The great tourist cities like London and Paris and Rome and countless others are so tremendously well-suited to tourism that it’s sometimes easy to forget that they’re also cities. People live there and work there and use the same mass transport to get from home to work and back that you use to get to Disneyland or the Tower of London.

Which brings us to the ticket booth. In most cities in most train and bus and metro stations the role of the ticket booth is to sell tickets. Sometimes, and only sometimes, an exchange of information can smooth the transaction — say there’s a subtle price distinction between a weekend pass and individual tickets. And that’s it. It’s not a tourist information booth. It looks a lot like a tourist information booth and there’s a good chance that the individual behind the bulletproof glass has picked up by pure osmosis over the years the information you’re after and hell, he doesn’t care, sure he’ll join you in speculating about the most scenic approach to Mt. St. Michel or if your flight’s likely to depart on schedule, he gets paid the same either way.

But the rest of us behind you in line need to get to work. I know you think that we’re just impatient to ask our own stupid questions the answers to which we could have easily and much more fruitfully googled on our phones in the time you took to fail to say “can you recommend a good vegan restaurant” in French but in fact we just want to renew our metro passes and go on about our day.

Here’s a hint. If it says “tickets” or “billets” or “biglietti” or some variation of that, it sells tickets. Stick to that. If you can’t make out what it says, assume that it says tickets and again, stick to that. If it says “tickets/information” I confess this is a grey area but remember the context — it’s tickets or it’s information about tickets. Do not ask the guy beneath the “tickets/information” sign if the weather’s appropriate for a day trip to Rimini.

And for the sake of all of us and those of us to come do not, under any circumstances, joke with the ticket vendor. He’s busy, I’m waiting, you don’t share a maternal first language nor, probably, a sense of humour and you’re communicating through a telecoms system installed in the age of disco. It should be obvious to anyone that this matrix of conditions demands only the most concise needs communicated in your sparsest Globish and yet I can’t believe how many times I have to endure something like:

“Two child tickets please”
“I’m sorry?”
“Two child tickets. We’d like two child tickets.”
“For you? Child tickets are for children under 12. There is the student pass but for this you need a student ID.”
“Ha ha. No. Just kidding. Two tickets please”.
“Student tickets? Do you have a student ID?”
“Uhm. No. We’re in our sixties. We’re not students. It was a joke.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I said it was a joke. I WAS JUST KIDDING.”
“I don’t understand”
“Can we just have two tickets, please. Just two standard tickets”
“Yes sir. €2.60”
“Cheers.”
“I’m sorry?”

The tube in London carries over 3.5 million passenger journeys per day. Per day. That’s a lot but no match for Paris’ 4.5 million. Moving the population of a large American city over the course of 24 hours is a logistical balancing act on a par with a satellite launch — a daily satellite launch — and it requires the cooperation of everyone.

So when you stop to have a good look around at the top of a packed escalator you’re causing a chain reaction that will ruin the day for 2000 people for every second you stand there taking in the scenery. If you can’t remember to stand on the right of the escalator and walk on the left, stay off the escalators. And do not under any circumstances confuse the ticket booth for a travel agency.

Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris sadly remains one of the few places in the world where you can view barely post-pubescent hipsters vandalising trees in memory of a musician none of them could possibly be old enough to appreciate.

So by all means visit Jim Morrison’s messy, teenage tourist draw, but if you limit your visit to Père Lachaise to observing sophomoric pretension in the wild then you’re cheating yourself. There are literally hundreds of other little interactions between the living and dead in this intricate archive of the history of Paris and the people who died here:

Morrison’s shrine was more interesting years ago when there was a concrete bust on which you could read the musings of fans of The Doors who apparently express themselves most genuinely in verbatim excerpts of their lyrics. That’s been since stolen, replaced, and stolen but that’s okay because there are still walls, a nearby tree and the tombstones of others’ loved ones on which to read “see you on the other side, Jim” and “Can you show me the way to the next whiskey bar” as many times as you fancy.

As deliberately unoriginal as is the vandalism by Jim Morrison’s solemn body of mourners, it’s still somehow an improvement over the pensées obscuring the view of Oscar Wilde’s predictably fabulous memorial. A monument which looks, incidentally, much more jolly than a tombstone and more like it ought be to over the entrance to a very happening nightclub that doesn’t open until none-of-your-business. Nowadays Wilde’s tomb is surrounded by a high plexiglass wall so there’s relatively little tagging directly on the marble. In fact, the wall was erected less to discourage tagging as kissing because, apparently, the tremendous amount of lipstick residue built up by the cult tradition of embracing this particular tomb was causing the marble to decay. No, I don’t believe that either.

