Rubbish and Shit.

I’m not easily offended. It takes a lot to irk me. I like a good first impression – it says a lot about a person or place.

Its day six on our cruise and we’ve entered our fifth port. Tunis seems like a nice place, yet we haven’t stepped off as it’s early in the morning here. By all accounts it looks clean and relatively modern.

The cruise cannot be faulted so far, but the ports of which we have entered have been, well let’s say, interesting.

We’ve stopped off in three ports in Italy and one in France thus far. They all have many things in common. They have many points of ancient tourist interest, places to go and cafes, shops and bars to frequent – in other words typical, tourist spots.

But the one thing that literally gets up my nose about all four ports - is the smell.

I know that rough smells are part of arriving into an international industrial port. I understand that oil, fumes, fish, rust and noise all play their part – all of which I can reason why those things exist there.

But the thing I can’t understand is the first impression the tourist gets upon stepping off the ship.

You get the usual haggling and harassment from tour guides and taxi men, which is to be expected. A simple “Non” or “No grazie,” usually is enough to paw them off. The terminals are clean and basic, but generally no frills. The odd statue to some nameless sea god or local former resident greets you in the dock.

Then the smell gets you straight away.

It’s not the aforementioned port smell, but rather the odour of molting rubbish and shit from some animal. I kid you not.

At our first port in Marseille, we didn’t get off but decided to take it easy on the boat. Two of our cruise colleagues though, told us of an amazing litter problem they seemed to have on the streets. They even said that people openly drop rubbish without any concern or fear of retribution from the authorities.

Our next port was Genoa, in northern Italy. We ventured off this time and noticed right away that the litter problem wasn’t restricted to southern France. There seemed to be a complete absence of litter bins or cans anywhere around the streets - litter floated aimlessly through the air. When we walked through the main streets and pedestrianized areas though, we saw a different problem.

They are very proud of their dogs in Genoa, but don’t seem to clean up the mess after them. I’m not sure the words “Poop and Scoop” have reached Italy yet.

Napoli was next where piles upon piles of rubbish are quite a common occurrence. It has even gotten to the stage where the locals are now used to living with it. And you know what comes with piles of rubbish.

We visited Palermo yesterday. Of all three Italian ports, this was my favourite. You did get the smell of horse manure greeting you off the boat, but that was because numerous local horse and cart men were offering to take you for a ride – literally. We even have these cart-men in Killarney too, so I shouldn’t grumble. These streets were cleaner than anywhere else we had visited, yet still had a litter problem. 

Two other things we noticed about Palermo. How they park their cars is hilarious – they just stop, get out and park up. And the pavement is another place where you apparently can park too

Another weird one was the amount of adult hat shops there were in business. I can’t name any more than one in Ireland. On one street in Palermo, we counted three. Where are we again? Palermo, Sicily. Do I hear a faint hint of “The Family?”

So when you are abroad for a while, and land back home - you only appreciate the things you are used to everyday - until you are denied access to them. It’s only then, you appreciate them fully.

So if anyone tells you that Ireland has a litter problem – point them in the direction of parts of southern France and Italy.

If anyone slates the standard of our parks and scenic areas - point them to the places already stated above.

Do Irish people clean up after our pets? Most of them do.