Forget "The City of Falling Angels." This is the City of French Tourists.
I would say that a full 75% of the foreign tourists in Venice are French (the rest we've seen are German, English and Americans, with our compatriots very light on the ground.)
The French make wonderful tourists. Well-dressed, quiet and well-mannered, they stroll gingerly down the streets, step respectfully to the side in the vaporetto and carefully tutor their adorable, well-dressed, attentive and perfectly-behaved children in the intricacies of Venetian architecture, painting and culture.
We've actually had more conversations with tourists in French than in English or Italian, and we're always met with surprise that we speak French.
Image a city where none of the tourists wear short pants or sunglasses with Croakies, flip-flops are verboten, no one talks above a conversational level or screams into a cellphone, there's no public drunkenness and most of the visitors have arranged a beautiful silk scarf in a cunning way somewhere on their person.
Vacation heaven!
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I was actually reading a study recently that said the French are the worst tourists according to other Europeans! Apparently they rarely try to learn the local language and expect you to speak French to them. It also said Americans are not so bad because we get much less vacation time and tend to tip nicely, vs. French vacationeers who must budget money over time more carefully. I guess Americans also try to learn local languages. Strange, eh?
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