So if you want to leave your notions for others to read you’ll need to tape them to the plexiglass or carve them into it. Please give this a little thought, though, and maybe read some of the snippets of poetry and free-form twaddle left by others and ask yourself if you really, really have something to say that merits a reading by those paying their respects to one of the greatest masters of the English language from the last 100 years.

Practice instead the modest discretion of visitors to the grave of Edith Piaf. If they leave anything at all it’s a simple and biodegradable rose. If you do that then thank you because a fresh rose on the tomb of the singular talent behind La Vie en Rose communicates a far more beautiful and durable message to those who follow than, say, vandalising her headstone.

If you must leave a written thought for Edith do what others do and put it in an envelope and leave it at her feet or between her grave and that of her daughter, Marcelle, who died at the age of two. She’ll get to it. Apparently these are largely love letters or requests for advice from people who clearly don’t know a lot about Edith Piaf and her infamously poor judgement.

The tomb of Victor Noir enjoys a different sort of interaction altogether with visitors who mostly have no idea who he is. It turns out that he wasn’t really anyone, particularly, and his single claim to any sort of fame came at literally the last moment of his life, shot to death by a nephew of Napoleon I when the common journalist objected to the prince treating him as a prince would a common journalist.

His murder became a flashpoint for republican sensibilities in France and among reformers his funeral became the event at which everyone claimed to have been. Consequently, his monument at Père Lachaise is more of a memorial of an injustice and is a particularly realistic representation of Noir as he fell, sprawled on his back, his hat at his side and, for whatever reason, a noticeable erection. Entirely unrelated to anything to do with republicanism or egalitarianism or justice or even Victor Noir, the custom has developed among women hoping for husbands or fertility to offer him a flower, possibly give him a kiss but above all give his junk a rub. The action that Noir’s seen since his death has worn that not insignificant bit of the bronze statue to a shiny finish.

More moving is the inescapably one-sided gestures offered by the living to the less famous deceased. Père Lachaise itself is in a very real way a city of the dead. There are streets with names and in a manner of speaking addresses. It’s a crowded development and each unit intrudes onto the property-line of the next but no two are the same and they have vastly differing ages and states of repair and people who remember them.

The fresh flowers and cards and, in some heartbreaking cases, toys, are appreciably more meaningful and, obviously, tasteful, than the desecration reserved for the famous. The decaying flowers and cracked headstones and rotted bibles are more meaningful still. It’s all touching and beautiful and I urge you to go and respectfully appreciate Père Lachaise Cemetary and the antics of those who don’t.

Last week I started a guide to European Gypsy street theatre that turned into too much funny for one blog so this is part two.

And by street theatre of course I mean the complex dance of swindler and victim, predator and prey, gypsy and tourist. I’m not writing this as a warning because if you need to be warned about these overt and comically incompetent scams then it follows that you can’t read. This is for those of you who view these practices as you should – entertainment.

Previously we discussed Three Card Monty and the Petition Scam. Fine classics that never fail to please. These are ensemble pieces, though, and hence often a little too over-choreographed. For a taste of the indie-minded short con there are some one-man shows and partner acts that you can catch in the streets of Europe’s capital cities.

The Golden Ring
This is what the gypsies do with their old people when they’re still too young to play the leper or war refugee or whatever they’re meant to be. I’m going to admit up front that I’m not entirely sure how this is supposed to work because I’ve only seen it about a hundred times and that’s apparently not a large enough sample to gauge a success rate. An old man effects to keep pace with you and then swoops to the sidewalk and pops up with a shiny, gaudy, ugly gold-coloured ring. It’s also huge and would be embarrassing on an abnormally extroverted Christmas tree.

Now the con is on and you’re offered the ring because he thinks it’s yours and he’s “honest”. When it’s been tried on me I say “No, I did not lose that ring. I threw it away” but my nuanced wit is lost on them and they offer it to me as a gift. Presumably I’m meant to reward them if I happen to actually believe that I lost a four pound chunk of yellow tin or because I’ve been longing to have one.

The show’s not over once it’s been tried, by the way, and you really need to stay for the encore. Once it’s failed (or, presumably, not failed) they’ll repeat it on the very next pigeon they see, right in front of you. A pudgy old lady tried it on me on Pont des Arts in Paris once and I waited all of a minute before she was trying it again on a tall blonde American woman who, amazingly, accepted the ring until the issue of a reward came up, when she gave it back. The twist that makes this worth retelling is that when I tried to snap a picture of her in the act the inept swindler got all shy and flashed me an adorable conspiratorial smile.

