How Not to Tourist, Part 3

In which my documentation of shitty, stupid tourist behavior continues, unfortunately

Drive down these steps? Piece of cake. Photo mine.

Cari amici,

Here we go again! But before we get started on the annual roundup of imbecilic, clueless, and sometimes dangerous tourist shenanigans (you can read part 1 here and part 2 here), I have a bit of citizenship-related news.

If you’ve been following along here and here and here, you know that in 2019, after 10 years of recognizing the foreign-born minor children of Italian emigrants as Italian, bam! An about-face has led to the routine denial of recognition in such cases (the “minor issue”). Since January, at least 15 cases contesting those rejections have been filed at Italy’s highest court, the Corte Suprema di Cassazione, and now there’s some very exciting news—the Court has requested a United Sessions hearing of several of these cases.

Why does this matter? To quote a post by one of the moderators on the jure sanguinis subreddit, “Cases are referred to the United Sections to achieve stability within jurisprudence when there are conflicting interpretations of the law.” Which means if the United Sections rules in favor of the minor-issue plaintiffs, they will be recognized as Italian citizens and this issue will be resolved once and for all. More to come on all that as things develop.

Now, on to the stupid and the scandalous, the dangerous and the dimwitted, the questionable and the confounding. I’m excluding some tragic stories you may have heard about—a woman who fell to her death from a wall at the Spanish Steps; a woman who may be paralyzed after she jumped from a bridge on the Amalfi Coast—because we don’t know the circumstances and I don’t want to falsely attribute these horrific events to poor judgment.

Souvenirs and sex acts

Rome, June 2025

A Reddit user on the Rome subreddit reported seeing a young man in his 20s extract a piece of stone from a wall in the Colosseum and stash it in his friend’s backpack. The young man and his friends were reportedly laughing about the theft—but that didn’t last long. The Reddit user told some security guards what he’d seen; later, as he was leaving, he saw that the group had been detained by Colosseum staff and the Carabinieri had just arrived.

Theft from the Colosseum is nothing new. According to the monument’s website, it was “used as a stone and materials quarry up until the mid-18th century,” when, in 1744, Pope Benedict XIV “issued an edict prohibiting the desecration of the monument.” But these days we know better than to destroy a world-famous, incredibly valuable in terms of cultural history, beloved icon of Italy, right? Right?

Rome, May 23, 2025

You think taking a little stone is bad? How about a 30-kilogram ancient Roman artifact made of marble?

A 23-year-old German tourist was pulled over when police spotted him cruising along Via Veneto on a rented scooter with the base to an ancient column plonked down between his feet. The initial report states that the young man claims it was a souvenir; at the time it was unclear whether he had purchased it. The man was not charged but was under investigation for “receiving stolen cultural goods.” Archaeologists were (or are) doing studies to determine the artifact’s origin.

Florence, July 17, 2024

I missed this one last year, but we can’t let it slip by. Not when it involves a female tourist kissing and simulating a sex act with a statue of Bacchus. The statue (fortunately a copy; the original, by Renaissance artist Giambologna, is in the Bargello Museum) stands near the Ponte Vecchio. The woman’s antics weren’t appreciated, judging by the widespread negative responses, including calls for the woman’s arrest, on social media.

Nor were Florence’s higher-ups amused. Archaeology and fine arts superintendent Antonella Rinaldi said that tourists “need to respect our artworks, be they originals or replicas. Although I doubt this lady —whom I condemn —even knows the difference.” Should her identity be discovered, city authorities say, she may be banned from Florence for life.

Giambologna’s original Bacchus. Image from here.

Museum capers

Verona, June 16, 2025

I mean, come on. If you saw a chair sparkling with hundreds of Swarovski crystals, you’d sit on it, wouldn’t you? And break it? And leave without fessing up? That’s what a couple did at Palazzo Maffei when they took photos while pretending to sit on Nicola Bolla’s “Van Gogh” chair. Except—whoops! The man actually sat on it, breaking two of its legs. This was a tad premeditated because they were sneaky enough to wait until a security guard left the room, then blatantly ignored the “do not touch” sign.

The chair was able to be repaired, fortunately (the museum staffers had their doubts at first). Subsequently the museum put out a statement saying, “We are sharing this episode not only for the record, but to start a real awareness campaign on the value of art and the respect it deserves.”

The police were summoned; however, the unidentified vandals remain at large. Eyes peeled, people! Someone knows who they are!

Florence, June 21, 2025

Millions of people traipse through the Uffizi Galleries each year and manage not to damage any of the artworks. Not so one visitor intent on making a meme. He was standing near a painting of Ferdinando de’ Medici by Antonio Domenico Gabbiani, which dates to 1690, attempting to imitate the subject’s pose for a photo, when he fell backward into the painting, causing it to tear.

Image from museocivicomontepulciano.it.

“The problem of visitors coming to museums to make memes or take selfies for social media is rampant,” said the Uffizi’s director, Simone Verde. Consequently, the museum may impose new rules to restrict visitor behavior. “We will set very precise limits, preventing behavior that is not compatible with the sense of our institutions and respect for cultural heritage.”

The tear, considered “non-serious” by the museum’s conservators, was repaired and the painting put back on display. Meanwhile, the exhibit in which the painting was featured (its normal home is the Palazzo Pitti) was closed until July 2, a period of 10 to 12 days. So thanks to one selfish tourist, many people who otherwise would have seen the exhibit were denied that pleasure.

