Alarmingly authentic

Still of Alberto Sordi from "Un Americano a Roma"
(on www.italylogue.com)

The summer holidays are fast approaching, and you've probably already started to think about your next getaway. A trip to a Tibetan monastery, maybe? A boat tour down the Amazon? Everything goes as long as it's not a package tour.

We are travelers, not tourists. Frankly, do we not look down on the latter with derision, on those sheepish sightseers in socks and sandals, cameras dangling from their sweaty, sun-burnt necks? Do we not despise them for pilgrimaging to their precious sights like Muslims to Mecca, for buying all the inexplicable kitsch hawked in gift shops and souvenir booths, for crowding into hotels and restaurants that make them feel like at home, instead of pursuing an authentic cultural experience and getting fully immersed in the culture of their holiday destination? Yes, we do. But after all, they may have a point.  

Here's why: In the course of a trip along Sardinia's southern coast with some friends in September 2011, I stayed for a few days in the island's capital, Cagliari. The city, a Mediterranean gem on the verge of becoming a fashionable jet set destination, immediately won my heart with its cobble-stoned alleys (complete with the ultratraditional laundry lines strung between!) and its shady arcades with their breathtaking view of the azure-blue sea. As for eating out, we couldn't have wished for more: the restaurants were traditional and cozy, the food superb. It really was like being dragged into one of those TV commercials for pasta sauce or frozen pizza, with people sitting at candle-lit tables with red-and-white-chequered tablecloths savoring mouth-watering Italian delicacies. But there was something wrong. 

It didn't feel real. Everything was too perfect, too polished, too programmed. When we finally noticed the complete absence of Italian guests in these supposedly typically Italian restaurants, we realized that we had just stumbled into the very tourist traps we had wanted so badly to avoid (It's a bad sign when you don't know more than three words in the local language but can still understand the conversations of your table neighbors without much strain).

But, why not ask the hostess at our B&B for some insider tips? Luisa seemed trustworthy to us; as a librarian at the University of Cagliari, she was doubtlessly a person of culture and refinement. She would certainly be able to give us some hints for where to find true Italian cuisine. 

So, equipped with a promising adress, we made our way in pleasant anticipation to the alley Luisa had marked on our city map. However, when we arrived, we were slightly irritated. In fact, if it hadn't been for the sign above the entrance, we would never have expected there to be a restaurant behind the shabby grayish facade. But at this point, our optimism was still unshakeable. Never judge a book by its cover, we thought. Maybe this was just a place like you find them in Morocco, where potential pigsties so often turn out to be palaces once you've entered. 

Sadly, it was not. 

The interior was, in the negative sense of the word, simply overwhelming. Passing through a narrow corridor, we entered a shuttered, neon-lit room that was totally empty save for an eclectic collection of chairs and tables and some piles of chipped plaster scattered on the grubby tile floor. The walls, specked with ominous reddish-brown stains, looked as if they had recently witnessed a shooting (my mind was already running off into Hollywood reveries: I was half expecting Vito Corleone to enter the room). In a futile effort to make the room look less like a morgue (or maybe to cover one particularly vile-looking stain), someone had hung a Van Gogh art print into one corner, but its colors had by now faded to a sickly yellow.

The scenario was so bizarre that we could hardly avert our eyes from it--when we finally did, it was too late. We were just about to take to our heels when a waitress appeared out of the corridor's dim twilight and cut off our escape route. Before we could raise any objections, she had already pushed us to a table and smacked the menu down in front of us. What followed, to cut the matter short, was probably the most horrible dining experience in my life: While we were forcing down a disastrous meal--limp ravioli and dubious lumps of fish that we were finally able to identify as tuna, all drowned in a deluge of slimy tomato sauce--we started thinking about what we could have done that Luisa would hate us so much. 

However, the weird thing was that the place was soon bulging with people. Believe it or not--in no time we were surrounded by cheerful Italian families who were laughing and drinking and feasting like they were at a Roman orgy. And we were the only foreigners in there. 

It's hard to say what particular lesson I learned from this experience. Should I give up my quest for cultural immersion from now on? Do people really want to know the truth behind the glossy surface of travel brochures? Why strive for authenticity, if an authentic cultural experience could turn out to be so ugly? For sure, it's definitely safer for body and mind to remain securely within the artificial candy-colored tourist idyll, where everything is custom-fitted to our needs. But probably a lot more boring. I bet you wouldn't have read this post all the way to the end if I had kept going on about how wonderfully picturesque the city and how delicious the food was. See?