Piazza San Marco

The Piazza San Marco, as repeatedly noted in guide book trivia as being the only Piazza in the whole of Venice, perhaps epitomises everything that is right and wrong about the city. For, complementing Sansovino's iconic masterpiece, the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (technically in the Piazzetta San Marco) the glorious Basilica San Marco, Scamozzi's Procuratie Nuove, and the dodgy campanile, we find the ultimate tourist scams of the trendy cafes. These institutions probably represent the ultimate level of rip-off surcharges which make even Ryanair look positively amateur. Not only do you pay a fairly steep price for a cup of coffee, you are then expected to pay a surcharge for table service, an additional surcharge for service outside, an additional additional surcharge for service whilst the band is playing their hideous clichéd musak, a mandatory service charge and an emotional blackmail optional "tip"...