Water, you slippery vixen, you tempt me so

Venice, July 2024

According to the news site Venezia Today, a 48-year-old Lithuanian man, newly arrived from Verona, stripped down to his underwear to take a dip in the (filthy) canal outside the train station. It was a pricey swim—the police fined him €800 and gave him a talking-to.

Venice, March 12, 2025

Venice’s 2025 swimming season kicked off when a foreign tourist (no nationality given) was stopped by the local police near the Ponte degli Scalzi, near the train station. (Again? These people arriving by train seem to be in a hurry to dive in.) She was swimming topless, so one can only assume the police were eager, oops, kind enough to haul her out and ferry her to terra firma. No mention was made of a fine; perhaps the kind officers were distracted by, uh, other stuff.

Venice, May 29, 2025

No tourist season in Venice is complete without a capsized gondola; at this point, I wonder if the gondoliers bet on who’ll get dunked each season. This year’s perpetrators: three tourists. The reason: a selfie (duh). Near the Ponte di Rialto, a gondola flipped upside down in a matter of seconds, according to the taken-by-surprise gondolier. A couple of water taxis came to their rescue. The local authorities then (I’m paraphrasing the reportage) invited visitors to give maximum attention during navigation, avoiding risky behaviors, especially aboard unstable forms of transit such as a gondola. I’m super convinced that the visitors listened very, very carefully.

Venice, February 2025

There’s water and then there’s “water.” A German tourist, failing to find a toilet (hint: every bar has one), peed in the street in front of his wife and a friend, for which he was fined €450 and forced to leave the city under an ordinance called DASPO (Divieto di Accedere alle Manifestazioni SPOrtivi, which was originally implemented to curb violence at sporting events but now can apply to broader public-safety issues).

Ah, those siren steps, as tempting as water

Rome, June 17, 2025

Driving down the Spanish Steps is officially a thing, quite possibly a tradition! In this year’s edition, an 81-year-old man claims to have taken a wrong turn and ended up driving down the Spanish Steps in the wee hours of the morning. You can watch him do it, and get stuck, here.

If your first thought was “Man, this dude was drunk,” you’d be wrong—he tested negative for alcohol and drugs. The fire department then got involved, placing boards on the steps to protect them from further damage (no report on that) and using a crane to remove the car. Did they throw the old geezer in the lockup? DASPO him? Fine him severely enough to leave him destitute? Alas, we don’t know.

Spoleto, June 25, 2025

Another elderly man pulled off a similar stunt in Umbria.

During Spoleto’s famed Festival of Two Worlds, an Israeli couple visiting Umbria sent crowds and workers scattering when they snaked their tiny Toyota Aygo between the barriers at the top of the steps leading to the Duomo and bumped and thumped their way down to the piazza. This seems to have been deliberate, because when they reached the Duomo the driver helped his disabled wife exit the car there. Were there consequences? Inquiring minds want to know, but alas again, no information was offered in the initial report.

Totally driveable, right? Photos mine.

These roofs were made for climbing

Florence, July 12, 2025

It’s happened again: the idiotic quest for clicks has motivated social media users to engage in behavior so stupid and dangerous it boggles the mind. In video footage first seen on Instagram on July 12, two young men can be seen climbing on the roof of the Basilica di Santa Croce. One of them is clinging to the cross that tops the church’s steeply peaked façade, tens of meters above the piazza below. The risk is obvious, both to the climbers and to people on the ground, not to mention potential damage to the 14th-century church (which was, at the time, being assessed).

According to the cultural website Finestre Sull’Arte, authorities are attempting to determine whether the video is real and to identify the trespassers. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time young men have aspired to dangerous heights; in 2024, a young man gained illegal access to Florence’s Duomo and walked around the dome’s exterior.

Venice, June 27, 2025

It’s true that most tourists in Venice who want to do something moronic tend to look down, not up. But for two young death-defiers in the Castello zone, going up was the goal. Without safety measures of any kind, the pair—shoeless—clambered onto a rooftop. Consequences? Not that I know of; I don’t think they were identified. But come on, people, don’t do this shit.

When your plan goes very, very wrong

Rome, May 2, 2025

When is the quest for a better view or the perfect selfie a shortsighted move? When it leaves you impaled on a fence at the Colosseum. That’s what happened to a 47-year-old U.S. citizen, a resident of Taiwan, who slipped while trying to climb a fence and fell on the sharp spikes. The man lost consciousness during the attempt to free him and was taken by ambulance, lights and sirens, to a nearby hospital, where his treatment included emergency surgery and 80 stitches.

Was he just trying to trespass? Crumbling to the demands of social media stardom in some inexplicable way? We don’t know. [cue maudlin music] Perhaps we never will.

And thus ends this year’s survey of stupidity.

Tante belle cose, alla prossima—

Cheryl

Italian words of the day

Just because I like them.

• pressappochismo: carelessness

• qualunquismo: indifference, apathy

• benaltrismo: whataboutism

• nientepopodimeno: none other, no less

• faciloneria: laziness, superficiality

Recent reading

I’m plowing through Il Gattopardo by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. It’s gonna be a long haul because the language is archaic and there’s a ton of vocabulary I don’t know. That’s where I snagged “faciloneria.”

• The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

• Contents May Have Shifted by Pam Houston

• Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson

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!