A lot of people have impressions of safety issues in Europe, and I'd like to offer ten observations for your travels, if you were planning a trip:
1. Metropolitan cities in Europe are the ones which are attracting trouble-makers, pick-pockets, high drug use, and theft. If you stuck with smaller towns and villages, you would find a safer environment. It's not to say that Amsterdam, Frankfurt, or Vienna are trouble-hot-spots.....but they just seem to attract a higher percentage of problems.
2. Drug and alcohol abuse are probably double what it was in the 1990s. A lot of this involves new residents of Europe, who see it as a 'Disneyland' of sorts.
3. Stay at 4-star hotels or better. The better hotels have relationships with the city council and police, and ensure that their visitors are safer. Ask the front desk guy about safe areas, or areas to avoid. He or she, will give you a list of places.
4. If you think you are being stalked....don't waste time trying to get cops, who may or may not react anyway. Duck into a cafe, restaurant, or pub....ask them to call you a cab, and leave the area.
5. Train-stations are a magnet for the wrong crowd, especially at night.
6. Folks with mental issues and paranoid schizophrenia are part of the landscape now of most European cities. Just be aware of that possibility existing.
7. Once confronted by some idiot with a knife....offer up your 'riches' and quietly get out of the situation.
8. Pickpocket folks are continually looking for 'prey'. The more crowded the circumstance, the better chance for a successful robbery. Pay attention to the landscape, and those who are just standing there and watching people.
9. Don't carry a big purse, or put your billfold in the back-pocket of your pants.
10. The drug-addicted crowd are looking for quick and easy robberies. They just need enough money to score the next 'fix'. Be aware of that.
No comments:
Post a Comment