Sorry… I tried to avoid it but then news like this one appears and I have to revive it.
Please also post news of tourons biten by moose, those are my favourite and usually don’t reach my sphere of influence 
4 Likes
7 Likes
I feel a bit sad that I got to visit some of these places (Prague, Venice, Barcelona) before they were quite so badly over-touristed, but my kids won’t.
What worked for me for visiting 
was to go after a major terrorist attack. It was a little tricky to book, most of the tourists killed were from where I was living at the time. The security forces had held their ground in the firefight, so I figured the calculus was in favour of safety.
We got a really good, knowledgeable tour guide the first day and booked him for the week. We did end up with an army escort for the Abydos and Dendera trip, with a surprisingly senior officer in charge. The captain (?) helpfully assured us that sugar cane had been cleared back from tourist routes to a distance where an AK-47 bullet wouldn’t get through an average car door. Certain areas, we didn’t stop.
We had the Temple of Seti I at Abydos and the Temple of Hathor at Dendera to ourselves.
That’s never going to happen again.
We felt bad for the locals, 6 tourists at a site that’s been a draw for 3000 years.
7 Likes
8 Likes
Having said that. If you want to visit MY (or any) country responsibly my recomendation will be always treating it like visiting a friend (or even better. Make friends there, then visit them!): Be respectful of the boundaries, don’t take anything for granted and leave your entitlement out of the door.
8 Likes
I had a super trip to Florence where I just wandered away from the core and had dinner at a local Trattoria that clearly didn’t get tourists. It was also solidly off-season.
Your assurances are appreciated. At the same time, I’m reminded of an ad I saw for the Toronto Transit Commission, posted over the Allen Expressway: “You aren’t in traffic, you are traffic.”
Perhaps it’s time to accept the wisdom on this poster and dedicate myself to building something crazy enough to become a tourist attraction by itself… 
I wouldn’t be the first in Ontario 
to do that… 
4 Likes
In spain we have the Catedral of Mejorada. Justo entered a monastery in the 40’s but was expelled when he contracted TB, to avoid spreading the contagion among the other members. He recovered in Madrid and returned to his native town in Mejorada del Campo, where he decided to build it’s own place of cult, with or without the permission of the church.
He died in 2021, at the age of 96, his Opus unfinished.
Still, is something different:
8 Likes