The observer’s paradox, in the case of tourism, becomes an even more severe observers’ paradox.  Just by arriving at their destination, tourists alter what they have traveled all this way to see.  One tourist would not evoke such impatience among the locals or produce such an embarrassing reputation.  Somewhere along the way there came a tourist who broke the local’s back.  Tourism is one of those things in which, in theory, everyone wins.  Locals are proud to have their city be the object of interest of people from all over the world, and happy to pocket the effects of this interest, and visitors get to see and touch incredible places.   It’s not the idea of tourism that is so unappealing, it is the pragmatic details that spoil the concept. 

And now all we see are these spoiling details.  Tourism is not associated with interest, fascination, curiosity, amazement and the genuine desire to learn how other people live; it immediately brings to mind trash, cheap souvenirs, fast food, crowds, and lots of people speaking too much English too loud.  Also, tourism often brings to mind the idea of disrespect.  Tourists are guests, and whichever came first, the misbehaving guest or the unwelcoming host, the two parties are not happy to see each other.  And then come the few guests who are ready to behave, to find the ‘real’ soul of the destination beyond the fast food wappers and snow globes.

Infuriatingly enough, the ‘real’ Florence lives just as much in the crowds in front of the Duomo, and the purse vendors that follow them, as it is any hole-in-the-wall trattoria or a villa down a forgotten road.  They are as unwavering as the Duomo.  So what is left to do but to embrace the other tourists at as a sight in themselves?  Rather than resenting them for giving you, with your genuine curiosity and fascination, a bad name, try to see them as, if not as beautiful, as intriguing as the churches and palaces they are standing in front of.