One of the first borders apparent when entering Italy (or any foreign country) is the barrier between visitor and local. The first and most important manifestation comes in the language barrier and the easy distinction between native speakers and tourists who can force through a few grammarless words. (Note: I distinguish knowledgeable travelers who are culture-savvy but alien from tourists. Travelers are not considered in this discourse, or are rather the blurring of the border.) Customs officers treat returning citizens much more warmly than visitors. I know this because I accidentally stood in the EU passport line and watched all the chatty transactions before transferring over to the stoic ‘all other countries’ line where the guards just grunted as meek travelers mumbled an ill-accented ‘grazie’ on their way. This was far from an act of contempt on the officers’ part but rather a common inability to overcome the language barrier. Regardless, the distinction is clear.
The border is even more defined in cities than ports, mainly because there are a larger number of activities available to compare. When observing passersby on a street, there are certain mannerisms that give away tourists. The obvious ones include taking pictures at landmarks, walking with a map, etc. However, other hints are dressing casually or showing too much skin—the only shorts I’ve seen are on tourists. Despite the well-known concept of Italian hands, it is the tourists who gesticulate wildly and talk loudly on the street. There is also a general haze visible in tourists as they grapple with sensory overload of a new environment. All tourists fumble through unique customs like using water fountains. Although trial and error is the only way for visitors to learn Roman custom, in the meantime these mistakes are easy flags to identifying a foreigner. These cultural discrepancies form the next greatest category of barriers that make complex interaction difficult between groups and create the border.
The border between tourists and locals takes on larger significance, too; it has influence on the atmosphere of an area depending on how many of each group occupies the area. Every city has distinguished ‘tourist friendly’ zones the way it has business and industrial districts. In Rome, areas of high tourist visitation are lined by businesses geared towards souvenir trinkets and restaurants using more international flavors (such as the Via dei Fori Imperiali leading to the Colosseum). Such areas are generally avoided by normal Romans. However truly local areas have more hole-in-the-wall businesses with success based on word-of-mouth passed among residents but withheld from tourists due to the interaction barrier. The feeling of such neighborhoods has a more raw edge opposed to the polish applied to areas meant to give tourists a safe and confident vibe. In this way the tourist-local border finds geographic significance.
The barrier itself rarely has severely detrimental effects on either group. Besides a small amount of contempt bred in the more snobbish locals and the embarrassment of a few tourists, this distinction is not highly influential on Roman life; it isn’t even an enforced boundary. It is a border because few people spend the energy to cross over and deeply involve themselves in the other group.
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