italiansreclaimingitaly:

Hello and thanks for writing! I mostly feel angry whenever I read about travelogues like that. We discussed a couple of similar instances here and here last year and I think it’s mainly disrespectful and a wasted opportunity to actually create bridges between different cultures. Today we’ve been arguing on Twitter over another article (I won’t link to it because they don’t deserve the views, since it’s pretty clear they’re using it as clickbait) about an American who stayed for one year in Genova and wrote a list of impressions that generalizes his single experience to the whole country and says completely false things. The thing I hate the most about this “genre” is that approaching a different culture is never seen as an opportunity to learn, but only to judge like: “We do this different and thus inherently better and God forbid I even bother to understand why you do it like that, you silly uncivilized kids”. That’s the worst attitude one could ever have towards a different set of rules and traditions. And let’s not even mention how most of the times they either keep up with stereotypes from 50 years ago or act surprised when they see those stereotypes that are meant to make us look ancient prove to be completely false.

That said, if anyone knows of a good travelogue about Italy that doesn’t follow this wretched path of disrespect, please recommend them to us!