Police battle sweltering tourists in Rome’s fountain war
ITALY: A day after the mayor of Rome declared war on tourists having a picnic at the Trevi Fountain, six of the city’s finest officers armed with whistles fought valiantly against foreign hordes. Pausing for breath amid the melee, a red-faced policeman admitted that it was hopeless.
‘‘We’re outnumbered here and the crowds keep on coming - we need reinforcements,’’ he said, glancing around as thousands of sweating visitors edged towards the cool waters of the baroque fountain yesterday.
Fed up with tourists defacing the city’s most beautiful sites, Mayor Virginia Raggi has announced that she will fine anyone up to €240 (NZ$370) if they sit, climb or picnic on any of Rome’s 40 major fountains.
‘‘Everyone must respect Rome’s beauty,’’ said Raggi, echoing demands from Italians to tame tourists who sunbathe in ancient piazzas, and eat sandwiches and climb on monuments.
Police chiefs picked the Trevi Fountain, where visitors have been fined this year for skinny dipping, as their front line, ordering six officers to fan out along the marble edge as temperatures hit 29 degrees C.
‘‘Rome is an open-air museum. The fountain is Unesco-listed, and you can’t just have a picnic on it,’’ said Lorenzo Botta, the deputy traffic police commander, as the showdown got under way.
Within minutes, the piazza was a cacophony of whistles as officers pushed back waves of tourists trying to dip a toe in the water, ducking to avoid a hail of coins being lobbed into the fountain over their heads.
Jade Samain, 28, a nanny from London, said: ‘‘We’ll come back this evening to see if the police are still here.’’
‘‘There’s another 2000 piling into the piazza every half an hour, and I must have blown my whistle thousands of times,’’ said one young officer. Further along the front of the 18th-century fountain, an older officer blew hard the moment a Lithuanian tourist put her hand in the water.
The younger officer said no fines would be handed out just yet. ‘‘It’s day one, but we may start as the week goes on.’’
Romans have rallied to protect their fountains after a series of incidents, including the night in 2015 when a group of architects from Gloucestershire stripped off and leapt into the Fountain of the Naiads in the Piazza della Repubblica.
Two years ago, fans of Dutch football team Feyenoord hurled empty beer bottles at the Barcaccia - a 17th-century fountain at the foot of the Spanish Steps - causing permanent damage to the marble.
‘‘The difference is that the edge of the Trevi Fountain is meant to be sat on, and has been sat on for centuries without being damaged,’’ said Helle Dinesen, a Danish tourist.
‘‘I have thrown in a coin, which means you will come back to Rome one day, but if they make me pay a fine, I might think twice,’’ added Anne, a tourist from Glasgow.
- The Times