The birds are “eating away at the city’s marble statues and buildings by pecking at small gaps in the facades to reach for scraps of food that were blown inside,” according to Reuters. In the list of dangers facing Venice, I’d rank the pigeons below this, but above this.

Related on World Hum:
* ‘Is a Week Too Long in Venice?’

That’s the question posed recently by a Times of London reader, concerned that he may get “bored of the watery Italian city” before the week is up. “Perhaps we got carried away,” he writes, “as it now seems like a very long time.” Times travel expert Richard Green offers a perfectly reasonable answer, suggesting day-trippable destinations in the Veneto, but the response I kept waiting for—“Bored in Venice? Are you serious?”—never came. So here it is. 

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Nabil Hadj Hassen, who arrived in Italy at 17 and went on to train with some of the country’s top chefs, won the heart of highly regarded reviewer Gambero Rosso with his dish of pasta, eggs, pecorino cheese and guanciale (cured pig cheek) at the restaurant Antico Forno Roscioli. But The New York Times recently explored how his triumphant carbonara also flagged a question looming over Italy’s revered cuisine: Is the food still Italian if the chef is not? 

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Yes, this is what the weak dollar and subprime loan disaster have come to: discounts at Harry’s Bar. Can you imagine the final line of A Moveable Feast were it written today? “But this is how Venice was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy and many fine American homes were in foreclosure and we were enjoying 20 percent off at Harry’s Bar.”

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Didn’t we hear this story last year? Does it get juicier if the drunks involved are well-heeled American women spending their college study abroad programs “vomiting off the sides of the cobblestone streets,” as a city councilman in Florence told National Public Radio? About 80 percent of the 7,000 American study-abroad students are women, and hundreds of them are partying like they’re on a long, wild spring break.

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It’s Bangkok, according to Time. The story seems to offer support for both sides in a brewing debate in our comments section about whether it’s more difficult to cross the street in Rome or some cities in Southeast Asia. The chaos of Bangkok sounds crazier than Rome, but so does the gridlock. And if cars in Bangkok are perpetually stopped, isn’t that an argument that it should be easier to cross there than in Rome?

Related on World Hum:
* How to Cross the Street in Rome

Punto Pizzofree, which opened last weekend, promises that “all products and staff are 100 per cent guaranteed Mafia-free, supplied only by shops and producers which have stood up to Sicily’s Cosa Nostra and refused to pay protection money,” according to the Guardian. 

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Tom Downey, whose first ‘graphic travel story’ we blogged about awhile back, has put out another in this month’s Conde Nast Traveler. As in the first story, Naples: The Case of the Stolen Starter was created with artist Neil Gower and fuses techniques from graphic novels and detective fiction to create a unique piece of travel writing. From the piazza to the mercato to the trattoria, Downey encounters all kinds of compelling details of Neopolitan life while his illustrated hero attempts to save a pizzeria whose dough has been stolen.

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Venice residents complained that tourists had made getting around the city a nightmare, so officials planned Line 3, a just-opened water bus route from Venice’s Grand Canal to Piazza San Marco. Only riders holding a Carta Venezia pass can get on board, which effectively excludes outsiders. 

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It’s because of the tourists. The gobs and gobs of tourists. Tuscany’s cultural official Paolo Cocchi says Florence’s city center, particularly the Galleria dell’Accademia where David has resided for the past 135 years, has become overwhelmed by travelers wishing to see Michelangelo’s masterpiece. He has proposed moving what the Independent calls the “world’s most famous image of manhood” to a not-yet-built cultural center at the edge of Florence. That may relieve some congestion in the city center, but it’s not sitting well with Florence’s “art elite,” according to the Independent.

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Six months after the U.S. Embassy in Italy issued a travel advisory over mounting garbage in Naples, the Italian city is taking decisive action. Or at least, it’s taking action. According to Reuters, a new “trash tsar” has been appointed to clean up the streets—literally. But considering that the latest appointment is one in a series of tsar-ships that began in 1994, when Naples first declared a state of emergency that has never been lifted, you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t hold my breath. 

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World Hum contributor David Farley—travel writer turned foreskin detective—tells the Toronto Star all about his unlikely book project, and why he gets responses from church officials like this: “What? The Holy Foreskin? You want me to hook you up with someone at the Vatican to talk about the Holy Foreskin? No way! That’s ridiculous.”

Related on World Hum:
* Where in the World Are You, David Farley?