The Friendship Bracelet
This is a significant departure from the repertoire because first, it’s not practiced by Gypsies but by Africans, mainly in Paris. And second because it’s less like a con and more like a mugging. The practitioners install themselves near tourist meccas, most particularly Montmartre for some reason, near sellers of “legitimate” tourist cack. They’ll greet you, try to shake your hand but above all tie a braid of coloured yarn around your wrist and tell you that it’s a friendship bracelet.

And now you’ve bought two cents worth of yarn and your new friendship hasn’t been consummated until you’ve paid between five and ten euros for it. Women are the common targets for this scam because they, wisely, like to keep a hand on their purses during the transaction, rendering the instinctive reflex to pull off the well-tied bit of string and throw it to the ground and spit on it a clumsy manoeuvre, made all the more challenging if the crook manages to keep ahold of your hand.

I’ve seen this one actually work. Clearly not because it’s so devilishly subtle but because of the practiced and intimidating contention that the victim agreed to buy something and is now reneging. Of course the pigeons know they’re being scammed but they’re tourists in a strange town where they don’t speak the language and they’re being accused of a crime. I expect in those circumstances €5 can look pretty cheap.

Outright Begging
This also sometimes works. Some might argue that just straight up asking for money isn’t really a scam, as such, and they’d be right. But the Gypsies make a proper show out of it with tranquilised babies or a little card with an appallingly exaggerated story of woe or gloriously hammy interpretations of injury or illness.

These pantomimes have no business working but they do consistently and exclusively when the performers happen upon a tourist, usually an American, with an understanding of European economies formed and frozen just after the end of WWII and, of course, no experience with Gypsy beggars. They look with Christian benevolence upon this destitute soul and her strangely tranquil baby who’s doubtless too hungry to open his eyes and astoundingly buy the whole package for two euros. If it ended there you could say that the mark got something for his money but if you give one of these beggars money they’ll ask you for more and keep on asking until you tell them to do what you should have told them to do in the first place.

 

Those commenting just to explain that I’m a racist because most of the scammers in Paris are Gypsies can save their ire. I know it already. The rest of you, of course, don’t need to have it pointed out that the statement “most scammers in Paris are Gypsies” doesn’t equate to “most Gypsies are scammers in Paris”.

Furthermore this is a cultural distinction. It’s a recognised fact that there exists a subset of Gypsy culture for whom this is an economy and a proud and ethical way to make a living. The ethics are founded on a definition of property. Speaking analogously, if your neighbour discards a stereo and leaves it unused and unprotected in the rain, is it still his stereo? Well, yeah, it is, but I’d understand if your view was that it was in a very meaningful way yours for the taking. To the Gypsy swindlers any money they can get out of you was being insufficiently cared for and it’s not your money anymore. And their ham-handed dodges are hardly inescapably and spell-bindingly clever so maybe they have a point.

European travel for North Americans is often an endless chain of intense quaint. Adorable little wedding cake houses in Belgium that are still lived in. People who are made heads of state because a direct ancestor had another, slightly less direct ancestor beheaded. British police helmets and French police sirens.

And the gypsies. Particularly the unchanging and unimaginative practices gypsies have been employing to rip off tourists for a thousand years or more. Amazingly, some of these bald-faced cons must occasionally work or, presumably, they’d stop. But I see a lot of gypsies and I rarely if ever see anything apart from outright begging actually achieve a result.

They’re enormously entertaining to watch though. Sometimes it’s not clear what you’re seeing even when it’s unfolding right in front of you so consider this a little gallery guide to some of the more ubiquitous and engaging street theatre in Europe — the gypsy swindle.

Three Card Monty
How does anyone in 2012 fall for this hilariously evident ploy? If you never heard of it (it’s also known as Follow the Lady and is a variant of the shell game) a guy shuffles three cards, one of which is, say, the Queen of hearts, and invites you to bet that you can tell him which one it is. I once saw a magician turn an entire pack of cards into all aces of spades, I’m pretty sure that with a little training you can achieve the sleight of hand necessary to swap a card. I suppose that explains the rest of the show.

As you approach a Monty game you’ll typically see several people playing and, holy shit, winning! Note that the guy who’s winning is clearly a close genetic relative and probably a sibling to the dealer and that they’re wearing the same shirt. If you watch for long enough without playing the dealer may accidentally fold the corner of the Queen, giving you a hidden edge. When you fail to notice this sure-fire game changer, another spectator who shares a balding pattern with the dealer and his brother may point it out to you.

