Perhaps I’m the only one who wasn’t paying attention to the complications caused by the European Union. But I’ll admit, I’m surprised.
When we booked our trip to Italy — after receving an unexpected bequest from my husband’s mother — the euro (which had been under a dollar not long before) was trading at about $1.20. By the time we boarded our plane last week, it was $1.55 and rising steadily, which meant we could no longer afford the trip we had planned.
John and I reassessed quickly, eliminating one city and several amenities. The best solution would have been to shorten the trip by two days, thereby cutting out two hotel stays and several meals, but Northwest would have charged us so dearly to make the change, we would have netted a loss. So we forged ahead, eating dinner roughly half the nights in our rooms rather than a restaurant, which in this country certainly is no hardship. . . .
In fact, we had some really lovely meals: fresh bread; prosciutto from the local alimentari; a delicious sharp, soft cheese called tallegio; and the best oranges (nearly all Italian oranges are of what we Americans call the "blood" variety, with bright red fruit) I have ever tasted in my life. In addition, each night we would open a bottle of some local wine that we purchased for about €3.50, or $5.
After a time, John and I began competing in the markets of Italy, a how low can you go sort of game, where each of us would try to find a bottle of something both cheap and remarkable. The best was a Sasso Alto Montepulciano d’Abruzzo 2006 for €2.59 (around $3.90) that we found in a dingy, back-street supermarket in Florence. It was rich and satisfying, a cherry red wine with lots of blackberry and vanilla and dark Tuscan earth. Not complex, but perfect for our middle-of-the-bed picnics. And I have no doubt that when we look back on this trip in the decades to come, it will be those nights we remember most fondly. Food and wine in a small hotel room, oranges so juicy we needed towels to keep the quilt clean, the sounds of city life coming from the darkened porthole window overhead.
Still, we did a fair amount of grumbling at first about how the cost of the euro was eating into our precious vacation fund. The more we tried to economize, however — e.g. ordering primi plates and house wine in restaurants rather than three courses with expensive bottles, as tourists who came before us have routinely done — the more irritated our hosts became. And it wasn’t only us. I could watch the animosity play out between other Americans and our Italian hosts. There has always, I suspect, existed a battle between merchants and travelers: they rely on us financially but resent us for trampling through their country and neglecting to learn their language; we want to take advantage of everything they know and have and sell, yet resent the prices they charge.
In the wake of the European Union and the euro, everything relationship-wise has worsened. Tourists feel cheated even before they land in Florence or Venice or Rome. And businesspeople in this country (where employment owes a whopping 67% to the service and tourism industries) are seeing crowds thin and people spend less. So they’re reasonably defensive and upset.
I thought this was the end of the story — a cultural war that waxes and wanes and happens to be in a peak phase right now — but last night I had a converation that broadened my understanding. We had stopped in a coffee bar and struck up a halting, broken conversation with a very genial barista. At one point, I asked if conversion to the euro had been difficult — meaning, mostly, whether it was tough to recognize the new coins and bills.
But he took it another way entirely.
"Terrible," he told us (and I’m paraphrasing, because some of this was communicated with hand gestures). "Everything in Italy costs twice as much as it did when we had lire."
It turns out [and you probably already know this] that economically powerful countries such as France and Sweden drew in less well-off ones — including Italy and Spain — forcing everyone to adhere to a standard currency that allowed the wealthier Europeans to maintain their quality of life while the poor wound up spending 75-100% more for essentials, such as food, cigarettes (hey, they seem to be essential here. . . .), and gasoline.
The barista explained all this while tossing a 50-cent coin in the air. He looked simply resigned. As for me, I left the coffee bar far less inclined to complain about my lean vacation funds. Also grateful on behalf of working-class Italian people that at least, they need pay only €2.59 for a very good bottle of wine.
Leave a Reply Cancel reply