Rome:”bridge /road is closed”?
Jul 18, 2019, 7:08 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2019
Posts: 9
Rome:”bridge /road is closed”?
Hello. Long time lurker, first time poster. (Thanks Perche and others for all your advice). My husband and I are frequent travelers to Rome and the last two visits we’ve been walking along the Tiber and encountered men telling us in English that the road or bridge ahead is closed. We’ve always ignored this as we either knew that the road was open or weren’t intending to cross a bridge, but as we walked further it became apparent that this was clearly not true. We are puzzled as to why people would do this. Yesterday, the man was quite agitated when we didn’t heed his “warnings”. This seems a scam but we can’t figure it out. Btw we’ve also encountered the drivers who are in need of direction along this route but didn’t fall for that despite the “gift” of some lovely very valuable fake watches.
Jul 18, 2019, 8:10 pm
#2
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Heraklion, Greece
Posts: 7,565
Anzitutto, welcome to FT. I can only guess that 1) you must look very "touristy" and 2) that "they" would like to lead you to the presumed way out and either sell you fake watches, as already happened, or give you addresses to stores/eateries while walking with you. This must be a "new thing", as it never happened to me in Rome (happened in Istambul and Tunis, though).
Jul 20, 2019, 5:48 am
#3
Suspended
Join Date: Jul 2019
Location: Italy
Posts: 7
"Bridge/road is closed" in Rome
During my recent visit to Rome as I was travelling along with the group some of our tourists from Vatican Tours, I've discovered this trap of a thing where people were claiming that the bridge ahead was closed but we didn't quite heed to the sayings and went straight ahead to our destination.