Chal friends, Katie here with a midweek travel update for you. I did one last week and people

seem to really like it. So I'm going to drop a little snack-sized episode, Aspuntino,

if you will, each week with insights, general travel tips and timely information for those of you

who are travelling soon. For this week's episode, I want to talk about the crowds in Italy that

we've been seeing

all over the internet and social media from last weekend.

Cinque Terre was at full capacity with people squash like little sardines lining up for the trains.

Talmina was in high season looking like a Taylor Swift concert.

And Rome, Venice and Florence, well, they're always busy, but especially

so last week. So, okay, yes, those crowds look pretty confronting, but I want everyone to

remember something because these are some of the most popular places to visit in Italy and

some may say the world. And last weekend was the May Day holiday weekend.

So of course they were all busier than usual.

Just like any tourist sites around the world are on a holiday weekend.

People come to Italy from all over Europe on this weekend and to top it all off, it was

the Free Museum Sunday when

major sites were open to everyone for no charge. So perhaps the crowds were quite predictable.

Another thing that happened was the April 25th celebrations, which is Liberation Day,

were also on that week. So people would have made a really long, long,

long weekend and made the most of it and went to explore their own country.

Then why not?

It's absolutely beautiful.

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