and less rainy. We liked Gjirokaster best:

Is Rome A Safe City To Visit?

That's a bizarre question and the obvious answer is that it's as safe-- or unsafe-- as New York or London or Paris or Chicago or Bangkok or L.A. No doubt if you look hard enough, you can find trouble anywhere. I only even bring it up because in Rick Steves' Rome 2010 he inexplicably seems to dwell on all the misery that can befall a hapless tourist at the hands of Romans determined to ruin everyone's good time. I guess he's just doing his due diligence when he warns his readers that "[w]ith sweet-talking con artists meeting you at the station, well-dressed pickpockets on buses, and thieving gangs of children at the ancient sites, Rome is a gauntlet of rip-offs. While it is nowhere near as bad as it was a few years ago, and pickpockets don't want to hurt you-- they usually just want your money-- green or sloppy tourists will be scammed. Thieves strike when you're distracted. Don't trust kind strangers. Keep nothing important in your pockets. Be most on guard wen boarding and leaving buses and subways. Thieves crowd the door, then stop and turn while others crowd and push from behind. The sneakiest thieves are well-dressed businessmen (generally with something in their hands); lately many are posing as tourists with fanny packs, cameras, and even Rick Steves guidebooks. Scams abound..."

Jesus, he makes it sound like hell, and especially singles out "groups of city-stained children (just 8-10 years old-- too young to be prosecuted, but old enough to rip you off) troll though the tourist crowds around the Colosseum, Forum, Piazza della Republica, and train and Metro stations." Jeepers, that's my neighborhood. In fact, I spent the day walking around the Colosseum, Forum, Victor Emmanuel Monument, Capitoline Hill, conveniently, the smallest of the 7 hills of Rome. Maybe the gangs of trolling 8-10 year olds only come out in summer. Winter is cold in Rome. There were few tourists and no marauding bands of banditos.

I've felt safe from the moment I arrived. I'm staying in a flat in an old palace, Palazzo del Grillo, built in the 1600s. I'm sitting at my desk on my new MacBook Air and right out the window, literally spitting distance, are the fenced in remote ruins at the back of the Forum (Foro di Nerva I believe). It's an amazing juxtaposition. If there are ghosts-- and I'm sure there are-- they are friendly, or at least pacific. The vibe is tranquil and... safe.

The neighborhood, Monti, is slightly off the beaten track-- the other side of the Forum being where all the action is and all the crowds. In ancient days it was a crowded home to thousands of poor people and brothels. Now the cobbled, winding streets have a special charm, slightly removed from the hectic turmoil of the city around it. A couple of nights ago, I went for a walk the other night and ran across a street party, dozens of people in the street in front of what turned out to be a gallery. Someone invited me in and I was astounded by the exhibition: hundreds of mounted photographs that told the history of Monti from the late 1800's to the present. I spent hours marveling at how the area had changed-- and how it hadn't. There were even pictures of Mussolini and his black-shirted cohorts walking the same streets I was on.

If there is any sense of danger at all, it's that the drivers are all-- every single one of them-- talking, sometimes quite animatedly-- on cell phones or texting. The traffic seems deadly, although when I got out in it today, I noticed that everyone takes care not to hit anyone and they do slow down if you walk boldly into a crosswalk and stare at them. As for violence... well Berlusconi got slammed in the face with a statuette in Milano, not Roma-- and everyone knows how much the Milanese hate Rome, the Romans, and the central government.

I found an organic grocery store not far and went shopping and I've mostly been eating in while I kick my jet lag and wait for my lost/supposedly found luggage. But last night when I was making my way around Monti, I dropped in to a restaurant that is supposed to be impossible without reservations, F.I.S.H., Fine International Seafood House. Indicative of the season, it was nearly empty and I'm getting the idea that everything that usually hard to get into, from the forbidding lines at the Vatican to La Pergola on the roof of the Cavalieri Hilton. Anyway, F.I.S.H. was very hip and chic, with groovy music and an interesting seafood menu that mostly tended towards the pan-Asian. I had a cream of zucchini soup that fantastic, followed by a delicately curried tandoor sea bass that I can't get out of my mind 20 hours later!

After the above bravado about how easy it will be to get into La Pergola, I decided to call and make a reservation for about two weeks from now-- fulled booked then... and every day before then! Tomorrow I'll be braving the lines at the Vatican at 8:30AM.

Now, this is when the area wasn't safe at all:

Preparing For My Trip To Rome-- With Penn And Teller And Sabina Guzzanti

I may have mentioned how I'm planning out a trip to remote, mysterious Albania in a few months. In all honesty, most of the vacation will be spent in Rome eating in places like La Pergola, Roscioli, Quinzi & Gabrieli, Colline Emiliane, and Al Ceppo and wandering around the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, the Castel Sant'Angelo and, of course, the Vatican. Two weeks of that, then Albania; then more Rome. Yesterday, though, Roland, who was raised an atheist and claims to not even know what religion his antecedents were, directed me to a story in the L.A. Times about how Junipero Serra needs just one more miracle and-- BOOM-- he's a saint. It's been 75 years since they've been looking and 22 since he was beatified after being credited with curing a nun in St Louis who had lupus. One place they probably shouldn't look for the second miracle is on the Penn and Teller show, Bullshit!. You, on the other hand, might enjoy it, especially if you're planning a trip to the Vatican-- or even plan to live it vicariously through my reports here.

[This video was originally hosted as a single clip by Vimeo, a company that pulls down videos if anyone says "boo" to them.] LOL! Looks like the Vatican got to YouTube too! OK, I found another copy online. The facsistic Catholic League has been suing to get this episode removed so... watch it while you can: