How Not to Tourist, Part 2
More stupid shenanigans and shitty behavior from people who should know better
Cari amici,
Here we are, well into tourist season (not that the off-season even exists anymore), and the imbeciles, morons, and devoted followers of menefreghismo are at it again, destroying property and breaking laws with abandon, glee, or plain old cluelessness. Yes, it’s time for another installment of TBB (Tourists Behaving Badly), the Italy-only edition!
Given how much all these foibles are publicized, it’s hard to believe the perps often claim ignorance of the laws and regulations prohibiting such behavior—though at the level of moronic mastery required to claim membership in the Idiots Hall of Fame, it’s entirely possible that they don’t read.
As I said in the first installment of “How Not to Tourist,” you’ve probably already heard many of these little stories. But also as I said, they’re best consumed together to get a mega-dose of disbelief and despair.
We’ll start with a bit of property damage that happened right after the first “How Not to Tourist” was published, in one of my small ancestral towns, not exactly a tourist mecca. Yes, I’ve been sitting on this one all this time.
Rules? But I’m an influencer!
In August 2023, a group of six young people ages 25 to 30, including a German influencer by name of Janis Danner, rented Villa Alcea in Viggiù, Lombardia, with the intent to use it as a location for a video. On the villa’s grounds is a fountain, whose centerpiece is (was) a statue made by Enrico Butti, a well-known viggiutese artist. Butti, whose former home is now a museum dedicated to his work, is revered in Viggiù.
The 150-year-old statue, called Domina, was off-limits—I mean, common sense would tell you that, since it’s in a fountain—but to be extra sure guests knew that, several placards around the site clearly stated that approaching or touching the statue is forbidden. Gosh, those pesky rules!
As you’ve correctly predicted by now, Danner and his gang of menefreghismo-ers decided to film themselves in the fountain, natch. And they knocked the statue over, destroying it to the tune of around €200,000. Double natch.
If you think Danner felt remorse, you’d be wrong. He didn’t apologize for the (likely irreversible) damage, for which he offered to pay €200 (you’re missing three zeroes there, buddy) because it was, as he put it, “only a statue [made] of sand.” Then he promptly left the country. Sounds like a great guy!
If you’d like to watch a (very short) video of the incident, here it is.
But my GPS told me to!
Now that we’ve talked about my ancestral town, let’s talk about my adopted hometown, Perugia, an Umbrian hill town with plenty of stairs. One popular photo-op location is the Sant’Ercolano staircase (see photo at top), a long, curving pedestrian walkway that has, oddly, also proved to be popular with drivers who are (to put it kindly) confused by the concept of streets closed to cars, or who think their GPS is infallible. To the point that these “geniuses” remove the posts blocking the non-passable street, beyond which is a long, curved flight of stairs. Then off they go.
For example, in September 2023, the driver of an Alfa Romeo SUV got to the bottom only to find parked cars blocking his way, so he turned the car around and drove back up the stairs. Gymkhana, anyone? In April 2024, in a case involving two Italian rental cars, the bottom of the stairs wasn’t blocked and the drivers made their getaway unscathed—meaning them personally, because I can’t vouch for the state of their cars’ suspensions after thumping down, I don’t know, at least 60 steps.
According to residents in the Sant’Ercolano area, stairway driving is a fairly regular occurrence. And yes, the drivers are tourists.
Who’s hungry?
Details are sketchy on this one. This month the Instagram account “Venezia Non è Disneyland” posted a photo of a man in shorts and hiking sneakers who, having shucked off his backpack-with-bedroll, set up his camp stove next to a medieval well. He got a good fire going for whatever he planned to cook, but I assume (and hope) his meal was interrupted by a poliziotto armed with a ticket book because cooking outdoors [checks Venetian laws and regulations] is forbidden. In the end, it probably would have been cheaper for Camper Guy to eat in a restaurant, which, given the weather, he could also have done al fresco. I hope the local cops sent the guy into exile.
A selfie or 10? I insist!
Is there anything more evocative than a Venetian canal where romantic gondolas glide, poled along by operatic men wearing striped shirts and nonskid shoes? Is there anywhere better to take a selfie than on said gondola? As it turned out for one group of tourists in December 2023, yes.
Standing and moving around in the boat, the determined tourists disregarded the repeated pleas of the long-suffering gondolier to sit—pleas that were more than mere concerns for their safety. He was trying to maneuver the boat under a bridge, which required a particular distribution of weight for clear passage. But no. The tourists stood and posed and selfied until the boat capsized, tossing everyone into the water. What fun! I hope they selfied themselves swimming with sewage on their faces.
According to our trusty source Venezia Non è Disneyland, the group was fished out and given “hospitality and warmth.” I’d have given them something a little less comfortable, and I’ll bet the gondolier would have too.
By the way, in 2020 the gondoliers’ association decreased the number of people allowed in a gondola da nolo (the kind that cruise the canals) from six to five due to weight concerns. According to an article in The Guardian, the president of the association of substitute gondoliers, Raoul Roveratto, spoke bluntly when interviewed in La Repubblica about overweight tourists: “[W]hen [the boat] is fully loaded, the hull sinks and water enters. Advancing with over half a ton of meat on board is dangerous.” Love this guy!
Bridge, what bridge?
If you’ve been to Florence, you’ve probably walked across the Ponte Vecchio, the oldest bridge in the city and the only one to survive the World War II bombings. Note the operative word here: walked. Since, like, forever, the bridge has been a pedestrian-only zone, which isn’t hard to figure out when you’re there.
