Wow, don’t think I realized you live in Prague! My wife and I have been here for three days, flying out tomorrow. Gorgeous here for sure, but these dickheads with the graffiti, what the actual fuck!! The graffiti was terrible in Vienna too, much worse than here.
Five years ago my wife and I walked one of the camino routes in Spain. Thankfully we’d been warned about what would happen once we got the town of Melide, about 100 km from Santiago. We knew that it would get much more crowded because if you walk the last 100 km of the pilgrim route you get your compostella (like a certificate of achievement essentially). What I wasn’t prepared for was what the animals were doing to the trail: grafiti everywhere, literally ripping off the clay tiles on way markers to take home as souvenirs, littering everywhere. It was disgusting. I just don’t get it with these people.
What a crazy coincidence! Had I known you were in town, I would've suggested meeting for a coffee or a delicious Czech beer. Hopefully we'll find ourselves in the same city again some time.
You're right about the graffiti. I've also lived in Athens and Budapest, and both of those cities are covered in it as well.
I had no idea about the shocking state of the pilgrim route, though I can't say I'm all that surprised. The nerve of these vandals is infuriating.
Very sad. But again, there is no real pain, right? You get caught, you get a slap on the wrist. No clean-up duty. As I said earlier, we worry too much about self-esteem and say 'little Peter you shouldn't do that'.... But that's it.
I have often wondered if we can put micro+bots in spray paint, so you can track the buyer, and have spraypaint sales only over 18 and you match the can to a driver's license or ID. Yes, it is Big Brother, but seriously, if you have nothing to worry about, you wouldn't care, right?
Not a fan of vigilante justice, but your point is well taken. Penalties do not match the crime. We aren't even allowed to give offenders a bracelet and have them go out with a bucket and brush to clean up their mess. It might hurt their self-esteem.
It is too cheap to get to Prague. Too cheap to get to most European hot spots thanks to discount airlines and hotel- and Airbnb deals that make it cheaper to go to another city than stay at home and hang at the pub.
I can think of a couple of things: Make it expensive. Really expensive. Bhutan requires you to to spend a certain amount of money each day, and hotels and food are expensive. Cities in Europe are wringing their hands over city taxes. Venice's day rate is stupid low. Charge 50 EURO a day in city tax, and require that the visitors stay in hotels that charge properly. Make Airbnbs illegal. As a bonus, locals could then afford the rent and live in the city.
We have all the tools. We know how to do this. We just choose not to because we will be seen as elitist. People have rights......? Really? Bob and Mary have a right to spend 100 bucks for a flight and an Airbnb in Prague? Set a minimum price for flights. Set a floor for hotel rooms. Make people save up to go on vacation and not randomly take off on a spontaneous weekend piss-up.
Oh, and ban black hoodies after dark, they are not photogenic, but that is for another day ;0)
This piece is a great start for my day. I agree with you 150%. We’ve had idiots destroying monuments in this country for awhile, quite often in the name of “wokeness”. If anything you’re much too easy on them.
Glad to hear it, Daniel! I can put up with a lot from tourists (I sort of have to, given where I live). But there’s no excuse for vandalism, and it always pisses me off.
