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Second warning sign – no prices anywhere. You are going to get hit with the idiot tax. And we did.

Frozen entrees and old shellfish. I had the scariest spaghetti vongole ever – I swear the garlic was piled on to hide the stench of rotting seafood. My husband had an obviously frozen vegetable lasagna. The veggies for everything, including the antipasta, must have been weeks old. The portions were huge, and very, very bad. The waiters are sweet as pie, because they know it’s harder for you to complain when you are given a free drink here, a little extra dessert there. They know that you are on vacation and don’t want to cause a scene in a country where you don’t know the rules, and plus, you don’t want to ruin such a nice evening.

Then you get the bill. It’s going to be double or triple any other place. Maybe quadruple. And there is nothing you can do. They may be getting their food from an illegal source, and you know that they are cheating on their taxes and relying on bribes to keep operating. So the police might even be on their side. You just pay that idiot tax and write a scathing review on Trip Advisor hoping that helps someone else.