There's a real popular hatred of the American government, but American tourists are more than welcome -- if you're harassed in Italy, Germany or even France, that's really remarkable.
When you go to one particular town...whether France, Germany or Italy...you will never meet more than five percent of the town that is anti-American. I've been in Europe for 14 consecutive years and can base this on wide-travel.
What you do find...is that when someone calls for a protest...every one of these guys...from a 200-mile circle...will drive out to the protest. You will think that the 30,000 people at the protest are all locals...but that simply is bogus logic. Start looking at car tags...you find a huge number of out-siders.
For this case in Vicenza...I'm willing to bet that only 20 percent of the protestors came from the local region (within 30 miles)...the rest are all from outside of the area. The base has been very open about what the plans have been and the economic plus-up of the town (millions for housing and services to come). Very few of the locals are seriously anti-American or anti-base. The amusing thing with the reporting of yesterday...was that so many of the protestors were concerned about the environmental impact of the barracks and support buildings...yet they are allowing continued construction of apartment buildings, stores, and resturants. This makes the approval authority appear like fools if they say no on the Americans but yes for apartments.
Personally...I'd rather put up a floating platforms in the Med...without permission of anyone...and just avoid this entire game of poltics or protest.
Yep! This is absolutely correct. It is indeed true that the current US-administation is extremely unpopular while common Americans have a really good reputation.