On Instagram I just flicked through thirteen beautiful slides about how the Italian Summer has broken its promise. Sold-out beach clubs (btw there are plenty of free beaches) restaurant bookings four months out. Queues for the photograph everyone else came to take. Is this still worth it? it asked, over a drone shot of a hundred identical boats off the coast of Sardinia.
Here is what they got right, and I’ll give it to them, it is hot. It is July/August-in-your-lungs hot, dust clogging your sinuses in my case hot. The historic centres are full, and if you stand in the queue for the photograph/sandwich whatever was in your feed you will get the photograph/sandwich and nothing else.
The whinge underneath it grates me — the magic is gone, spontaneity is dead, you have to plan like a work calendar — that is not travel talking. That is the algorithm talking. That is what happens when you let an app shape your itinerary and then act surprised that you ended up exactly where it sent everyone…
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