Rome (TAN): Tourist police in the Italian capital are ensuring people do not sit at the famous Spanish Steps leading to Piazza di Spagna from the Trinità dei Monti church in the city’s historic centre, media reports said.
Tourists usually rest here or wait to take photographs.
The actions of the tourist police come in the wake of new rules issued by the city administration to contain the adverse effects of overtourism and act against ill-behaved tourists. Tourist season is at its peak in Rome now.
[ALSO READ: India’s Kashmir move good for tourism, feel insiders]
While the new rules specifically do not ban people from sitting on the steps, the rules ensure special protection of Unesco sites including the 135 steps, where visitors are banned from littering and painting graffiti there.
Police may impose stiff fines for bathing in the fountains, dragging wheeled suitcases down historic steps or dressing up as Roman centurions.
According to The Local, the cops have earlier fined people for getting into the fountains or drinking at famous landmarks, but the new rules have imposed even higher fines – at least EUR 400 for damaging any old monuments and up to EUR 450 for bathing in a fountain.
[ALSO READ: Women in Saudi Arabia now don’t need a man’s approval to possess passport, travel]
“As long as some tourists – not all – continue to behave excessively, like those who damage the Colosseum by carving their names into it or bathe in our historic fountains, applying the rules rigorously, like in this case, is understandable,” local councillor Anna Vincenzoni told Adnkronos.
Prominent art critic and commentator Vittorio Sgarbi has referred to efforts to not let visitors sit on the steps “excessive, practically fascist”, according to a report in The Local.
“Since time immemorial, passing travellers have sat on the steps and admired the landscape,” said Sgarbi.
