Make room for the place to be itself
The most common complaint among people who host travellers for a living is not rudeness but rigidity: visitors who arrive wanting the destination to behave like the one they left. The shop closes in the middle of the afternoon. Dinner is not served until late. The bus is approximate. The church requires covered shoulders even in heat. None of this is inefficiency; it is the shape of a different life, and the whole point of going somewhere is to encounter one.
Travelling in the off-season, as many of us do in winter, makes this easier. The crowds have thinned, the people serving you are not exhausted by a sixteenth consecutive week of peak season, and there is space for an actual conversation. A quiet February in a coastal town will teach you more than an August week in the same place ever could.
Is it rude to speak English without asking first?
It is rarely taken as outright rudeness, but it does set the tone, and the tone matters. Open with the local greeting, then ask — in their language if you can manage the phrase, otherwise with a questioning "English?" — and you have transformed an assumption into a request, which is a very different thing to be on the receiving end of.
How do I know what I am allowed to photograph?
Treat people, religious interiors and private homes as requiring permission, and public buildings and landscapes as fair game unless a sign says otherwise. Watch what local people do: if nobody is taking pictures inside the chapel, there is probably a reason, and when you are unsure, the safest approach is to put the camera down and simply look for a minute.