Hi Sonny. First of all, I am sorry for what you are living with, your city being inundated. I can relate to this. I lived in Victoria for 30 years and tourist season was never anything any local looked forward to (we were at least somewhat fortunate in that most of Canadian tourism happens in summer and fall rather than year round. I took alternate routes to work to avoid the worst of the crush of humans zig zagging all over the sidewalks and getting in everyone's way. We traveled in the UK in 2022, and I traveled previously in other parts of Europe and I do remember, with considerable sadness, the ubiquity of graffiti (it was particularly bad in Rome and Scotland). The only place in England that seemed unscathed was York. It would be very difficult to grapple with what you have to cope with year round. I am going to sound like an old fogey here, but I do believe that there has been a decline in civil/polite behavior by humans in public spaces. And it is particularly heinous when the people are visiting and, thereby have no investment or respect for a place where people reside and work. We left Victoria in March of this year because Victoria, once a pristine, clean and quiet city, is now dirty, strewn with litter, crime ridden, noisy at all hours, and, an unfortunate spike in population has made the sidewalks crowded with grumpy people with pinched faces, monopolizing pedestrian areas. It is no longer a pleasant city to walk in. At least, in Vancouver, people have a modicum of sidewalk ettiquette, people hue to one side, foot traffic can move. For some weird reason, in Victoria, people meander every which way, this made me apoplectic as a lifelong perambulator. I have always been a person who yields to someone coming the opposite direction and SHARES the sidewalk, rather than hogging it. People also behave abominably on public transit (I took the bus to work for decades) in ways they did not previously. I thought I'd be an urbanite all my life, but it turns out I like living just outside a smaller town. Perhaps this is partly due to my age. I got tired of hearing drunken brawls at night. The last straw for us of urban living was when we witnessed the aftermath of a terrible domestic assault in our building. Sadly, domestic assault happens everywhere, it isn't relegated to cities, but at least we live in a place now where we don't have to walk past some jerk who beats his partner. Those rather grim aspects of living congruently with others got to us. I understand why locals in countries bombarded by inconsiderate tourists are fighting back. Another incident that was distressing in Vancouver. When the Canucks made it to the Stanley Cup, but did not win, people rioted (most of those people were assholes that lived in Surrey and Burnaby and Abbotsford, NOT LOCALS) and broke windows and overturned cars and did a shit ton of damage. There is this dichotomy between people INVESTED in where they live and those who have no consideration, who behave like animals. I wish I had an answer on how we can resolve this. I feel your sadness acutely and keenly. I hope locals will rise up so that governments can have a zero tolerance policy for this B.S.
I have to say I never would have imagined that a Jim Varney character would collide in the same sentence as The Coliseum... but it worked as I have often wondered that myself.
Wow, don’t think I realized you live in Prague! My wife and I have been here for three days, flying out tomorrow. Gorgeous here for sure, but these dickheads with the graffiti, what the actual fuck!! The graffiti was terrible in Vienna too, much worse than here.
Five years ago my wife and I walked one of the camino routes in Spain. Thankfully we’d been warned about what would happen once we got the town of Melide, about 100 km from Santiago. We knew that it would get much more crowded because if you walk the last 100 km of the pilgrim route you get your compostella (like a certificate of achievement essentially). What I wasn’t prepared for was what the animals were doing to the trail: grafiti everywhere, literally ripping off the clay tiles on way markers to take home as souvenirs, littering everywhere. It was disgusting. I just don’t get it with these people.
/end rant
What a crazy coincidence! Had I known you were in town, I would've suggested meeting for a coffee or a delicious Czech beer. Hopefully we'll find ourselves in the same city again some time.
You're right about the graffiti. I've also lived in Athens and Budapest, and both of those cities are covered in it as well.
I had no idea about the shocking state of the pilgrim route, though I can't say I'm all that surprised. The nerve of these vandals is infuriating.
Yeah, I’m sorry I found out so late. I’m sure we’ll be back to Prague one day, will reach out if/when we do
Very sad. But again, there is no real pain, right? You get caught, you get a slap on the wrist. No clean-up duty. As I said earlier, we worry too much about self-esteem and say 'little Peter you shouldn't do that'.... But that's it.
I have often wondered if we can put micro+bots in spray paint, so you can track the buyer, and have spraypaint sales only over 18 and you match the can to a driver's license or ID. Yes, it is Big Brother, but seriously, if you have nothing to worry about, you wouldn't care, right?
Not a fan of vigilante justice, but your point is well taken. Penalties do not match the crime. We aren't even allowed to give offenders a bracelet and have them go out with a bucket and brush to clean up their mess. It might hurt their self-esteem.
It is too cheap to get to Prague. Too cheap to get to most European hot spots thanks to discount airlines and hotel- and Airbnb deals that make it cheaper to go to another city than stay at home and hang at the pub.