Should you decide to play you will lose. You may think that in light of the fact that the Queen is there, just not where you thought it would be, that you stand an even chance of guessing right by randomly selecting one of the two cards that you don’t think is the Queen. Mathematically, that is correct and you have a 50% chance of winning but a 0% chance of winning money. If you guess right the stand will be knocked over or the police will be spotted or they’ll just plainly tell you to sod off. If you’re very big or have a lot of friends with you they may show you the courtesy of running away but probably not.

So don’t play, obviously, just take in the show. If they actually score a mark you may get to see the above scenario play out but I’ve watched for hours and never seen it. It still has high points, though, like the changing of the guard. Eventually the dealer runs out of money and the shill will openly return it or they’ll just nonchalantly change places.

The Petition
This one shows a tiny bit of initiative, I admit. You’re approached in a busy place (because this con works so rarely it relies heavily on volume) and shown a petition by a pretty young girl, one of a team of perhaps a dozen pretty young girls all wearing the same green sweater and flowy skirt that screams “I’M A GYPSY AND I’M GOING TO ROB YOU”. They don’t speak because they’re deaf and presumably that means they can’t speak. They’re all deaf. It’s genetic, I guess. And the petition is in some vague fashion in support of an effort to make them not be deaf anymore and once you’ve signed it you’ll be directed to the column where you enter the amount of your donation. Note that above your entry are the illegible signatures of previous donors who typically give upwards of €20.

I need to confess that this one actually pisses me off. I’m normally zen to the point of sedate about most things but this con isn’t just stealing from the rare tourist too stupid to notice that the girls are literally wearing gypsy skirts but it’s also diverting charity from people who might actually need it. Most people have a giving limit so every €20 they get is €20 a real charity doesn’t.

The absolute best advice for dealing with gypsies is to not interact with them in any way at all. So don’t take the pen like you’re going to sign the petition, smile and drop it down a sewage grate. Never do that. Seriously, you shouldn’t, because like the above-mentioned Three Card Monty these girls are being watched. See those (brand new) minivans with tinted windows on the street near the deaf petitioners? They’re full of men, smoking and talking on their (brand new) cell phones and keeping an eye on their sisters. There’s also the risk that if you spook the herd they may swarm you and when they swarm they can take you for absolutely everything in seconds.

Next week — “Friendship” bracelets, the found ring scam and tranquilized children

The indie zombie flick, 48 Hours Later, managed to film downtown London, including Westminster Bridge, in a manner that made it look completely deserted. How did they do it? Simple, they waited until London was completely deserted.

Even London, home to eight million people and, at any given time, another million tourists, looks empty at four o’clock in the morning. Most cities do. And that’s when you need to see them.

I’m not talking about staying out late and stumbling about until you find a minicab. I mean deliberately staying up or, ideally, getting up at 4am and going sightseeing. Of course, nothing’s open yet but you don’t need to go into the Louvre to appreciate having Place du Louvre and Tuileries Gardens entirely to yourself.

You’ll have to get about on foot or, if I may strongly recommend, rollerblade. In Paris, position yourself directly perpendicular to the little Arc du Triomphe in front of the Louvre and align it with the big one to the West and note, for as long as you please, that they’re perfectly aligned with the even bigger arc at La Defense. Then meander along the Seine to Isle de la Cité and Parvis Notre Dame and note that you have this stunning cathedral and its charming square all entirely to yourself in a world of seven billion people. On your way pause for a moment on Pont Neuf. If you smoke now would be a very good time. Gaze westward along the Seine toward Pont des Arts and drink in the placid river, entirely devoid of boats.

Continue south and pause at the fountain at St Michel before continuing, just to the right of the fountain, up St André des Arts because it should be coming up on 6am and the creperies will be opening for breakfast, the bakeries will be emitting that distinctive perfume of hot croissant and unlike the vast majority of those who visit the city you’re watching Paris waking up.

In London I’d suggest the zombie tour, starting with Westminster Bridge and have a spiritual moment at its exact centre as you did above on Pont Neuf. In Rome have a walk around the coliseum and the Foro Romano and enjoy in isolated silence standing exactly where Julius Caesar once tread. In Genoa go to any of the dozens of isolated piazzas where you can weep at their beauty with no one to accuse you of being a pretentious emo.

In Antibes or Cannes or Nice it’s got to be the beach which in just a few hours is going to be covered with baking tourists but which, for now, is all yours. Stay by the water, too, in Amsterdam, where the canals absorb every sound and at 4 am you’ll hear the ducks on the river and little else.

It really doesn’t matter where you are or what you see at four o’clock in the morning. It just matters that it’s four o’clock in the morning and you have it all to yourself.