Musing: on tourism

A discussion on tourism with a friend:    It seems that different places and the time (year, season, etc) one visits make a difference.  Florence was awash in tourists in 2000 but the city seemed to "rise above it." It seemed comfortable with itself even glorying in all the tourists.    Same with Giverny both times I visited. The gardens seemed to arise above the hoards of us visiting and you could still delight in them.    Amsterdam in 2010 seemed to be itself from what we could tell, even with lots of tourists.  Maybe because we were all in it together dealing with the cold (it was very cold for May) and a humongous garbage strike.   Bruges, however, in 2010, seemed to have sold its soul to tourism.  I almost cried with disappointment at being confronted literally with  shop after shop after shop of lace and chocolate in the main square of the old city...all geared to tourism, as if all you do as tourists is buy stuff.   The same in Delft in the Netherlands...shop after shop just geared to the tourist trade. In a way Las Vegas was different....American...the Strip was built solely for tourist experience from pretty much nothing....like Disneyland.  But I felt that Delft and Bruges had somehow morphed from being real towns to being just tourist centers and not for the better (from my p.o.v.).....though we tourists certainly provided jobs and money by our being in these old places.    The same with some parts of Barcelona...Las Ramblas...was given over almost entirely to tourists except when local folks were celebrating their futbol victories for the Spanish championship. So different from when I lived there many years before.   It may be that B. and I were too fatigued and too cautious to go deeper when we were in Europe.  We will try one more time in Paris in the near future.  It will be our beyond Rick Steves trip and I hope I can do better in French than I did in Italian in 2000.  I am glad you had such a good experience in Costa Rica.  From all I've read it is a very welcoming place. And a beautiful place..un pais muy simpatico.    And you are right...part of it is that you take expectations into the experience.  Because I had lived in Europe for half a year in 1966...in Barcelona with several visits to Paris and one week in Kent with my English friend at her home, I have always have those memories and experiences with me and they have colored the subsequent traveling I have done..that I feel so very fortunate and lucky to have been able to do, thanks mostly to B.