I can think of a couple of things: Make it expensive. Really expensive. Bhutan requires you to to spend a certain amount of money each day, and hotels and food are expensive. Cities in Europe are wringing their hands over city taxes. Venice's day rate is stupid low. Charge 50 EURO a day in city tax, and require that the visitors stay in hotels that charge properly. Make Airbnbs illegal. As a bonus, locals could then afford the rent and live in the city.
We have all the tools. We know how to do this. We just choose not to because we will be seen as elitist. People have rights......? Really? Bob and Mary have a right to spend 100 bucks for a flight and an Airbnb in Prague? Set a minimum price for flights. Set a floor for hotel rooms. Make people save up to go on vacation and not randomly take off on a spontaneous weekend piss-up.
Oh, and ban black hoodies after dark, they are not photogenic, but that is for another day ;0)
If they ban black hoodies, I'll have to replace about half of my closet. :)
Ahhh, you keep them for the daytime. They just don't work well on CCTV after dark. There is a price to pay for beauty 😃
This piece is a great start for my day. I agree with you 150%. We’ve had idiots destroying monuments in this country for awhile, quite often in the name of “wokeness”. If anything you’re much too easy on them.
Glad to hear it, Daniel! I can put up with a lot from tourists (I sort of have to, given where I live). But there’s no excuse for vandalism, and it always pisses me off.
The way you wrote it had me in stitches but the vandalism itself isn’t funny.
Thank you, Daniel. Now you made my day. :)
🙂
Hi Sonny. First of all, I am sorry for what you are living with, your city being inundated. I can relate to this. I lived in Victoria for 30 years and tourist season was never anything any local looked forward to (we were at least somewhat fortunate in that most of Canadian tourism happens in summer and fall rather than year round. I took alternate routes to work to avoid the worst of the crush of humans zig zagging all over the sidewalks and getting in everyone's way. We traveled in the UK in 2022, and I traveled previously in other parts of Europe and I do remember, with considerable sadness, the ubiquity of graffiti (it was particularly bad in Rome and Scotland). The only place in England that seemed unscathed was York. It would be very difficult to grapple with what you have to cope with year round. I am going to sound like an old fogey here, but I do believe that there has been a decline in civil/polite behavior by humans in public spaces. And it is particularly heinous when the people are visiting and, thereby have no investment or respect for a place where people reside and work. We left Victoria in March of this year because Victoria, once a pristine, clean and quiet city, is now dirty, strewn with litter, crime ridden, noisy at all hours, and, an unfortunate spike in population has made the sidewalks crowded with grumpy people with pinched faces, monopolizing pedestrian areas. It is no longer a pleasant city to walk in. At least, in Vancouver, people have a modicum of sidewalk ettiquette, people hue to one side, foot traffic can move. For some weird reason, in Victoria, people meander every which way, this made me apoplectic as a lifelong perambulator. I have always been a person who yields to someone coming the opposite direction and SHARES the sidewalk, rather than hogging it. People also behave abominably on public transit (I took the bus to work for decades) in ways they did not previously. I thought I'd be an urbanite all my life, but it turns out I like living just outside a smaller town. Perhaps this is partly due to my age. I got tired of hearing drunken brawls at night. The last straw for us of urban living was when we witnessed the aftermath of a terrible domestic assault in our building. Sadly, domestic assault happens everywhere, it isn't relegated to cities, but at least we live in a place now where we don't have to walk past some jerk who beats his partner. Those rather grim aspects of living congruently with others got to us. I understand why locals in countries bombarded by inconsiderate tourists are fighting back. Another incident that was distressing in Vancouver. When the Canucks made it to the Stanley Cup, but did not win, people rioted (most of those people were assholes that lived in Surrey and Burnaby and Abbotsford, NOT LOCALS) and broke windows and overturned cars and did a shit ton of damage. There is this dichotomy between people INVESTED in where they live and those who have no consideration, who behave like animals. I wish I had an answer on how we can resolve this. I feel your sadness acutely and keenly. I hope locals will rise up so that governments can have a zero tolerance policy for this B.S.
I have to say I never would have imagined that a Jim Varney character would collide in the same sentence as The Coliseum... but it worked as I have often wondered that myself.