In the bigger towns and tourist attractions you're generally going to find someone who can speak English. But in the smaller villages you're on your own.
This illiteracy was most interesting (for me) in restaurants. The menu is entirely useless to an English speaker (apart from obvious spaghetti-type entries) serving only to give you something to point at while you smile at the waiter.
This resulted in Walter eating the Easter Bunny on the Tuesday after Easter
Unlike the French, however, (who ignore you entirely if you try and speak the language with the wrong pronunciation of "Oui" in Paris, for example) the Italians are very willing to try and help you out.They almost always forgave me my mix of French and Italian (Fritalian) with Afrikaans or Zulu thrown in for good measure.
I also had to re-think my slightly cynical approach to branding whilst standing in the cleaning aisle of a Eurospar and having absolutely no idea which washing powder was suitable for an automatic washing machine. We had already bought some sort of Handy Andy in the mistaken belief it was washing-up liquid (no, it's not a suitable substitute) and I didn't want to repeat the exercise on someone else's washing machine.
Spying a family shopping I approached a woman roughly my own age
"Scusi signora"
"Si?"
"Parla Inglese?"
"No" (this said with some panic, rapid head shaking and much pushing of her husband towards me for some reason)
I shook my head vigorously, (not wanting her husband since I have one of my own) grabbed two boxes of washing powder off the shelf and tried to show her I needed advice. "This one? This one? Que?"
"Ah!" She directed her husband elsewhere and fired rapid questions at me. My blank stare in response caused some frustration until she spied an aid (my white jacket), grabbed it and the one box of washing powder "Blanco, blanco"
Eureka! This one is for whites, the other for colours!
"Mille grazzie signora"
We laughed together at our ingenuity
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