Vacationers visiting the Trevi Fountain at the moment are going to pay extra than simply the legendary coin toss over their shoulder to get the Instagrammable selfie in entrance of one of many world’s most celebrated waterworks.
Beginning Feb. 1, town of Rome is imposing a 2-euro, or $2.35, payment for vacationers to get near the fountain throughout prime-time sunlight hours. The view for these admiring the late Baroque masterpiece from the piazza above stays free.
The vacationer payment introduced Friday is a part of the Everlasting Metropolis’s efforts to handle vacationer flows in a very congested a part of city, enhance the expertise and offset the upkeep prices of preserving all of Rome’s cultural heritage. Officers estimate it might web town $7.6 million additional a yr.
The payment, which has been mentioned and debated for greater than a yr, follows an identical ticketing system at Rome’s Pantheon monument.
Getty Photos/iStockphoto
In such circumstances, metropolis residents have been exempt from the charges. The identical holds true at Trevi, whereas the vacationer tax and new 5-euro or almost $6 vacationer ticket payment for some metropolis museums is being rolled out at the side of a plan to broaden the variety of museums which might be free for registered Roman residents.
“We imagine that tradition is a basic proper of citizenship,” Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri informed a information convention. “We expect it is appropriate and optimistic that the residents of Rome can get pleasure from our museums freed from cost.”
On the similar time, he mentioned, the Trevi vacationer payment is a minimal quantity that should not discourage guests, however relatively permit for a extra organized go to. The town determined to impose it after seeing optimistic outcomes already from a yearlong experiment to stagger and restrict the variety of guests who can attain the entrance basin fringe of the fountain by imposing strains and an entrance and exit pathway.
To this point this yr, round 9 million individuals have waited in line to get that close-up go to, with some days as many as 70,000 passing by means of, Gualtieri mentioned. That system now turns into everlasting from 9 a.m.-9 p.m., with the payment to be paid by nonresidents. Guests can both pay upfront on-line, whereas ready in line or by shopping for tickets at vacationer areas round city.
After dusk, entry is open and free.
Pope City VIII initially commissioned the fountain in 1640. In 1730, Pope Clement XII revived the undertaking and the present fountain corresponds to the unique designs of Roman architect Nicola Salvi.
The towering fountain options on the Titan god flanked by falls cascading down the travertine rocks right into a shallow turquoise pool, the place Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg famously took their nighttime dip in “La Dolce Vita.”
Whereas bathing is prohibited these days, legend has it that guests who toss a coin over their shoulders and make a want will return to Rome.
European officers have sought to curb overtourism amid protests from residents who say giant quantities of holiday makers are making cities troublesome to reside in. Final yr, Venice turned the primary metropolis to impose a tax for day-tripping vacationers. A spate of viral incidents, together with a girl who scaled the Trevi Fountain to refill her water bottle and a British man who carved his and his girlfriends’ initials into the Colosseum, additionally drew consideration to the difficulty.
“These vacationers are additionally vandals, as a result of they haven’t any respect for our cultural heritage, which belongs not simply to Italy, however to the entire world,” mentioned Daniela Santanchè, Italy’s tourism minister, on the time. “We have launched a invoice with a quite simple idea: You break it, you pay for it.”
