Recap of one of my favourite tours yet
Feb. 28th, 2018 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vinceconawayLast week I mentioned on social media that this most-recent Italy tour was one of my favourites since the first, and that I was excited to know that I could still be learning new things after so many tours over the past twelve years.
That was in large part a deliberate process. The first few tours, 2006-2010, laid the foundations that I’ve been using ever since. In those earliest tours, especially, I was discovering the rules of various cities by trial and error. Later, my Italian was good enough to do research on the regulations of individual cities. Still, for many years I’ve held a lot of cities off my list because of a bad first impression.
Since 2016 I’ve been working to revisit some of those places. In the last decade, I’ve been sad to see that many cities that have been very good to me over the years have passed regulations that make busking problematic (I’m looking at you Padova, Bologna, Brescia, and Ravenna). I was becoming discouraged until I realized that change didn’t have to be in one direction only, and that places I didn’t like to busk could become more amenable just as easily as amenable places could become less so.
In this spirit of experimentation, I began revisiting old failures. My first breakthrough came in Prato, in 2016, where I won my first argument with a cop when I brandished the local regulations in PDF format, saved onto my phone (my karma would balance later that tour, when a policewoman in Perugia would acknowledge my correctness on the local rules and banish me anyway). In 2017 I continued the trend, and in 2018 I broadened it.
For example, upon my first visit in 2008 I had not had good success in Bari. I hadn’t found lodging that I liked; the single hotel in my price range was at the very top of that range and wasn’t worth the money. Additionally, the city was crowded with buskers and the pedestrian area was kind of seedy.
I did enjoy myself, though, and so in 2016 I went back as a tourist for two days when I was performing in the area. What I saw impressed me, and I decided to give the city a second chance. As luck would have it, Bari busking a few weeks ago was stellar, and I’m excited to try it again!
Other than Bari, I hadn’t been back to Lecce since the city passed a new busking ordinance in 2013. Upon review, however, I decided that I could work within the new framework and so I returned to an old favourite. Similarly, although I’ve always enjoyed the most liberal regulatory scheme I’ve ever run across in Naples, it had been several years since my return since the city has tended to exhaust me. I came up with some ideas to prevent that, and made a triumphant return (although hampered by the weather) and found myself merely fatigued by the scale of the city and the intensity of its residents.
In addition to revisiting, of course, I’ve continued to try new cities in order to expand the map. I played Martina Franca for the first time, and while it wasn’t particularly impressive on this go-around I did have fun and I think it could have some serious potential on a future weekend. I intended to play Caserta but bad weather intervened, meaning I’ll have to go back again another time. And, of course, I played tourist on my days off, day tripping to four places I’d never seen before (Otranto, San Severo, Alberobello, and Capri) and spent an additional day visiting Pompeii for the first time since my thirtieth birthday almost twelve years ago.
Enough things came together professionally, helped along by my solid performance anchors of Foggia and Taranto, that it was a financially successful tour as well as being personally fulfilling. While it wasn’t a walk in the part, especially considering the rain I had to dodge all week in Naples that turned into a snow storm that paralyzed southern Italy’s train system, I had an amazing experience overall. It was truly one of my favourite trips!
That was in large part a deliberate process. The first few tours, 2006-2010, laid the foundations that I’ve been using ever since. In those earliest tours, especially, I was discovering the rules of various cities by trial and error. Later, my Italian was good enough to do research on the regulations of individual cities. Still, for many years I’ve held a lot of cities off my list because of a bad first impression.
Since 2016 I’ve been working to revisit some of those places. In the last decade, I’ve been sad to see that many cities that have been very good to me over the years have passed regulations that make busking problematic (I’m looking at you Padova, Bologna, Brescia, and Ravenna). I was becoming discouraged until I realized that change didn’t have to be in one direction only, and that places I didn’t like to busk could become more amenable just as easily as amenable places could become less so.
In this spirit of experimentation, I began revisiting old failures. My first breakthrough came in Prato, in 2016, where I won my first argument with a cop when I brandished the local regulations in PDF format, saved onto my phone (my karma would balance later that tour, when a policewoman in Perugia would acknowledge my correctness on the local rules and banish me anyway). In 2017 I continued the trend, and in 2018 I broadened it.
For example, upon my first visit in 2008 I had not had good success in Bari. I hadn’t found lodging that I liked; the single hotel in my price range was at the very top of that range and wasn’t worth the money. Additionally, the city was crowded with buskers and the pedestrian area was kind of seedy.
I did enjoy myself, though, and so in 2016 I went back as a tourist for two days when I was performing in the area. What I saw impressed me, and I decided to give the city a second chance. As luck would have it, Bari busking a few weeks ago was stellar, and I’m excited to try it again!
Other than Bari, I hadn’t been back to Lecce since the city passed a new busking ordinance in 2013. Upon review, however, I decided that I could work within the new framework and so I returned to an old favourite. Similarly, although I’ve always enjoyed the most liberal regulatory scheme I’ve ever run across in Naples, it had been several years since my return since the city has tended to exhaust me. I came up with some ideas to prevent that, and made a triumphant return (although hampered by the weather) and found myself merely fatigued by the scale of the city and the intensity of its residents.
In addition to revisiting, of course, I’ve continued to try new cities in order to expand the map. I played Martina Franca for the first time, and while it wasn’t particularly impressive on this go-around I did have fun and I think it could have some serious potential on a future weekend. I intended to play Caserta but bad weather intervened, meaning I’ll have to go back again another time. And, of course, I played tourist on my days off, day tripping to four places I’d never seen before (Otranto, San Severo, Alberobello, and Capri) and spent an additional day visiting Pompeii for the first time since my thirtieth birthday almost twelve years ago.
Enough things came together professionally, helped along by my solid performance anchors of Foggia and Taranto, that it was a financially successful tour as well as being personally fulfilling. While it wasn’t a walk in the part, especially considering the rain I had to dodge all week in Naples that turned into a snow storm that paralyzed southern Italy’s train system, I had an amazing experience overall. It was truly one of my favourite trips!
