German backpackers thrown out of Venice as part of crackdown on ‘loutish’ tourists

TWO German tourists were fined €950 (£854) and immediately expelled from Venice as part of a citywide zero-tolerance policy after they were found making coffee on a portable stove beneath the city’s historic Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal.

Police discovered the male and female backpackers, aged 32 and 35, brewing up on a tiny cooker on Friday after they were tipped off by a passerby. The couple were ordered to leave the city after their alfresco coffee-making was exposed as part of a tough new approach to unacceptable behaviour.

“Venice must be respected and those louts who think they can come to the city and do what they want must understand that,” said Luigi Brugnaro, the mayor of Venice, in a statement. “Our city will always be open and welcoming to all those who want to come and visit it. At the same time we will be intransigent with those who think they can come and do what they want.”

Up to 30 million tourists visit Venice every year and the city has been seeking new ways to manage the onslaught.

Yesterday, police fined three young French tourists a total of €300 (£270) for parking their bicycles in an alley off Lista di Spagna, one of the main pedestrian thoroughfares.

More than 70,000 gathered in the city this weekend to celebrate the Feast of the Redeemer, a popular local festival which marks the devastating plague that killed 50,000 Venetians in 1576.

However, many were unaware that in May the city introduced a strict new decency law which includes bans on picnicking at certain sites, frolicking in fountains and appearing without a shirt in public places.

Mayor Brugnaro said anyone who flouted the law would be stopped, fined and removed. Their names would also be reported to the embassies and consulates of their countries of origin.

The council has issued more than 40 removal orders since the law was introduced in an attempt to try to manage the massive wave of tourists that floods the city, particularly during summer. Yesterday, Il Gazzettino, the daily newspaper, said the law had also been used to remove a beggar, a Romanian national, who had been asking for donations in the historic centre.

Plans to introduce a controversial tax on day trippers have been postponed until January next year.