Have you ever paid almost 10 € for a stranger to take your picture and extort money for it?

The Austrian capital, Vienna, offers a mix of different traditions, music, and warm vibes. A city that impresses with both the old and the new and always has a cozy corner in the cafe There are green, rolling vineyards, and there are the magnificent imperial buildings that Vienna is known for. After all, Vienna is the city where world and art history were written for half a millennium.

As you probably already know, we like to visit our close neighbours, e.g., Italians, Croats, Hungarians, and, of course, Austrians. Their culture, art, libraries, and cafes have our ''soul''. However, like every country, this one also has its scams, and today is the day again when you find out how we were once again scammed by the so-called tourist scammers.

We went around our dear Vienna to visit some galleries, museums, libraries, and, of course, for a cocktail. We stopped in front of St. Stephen's Cathedral, as it is located on the edge of a large square with the same name, which we like to walk around. All of a sudden, a ‘’friendly’’ man approaches us and asks us if he can take a picture of us in front of the cathedral for a euro or two.

This is the first time this has happened to us so far, and we unsuspectingly agreed since we had never taken a picture together in front of it. We give our phones to the man, and he takes a picture of us for the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth time. Meanwhile, we were looking at each other from time to time, as it looked as if the man was counting the number of times he had taken pictures of us. When we saw how many times he took pictures of us, we went to him, thanked him, and gave him two euros.

The man started shaking his head and nodding, saying that he was trying to get the best side of us and that he deserved three times as much because he took our picture at least ten times. We wanted to explain to him that we did not ask him to take a picture of us but that he volunteered to take a picture for one or two euros.

We gave him two euros and started walking away from him because we were getting uncomfortable, but he started following us, and then we decided to give him five euros each just to get rid of him because we don't need someone following us all day long. Scammers don't care how they get the money because it's the same to them, regardless of whether they earn it or cheat someone to get it.

The lesson of the story is to make sure that it will really only be a euro or two, or rather, ask someone yourself to take your picture and, as always, be safer with knowledge.

"Travel is never a matter of money, but of courage." Paulo Coelho

Till next time. :)