sophiesophie

I can't find it, but I thought there was a discussion on the tap water in Venice and you shouldn't drink it, better to buy bottled. The owner of the guest house said we can drink the water now as it is now piped in (or something to that effect.)

TObject

It is now piped in? I am just curious, where was it coming before, from the rain gutter or brought in a bucket from the canal?

sophiesophie

I have not had much luck finding previous discussions on this site.

I probably didn't say it right but it was how he put it (he couldnt find the right word.) The water has always been here, I am sure, but I recall a discussion here about the water quality. Maybe the water pipes themselves have been upgraded? Maybe what was here before was really old?

VitaliU

Perche

obscure2k

Going to agree here. Feel free to drink the tap water in your hotel, but enjoy bottled water with your meals in restaurants and bars.

Perche

I just don't know how all of these rumors about Italy get started, from pickpockets, crime, and every thing else. Flint, Michigan, where I worked for a few months, exposed the problem with water in the USA. It was blockbuster news and led to hearings in Congress when it was shown to be heavily contaminated with lead, that causes brain defects in children, and health problems in everyone else,

The prestigious journal Scientific American then did research, and found that 3,000 cities in the USA have water with over double the amount of lead in the water than Flint, and 1,1000 cities in the USA had more than four times the lead contamination than Flint. This was research done not by just checking the water, but by checking the amount of lead in children, which is sky high. In Baltimore, Philadelphia and Cleveland, over 40% of children tested exceed the safe limit of lead in their system. Children living in these areas have an accelerated rate of developmental problems.

In Milwaukee about 12% of children are found to be overloaded with lead, due to old pipes, lead painted houses, etc. Kids have on average, ten times the amount of lead in their body that the CDC considers safe. South Bend, IN is even worse. Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cleveland, it's impossible to even consider, because over 50% of children have some degree of lead poisoning. I poste3d the link upstream.

I'm always stunned that people think of Italy as a place of pick pocketing and other things, when you are more likely to lose your wallet in a city in the USA, usually at gunpoint, than in Naples, and the sanitation of the water and food supply, plus lifestyle, makes Italy 8th in the world in life expectancy, versus 34th for the USA: 80.5 years for an Italian male versus 76 for a male in the USA, 86 years for an Italian female, versus 81 for a female in the USA. And Italy has the lowest rate of exercise Europe, and almost twice as many smokers (the leading cause of preventable deaths in the world) than the USA.

So, the take home message is, if you don't want your wallet or purse stolen, go to Italy, not the USA. If you want to drink safe water, go to Italy, not to the USA. If you want good health care, go to Italy, ranked #2 by the World Health Organization, not to the USA, which is ranked 38th. If you want to be a victim of a crime, go to Italy. it has 15 less crime than the USA.

SoplhieSophie, drink the water, just not in a restaurant. Ask them if they can serve half a liter; many do.

Italy has 2 times as many police officers than the United States. The USA has a rape rate 4 times higher than Italy.

The total crime rate in Italy is ranked 9th in the world. The USA is ranked first: it has 5 times more crime than Italy.

Violent crime Italy is ranked 54th in the world. The USA is ranked #1 , 7 times higher than Italy.

The murder rate in the USA is 25 times higher than in Italy.

Italy is ranked 9th in violent crime; the USA is ranked #1 , 19 times higher than Italy.

I can go on and on. The time to worry is when you come back to living in the USA, not when you are in Italy. Worry about when you have to come back to the USA.

And don't worry about the water in Venice. It doesn't come from the canals. They dig deep, deep, deep into the underground to get it from pure aquifers. Venetian water is sold in the USA as bottled water under the name, San Benedetto (Aqua Minerale San Benedetto), which is where the water comes from. Deep, deep, deep, not from the canals.

sophiesophie

Thanks! Now I remember ! That is what the discussion was about - the taste of the water.

I've mainly been in central and northern italy so far and can say I have always felt very safe regardless of the time of day.

KLouis

In my life I've visited 64 different countries and I've lived in 5, including Greece, my home country. In all of these years I've been pick-pocketted once (in Rome), burglarized once (in Rome)and a "victim" of an attempted and failed robery once (in Napoli), yet I include all of Italy (i.e. also Rome and Napoli ) among the safest places in the world. Still, unless one is a "serial victim" nobody can offer a real asessment on potential crime and health hazards except when based on real statistics, such as Perche did in a post above. Unfortunately (or fortunately), due to my retirement I no longer travel as often as I used to, and if I really miss one country I visited often and lived in for a total of ~5 years, this is Italy.

PS Water tastes good in many Italian cities. For example, both Rome and Perugia where I lived had very tasting water, at least in the neighbourhoods I lived (quartiere africano and Lacugnano, respectively).

sophiesophie

So, I'm on a waterbus to Burano and talked with a young couple from China. She remarked that I was brave to travel alone. I said I feel very safe in Italy. She said she got her wallet stolen in Milan, it was in her backpack, on her back, and someone cut it open. I thought she said when they were just walking at night.

MSPeconomist

Perche

There is no tipping in Italy. The waiter receiving the tip doesn't mind getting handed free money from an American, but every Italian in the restaurant hates to see someone tip. There is no tipping in Italy. If the coffee costs .8 euros, you might leave the .2 euros on the counter. If the check in a restaurant is 4.50 euros, you might leave the 0.5. If you leave nothing, that is what is expected. Italians hate when people go there and tip, as in the USA. The waiters don't mind if you hand then your wallet, but Italians don't want that American habit to become standard over there, so even if you have a $500 dinner, no tip is the standard.

No tipping in Italy, so I don't know what you are talking about. It's not as serious as Japan, where if you leave one dollar on the table after eating a $100 meal the manager will send everyone out of the kitchen to track you down and force you to take the dollar back. The fact is, there is no tipping in Italy, so your argument makes no sense.

Perche

Service charges, or tips, in Italy, don't go to the waiter or waitress. They go to the restaurant owner, unless you find a way of getting it into your server's hand. Otherwise, you are just giving extra money to the owner, who has already charged you full price with service charge built in. It's a different culture. with different norms. You can't come from MN and expect that things work the same way in Italy.

Perche

GUWonder

Crowded or not, it can happen. And it's certainly not impossible. I've seen the same kind of thing happen -- albeit in Rome -- on a rather empty shopping street at a time when there was no crowding, and on some rather empty steps going up from a rather empty plaza that had no crowds at the time it happened.

Pickpockets don't necessarily need a big crowded area in which to successfully take goods from a mark. They just need a mark who is distracted, a mark whose placement of "valuables" is accessible to the thief without its attempted and actual removal being readily noticed by the mark and/or those physically very proximate to the mark. As I've said before, some of the pickpockets in this area are very skilled at their work. And to paraphrase a victim of one such theft -- or rather the spouse of the victim -- who had to call and cancel a couple of credit cards because of one of those thefts (and had to get a replacement of various other cards/docs): the thief was so "good", the thief really earned "his" keep. And yes, it was a stolen pocketbook from inside a small purse inside a locked backpack. Not an urban legend, The real deal.

But what's wrong with the water in Venice? I really don't get the issue with the water. I have brushed my teeth there and drunk the regular water from taps/fountains there and never had an issue. Is there a "Venice belly" equivalent to "Delhi belly"?