The Language
In my experience a little Italian goes a long way, as does a smile. A lot of Italian goes even further. Its difficult when you are trying to learn a language for your holidays and have no one to practice with. Studying alone takes a lot of patients and determination. Ideally you need to hear dialogues in order to get the head used to the sounds of the words, whether they are incoming or outgoing. A good starting point for beginners is the BBC web site. BBC Italian