The Amalfi Coast, south of Naples, is still a magnet for wealthy Russians and romantic Americans. Yet Naples itself is a tourist wasteland, and the rest of southern Italy is largely vacationer-free. Only 13 percent of tourists who come to Italy go to the Mezzogiorno, as the south is known.
Depending on where a stone blocks the flow of bile, symptoms can include nausea, vomiting, fever, and severe abdominal pain that lasts longer than 6 hours. If you have these symptoms, you may need surgery to remove your gallbladder or the gallstone causing the blockage.
Sludge has been blamed for many of the same symptoms as gallstones -- biliary colic, cholecystitis, and pancreatitis, but often these symptoms and complications are caused by very small gallstones that are missed by ultrasonography.