Japanese, it seems, especially often. They are often intercepted by illegal taxi drivers when they arrive at Rome's Fiumicino Airport. The ride to the center then costs not the usual 48 euros, but slightly more than twice and sometimes much more.
Most Japanese people can not read the signs, they can not understand the language and most of all they can not imagine how honorable and shameless they can be plundered in Europe.
- When you get off at the Roma Termini train station on bus number 64, which will take you to the Vatican, you will be preferred during the trip by traveling, truly capable thieves.
- At the finish, they fall for ticket vendors who turn over their overpriced Biglietti for the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican Museums or St. Peter's Dome.
- And then they fall under all the good and honest bars and restaurants in the area on, say, rather problematic establishment purely.
Such a case was just going through the media across Europe, provoking intense reactions. "Tourists had to pay 430 euros for two plates of spaghetti", the British newspaper "Independent" wrote an article after a Japanese couple had uploaded a receipt on the platform TripAdvisor, on which guests can also rate the relevant restaurant Antico Caffé di Marte.
Many have been doing this for a long time - and usually very negatively. One wrote in June 2019, "Worst restaurant ... tourist rip-off", another warned in the year before: "Pasta was disgusting". In 2017, a Swiss guest wrote: "The worst restaurant I've ever been in. Avoid this restaurant!" And that's why the Etablissement of the 10,423 restaurants in Rome on the platform TripAdvisor is only ranked 9764.
However, it finds customers, the unsuspecting Japanese couple for example. That came, ate and was skimmed off. Although not quite as it represented the "Independent" and other media after him: It had eaten in addition to the pasta and two servings of grilled fresh fish and their price, the restaurant owner, is clearly on the menu: 6.50 euros per 100 grams. This was on the bill ever 315 euros. Well, if the two have eaten after the noodles still lush 4.8 kilos of fish, that's true. In addition there were drinks and the "Mancia" - which stands with 80 euros on the receipt. "Mancia" means tip and that they had voluntarily "donated", says the lawyer of the Restaurateurs, according to the Internet newspaper "RomaToday". So come just 429.80 euros for a lunch together.
Four times steak and seafood: 1143 euros
But the Antico Caffé di Marte is not the only one that is rated as negative by guests. Over 600 would have, according to the ranking of TripAdvisor, an even worse value for money. And that could well be: So conceded, according to the "Corriere della Sera", a bar on the Viale Vaticano for two hamburgers 50 euros and for a double Caffé Americano eight euros, other bars take tourists for the small espresso five euros and for the Can of Coke six euros off and so on.
Of course, such a rip-off is not limited to Rome, a Spritz in a bar in Milan wants to be paid even with the absurd price of 15 euros. In Florence, an ice cream parlor for an ice cream in a croissant collects 10 euros.
And in Venice, already last year, a gross case of tourist rip-off was talked about.
Four Japanese ate steaks and fried seafood in the restaurant Osteria da Luca, drank water - and had to pay 1143 euros. This angered not only the Japanese students who, barely back at their place of study Bologna, the case with the police indicated. The Venetian civic association and the mayor of the lagoon city, Luigi Brugnaro, also demanded to clarify the case. "If this shameful event were to prove itself," Brugnaro tweeted, "we'll do everything possible to punish those responsible." But his local government quickly realized that in order to punish excessive prices or wrongly issued invoices, they lack the competence. That would be a matter for the judiciary. And that is very, very slow in "Bella Italia"
Andrea Ronchini / NurPhoto / Getty Images
Tourists in Rome: Now a fortifying carbohydrate! However lurking in relevant restaurants the rip-off
The biggest rip-off
Maybe an entry in the Tripadvisor fund got the Venetians thinking of the good idea, which you can do anyway. Because under the heading "Rip off for lunch", a guest had already set his warning there in October 2017: "The biggest rip-off we have ever experienced ... Toilet completely filthy, without toilet paper, six people simple lunch, 1 Gear, over 400 euros ".
So the municipal police went to the expensive Osteria and checked compliance with hygiene, fire and other regulations in the kitchen, storage and toilets. Because unfortunately some things were not okay, should the Osteria boss now pay a fine of 9000 euros. But you still argue about that.
Also in Rome, the municipality now chooses this way to get to the controversial café operators. The city policemen come, measure and issue penalties: because the tables and chairs of the Antico di Marte caffè are sometimes illegally on urban land. In the short term, the store was therefore closed, now the dispute is about the amount of the penalty.
Sometimes they are also victims
Of course, not only Japanese are affected by tourist Nepping, also Danes, Germans, tourists from all over the world. And certainly only very few bars and restaurants are out to beat their customers. Most of them are honest - also in Rome and in Venice, everywhere in Italy and probably all over the world - and are happy about satisfied customers.
Sometimes they too are the victims. For example, in a restaurant in Val di Vara, on the edge of the Cinque Terre area, a woman ordered a table for ten people by phone on the grandfather's birthday. The drink but only the French Pays doc Reserve wine. The landlord warned that it would not be easy to get the wine. So the woman gave him the phone number of her supplier. The innkeeper ordered six bottles, the supplier came, brought six bottles, cashed 480 euros plus VAT in cash and disappeared. Who did not come was the party of celebration.
Oh, and the wine was from the supermarket - for 2.50 euros per bottle.