Drass Tecnologie Sottomarine

How Italians see rich foreigners

Italians love foreigners, especially rich foreigners. The Austrians, Swiss and especially Germans have always enjoyed Italy's climate, culture, beaches and lifestyle.

Italy is their playground. Ever since the days of the Roman Empire, Germans have been heading across the Alps to let off steam. The Italians have tolerated them for centuries and are quite happy to go on doing so, as long as the six million who now come to Italy every year spend lots of money and return north again. The French are considered arrogant and disproportionately proud of themselves. They are seen to look down on their transalpine neighbours, which peeves the Italians no end. But the really unforgivable French sin is to have captured the world market with their inferior wine, which no sane Italian would buy.

The relationship between the English and the Italians is more complex and perhaps more an attraction of opposites. The English like the violent smells, noises, colours, passions and chaos of Italy, while the Italians are fascinated by the order and cosiness of the English.

Italians know that everything works much better abroad. But they also know that, in real terms, foreigners are less well-off than they are, because they don't live in a beautiful country with plentiful sunshine, they dress badly, and they eat and drink badly, all of which perhaps explains why foreigners have always had their eye on Italy.

Being a curious people, the Italians are fascinated by foreigners and their barbaric ways of life. They love reading and hearing about other nations and going abroad on holiday as this serves to confirm what they already know, that they come from the best place in the world, certainly in terms of the important things in life like sunshine, drink, food and football. Deep down, the Italians believe that, although other countries might be more powerful and better organised than Italy, in reality the rest of the world behaves the same way they do and is just as corrupt as they are, only sometimes the others are smarter at not being caught.