[dmje]

We visited Florence over the summer. It was a total shitshow. I’ve never seen anything like it: hoards and hoards of people just looking at their phones / taking selfies / not engaging at all with the actual art or majesty around them. The queue for the Duomo was maybe 4 hours. Everyone in the queue was on their phone. We didn’t wait. The Uffizi was appalling - rammed busy, everyone running into a room to snap a pic of Venus or do some utterly bizarre selfie thing which required weird poses, those involved totally unaware at the disruption they were causing. No moments of engaging with the art, no reading the labels or soaking it up, just a completely bizarre “check the box, I was there” thing going on with - I presume - Insta or whatever the equivalent is. Outside the centre things were a little better but not much. We escaped to Bologna as soon as we could and that was a whole world apart.

My point: I’m not sure “travel” as I understand it (educational, beautiful, soaking up of local culture, taking time to stand and understand as much as possible) is the same as the “travel” that others understand it.