Unless, of course, you’re a 34-year-old American tourist from California who, in January 2023, drove across the bridge in a rented Fiat Panda while, he claimed, looking for a parking spot. He “hadn’t noticed” the bridge, he said. I guess that means he also didn’t notice the lack of other cars headed there or the (typically) hundreds of pedestrians filling the street. Total fine: €500, including a fee for driving without the required international driver’s license. Take the train next time, fella.
Me and my Neptune
In September 2023, a tourist in Florence just had to get up close and personal with the towering statue of Neptune that dominates a fountain next to the Palazzo Vecchio. The intrepid tourist, a 22-year-old German man, climbed the Renaissance-era marble statue to pose for a photo. Surprise! He posed for a video too—because after another Neptune-climbing incident, in 2005, in which a clambering tourist broke off the sea god’s hand, videocameras were installed at the site.
This time, on his descent, the tourist broke parts of a horse’s hoof, the chariot, and the fountain itself, damage whose repairs totaled an estimated €5,000.
The mayor of Florence, Dario Nardella, posted the video footage on Twitter/X and had condemning yet polite things to say. Not so diplomatic was Tommaso Muccini, an architect who maintains the city’s monuments, who called the tourist an imbecile. I like Tommaso so very much.
But soccer!
In back-in-the-day Florence, meaning 460 years ago, those not-officially-in-power-but-hey-we’ll-rule-anyway Medici boys had an elevated passageway built so they could scoot from the Palazzo Vecchio to their new digs at Palazzo Pitti without having to encounter pesky peons. Now known as the Vasari Corridor, the walkway was deemed the ideal spot for some soccer-themed graffiti by a couple of spray-paint-wielding schmucks in August 2023.
The schmucks in question were two German men, ages 20 and 21, part of a large group of tourists staying in a nearby Airbnb. At the time, the repairs plus round-the-clock armed guards to monitor the work were estimated to cost €10,000.
Unfortunately, the article I read didn’t mention what the schmucks’ “artwork” (numbers and letters representing a German soccer club called TSV 1860 Munich) cost them. (Charges were TBD pending an investigation.) But Eike Schmidt, at the time the director of the Uffizi Galleries (which encompass the Vasari Corridor), called for “an iron fist of the law” in this case. In the past, he has proposed prison terms for those who damage cultural heritage sites. You go, Eike!
Drone diving
April was a bad month for drone-related incidents in Italy in 2022. First two Mexican tourists, ages 18 and 26, flew their drone into Pisa’s Leaning Tower, fortunately without causing any damage. Then a 32-year-old Romanian tourist, also in Pisa, flew his drone over the Piazza dei Miracoli (Piazza del Duomo), near the tower, to “take more evocative images,” a police official said. Later in the month, in Rome, a 39-year-old Argentine man lost control of his drone, which crashed onto the roof of the Palazzo Venezia.
Though no damage or injuries resulted from these incidents, the tourists could have been (and perhaps were; info is sketchy) prosecuted. Italy has strict drone laws. Flying a drone in an urban or crowded area requires a permit from an aviation entity and authorization from the police, and in some places—the entire city of Rome and the Vatican, and the historic center of Perugia, for example—drones are prohibited entirely.
But it was hot!
Last summer wasn’t just hot in Italy, it was inferno-caliber hot. So I get it—you’re in Rome, out doing your touristy thing, checking off all the must-sees alongside a few hundred thousand other sweaty, cranky visitors, and you’re thirsty, really thirsty. So what are you gonna do when you get to the Trevi Fountain? You’re gonna rock-climb that fountain in front of a gazillion pairs of eyes to fill your water bottle, aren’t you?
Well, you are if you’re a woman of unknown age and country who doesn’t appear to understand that bottled water can be found every 10 paces or that Rome is famous for its plentiful nasoni that spew excellent water 24/7. When confronted by a security guard, the woman seemed unable to comprehend another thing—why anyone would reprimand her for her parkour stunt. A video of the occurrence went viral on TikTok, so if you’d like to reassure yourself that you’re smarter than the average bear, you can see it here.
Did Water-Bottle Woman face any penalties or fines? Sadly, I’ve got no info about that, but there’s always hope. Speriamo bene.
If by chance you think this is a big kerfluffle about nothing, please be advised that Rome’s entire historic center is a UNESCO heritage site, which you’d think would mandate some common sense about appropriate behavior. Since that’s clearly too much to ask, in 2019 the city expanded legislation to curb shenanigans like this one, specifically prohibiting climbing on and bathing in historic fountains. It’s not like the laws are handed out on street corners (not that anyone would read them anyway), but honestly, I have a question for this woman and her fellow morons—would you do this at home?
Unfortunately, the answer is probably yes.
Unfortunately, “How Not to Tourist, Part 3” is a given. Stay tuned!
Fortunately, we can read this stuff and have a little laugh/cry while we silently thank our parents for raising us right.
Tante belle cose. Alla prossima—
Cheryl
P.S. My book! Which you can buy here or on the usual sites, or, better yet, order it from your local bookstore. Another fab option is to ask your library to stock it. If you read it and like it, please tell your friends and/or leave a few lines of praise on any bookish site. You’d be surprised how much a rating or review helps authors. Baci!
Well. I'm truly speechless at the incredible display of idiocy you have documented here. As my mother would say, "Stupid is forever."
All of these shenanigans make me very sad that people don’t know how to treat these precious artifacts…..
They need to fine them and fine them a lot…