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29 March 2024

Too much Dolce Vita can get you banned from Rome

Photo: AP

Published
By AP

Too much Dolce Vita can get you banned from Rome, where the mayor on Friday ushered in a permanent get-tough approach on boorish behavior by tourists and those Romans who exploit them.

Exasperated by tourists who frolic in Rome’s public fountains, vandalize its monuments and treat its landmarks as their own personal living rooms, the city famous for its artistic heritage and easy-going lifestyle has had enough.

The Italian capital’s first populist mayor, Virginia Raggi, presented a law banning bad behavior including eating or drinking or climbing on monuments, walking around partially unclothed and wading through fountains — the latter temptation made famous by Anita Ekberg, who danced in the city’s magnificent Baroque Trevi Fountain in Federico Fellini’s classic film immortalizing Rome’s carefree spirit.

Rome’s law joins a raft of efforts by tourist-clogged cities around the world to regulate their behavior or limit their numbers.