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Rome has followed another Italian city, Venice, in drawing up plans to tax tourists in an attempt to raise revenue.

Guests staying at four- and five-star luxury hotels in Rome will pay 3 euros (£2.50/$4) a night from January 1st next year, and there will be a 2 euros (£1.70/$2.66) a night tax on all other accommodation.

Tourists will be advised about the Contributo di Soggiorno tax on arrival and they’ll have to pay the levy before they check out. The maximum number of nights taxable per stay is 10, a charge of up to £25 ($40). Children under two and youth hostels will be exempt.

It’s understood that five per cent of the income generated by the tax will be used to improve tourist facilities in the Eternal City, although further details have not been released. Nine million people visit Rome every year.

The tax could still be challenged in the courts. The European Tour Operators’ Association has criticised the levy, likening it to ‘being on a plane and then being charged to leave’.

by Andy Moreton

Luxique offers a selection of luxury hotels in Rome, as well as a handy city guide.

A homeless Romanian, named only as ‘Attilla’, has been fined 160 euros (£136 / $216) for staging a spectacular display of acrobatic diving at the famous Trevi fountain in Rome.

The man, who’s believed to have had a drink or two, repeatedly climbed to the top of the fountain and performed a series of elaborate dives to the amusement of a crowd of tourists and onlookers, many of whom filmed the show.

The display ended when police ordered the man, clad only in dripping wet black jeans, out of the fountain and arrested him. “I’ve got it in for the world,” he said as he was led away. Police had earlier fined him for defacing a wall in a nearby street.

Ever since Fellini’s 1960 film La Dolce Vita, when Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni frolicked in the Trevi fountain, some tourists have tried to recreate the iconic scene and take forbidden dips in the monument.

Visitors also toss coins into the fountain over their shoulders, which according to tradition, means they will return to Rome. As a result, nearly 3,000 euros (£2,550 /$4,000) is collected from the fountain every night. The money has been used in the past to subsidise a supermarket for Rome’s needy people.

by Andy Moreton

Splash out and order a room at one of the finest luxury hotels in Rome – Luxique has a comprehensive list.

Another tourist spot is mobilising its forces to deal with holidaymakers not considered to be in appropriate attire (see previous on Barcelona, Salou and the Vatican).

The Mayor of Castellammare di Stabia, a beach town south of Naples in Italy, has ordered officers to fine women who wear miniskirts that are considered too short or who show too much cleavage.

Explaining what he meant by too short, Luigi Bobbio said ‘skirts that did not fully cover underwear’. He said he had faith in officers to make snap decisions. “They won’t need to carry out checks up close,” he said. “One glance will be enough to judge.”

The measure – controversially approved by the town council – is part of a battle to raise what’s described as ‘the level of public decorum’. But it’s provoked fury among opposition councillors and women’s groups.

Councillor Angela Cortese said: “By equating women’s clothing with urban decorum, this measure implies women are no more than benches or hedges … this turns the clock back years for women.”

The miniskirt ban is one of 41 taboos introduced by Mr Bobbio. Others include swearing in public, playing football in the street, lying on benches, climbing trees and walking a dog with a lead longer than two metres (6 feet 6 inches).

And people won’t be allowed to wander off the beach in swimwear. “This is not Majorca,” said the Mayor.

by Andy Moreton

If you’re planning to visit Italy, take a look at Luxique’s comprehensive selection of luxury hotels in Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan and many other cities.

Hikers and tourists visiting Cinque Terre, one of Italy’s most scenic stretches of coastline, have been banned from carrying plastic bottles of water.

In the peak month of August, an average 400,000 plastic bottles are discarded along the narrow strip of picturesque World Heritage coast, which lies south of Genoa. Some tumble down the steep cliffs and end up littering beaches and polluting the sea.

Now the authorities are asking visitors to pay 1 euro (86p/$1.36) for reusable one-litre metal flasks that can be filled at newly installed public water fountains along the coastline’s nine-mile hike.

Franco Bonanini, the President of the Cinque Terre national park, said the ban was being introduced because the area was being buried in plastic.

He said local shopkeepers were likely to be unhappy with a ban on selling bottled water, but should realise that it was in their long-term interests. “If the Cinque Terre is reduced to a rubbish dump in five years’ time, they will suffer the consequences,” said Mr Bonanini.

To the three million tourists who visit each year, he asked for a little understanding “in order to save this paradise for the future”.

by Andy Moreton

Luxique offers a selection of luxury hotels in Rome, Florence, Venice and many other parts of Italy.

Last week, I wrote about the ridiculing by the Italian media of the clichéd depiction of Rome in the new movie Eat Pray Love.

I hear that Italy has got huffy again, this time with Apple. The tourism minister is calling on the company to remove from its online store what she says is the ‘offensive’ What Country app relating to Italy.

The application, which can be downloaded to iPhones, iPads and iPods, characterises each nation with words and images. Italy is described as the home of ‘pizza, the Mafia and scooters’.

The minister, Michela Vittoria Brambilla, condemned the app as unacceptable and an affront to Italians’ dignity. “Italy is a beacon in the world for its history, culture and style. I cannot allow our country to be discredited by having it represented by a criminal organisation,” she said.

Apple describes the app as ‘a light-hearted and funny view of the world’. “This is not a travel guide and should not be taken too seriously,” it says. Enjoy and have fun!”

British people are clearly more laid-back about being the butt of friendly ribbing. No objections have yet been received from the UK about having its special features summarised as tea, a weird sense of humour, football hooligans and rain.

by Andy Moreton

If you’re planning to visit Italy, take a look at Luxique’s comprehensive selection of luxury hotels in Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan and many other cities.

The recently released movie Eat Pray Love (One Woman’s Search For Everything) has had what might be termed ‘mixed’ reactions, at least here in the UK. One review (admittedly written by a man) was headlined ‘Yawn fidget stretch’.

Julia Roberts plays American journalist Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote a best-selling book about a year she spent travelling in Italy, India and Indonesia trying to get over a divorce, a rebound romance and the feeling that her life in New York was devoid of meaning.

Some of the harshest criticism of the film has come from the Italian media, who’ve gone to town over what they see as a comically clichéd portrayal of Rome.

“It rains spaghetti, the Italians are always gesticulating and following foreign girls shouting vulgarities, but then getting engaged to a nice housewife to please their domineering mothers. And there’s lots of pizza,” wrote a reviewer in La Repubblica.

The movie, which co-stars Spanish actor Javier Bardem, was also damned by La Stampa, which said its portrayal of Italy was deeply kitsch. “The apartment in the old part of town without any hot water but with a nosy parker landlady … a group of boys who in Piazza di Spagna follow a tourist and touch her up … the couple who indulge in heavy petting in plain view of everyone … and then the pantomime conversations, the noisy racket. The Italian part of the journey is packed with stereotypes.”

The Washington Post reviewer conceded that the depiction was more cartoon postcard than living metropolis: “The city featured in Eat Pray Love is the Rome of every American’s fondest holiday memories.”

by Andy Moreton

Seek out the real Italian capital and let Luxique guide you to the best luxury hotels in Rome.

I wrote recently about the renovation of the Sistine Chapel frescoes. Across Rome, another world famous landmark is due for the mother of all clean-ups: the Colosseum.

As well as a thorough refurbishment, the Italian government wants to add additional facilities and make the Colosseum a much more satisfying visitor experience.

“The one problem with all these ambitions is money,” says the BBC’s Rome correspondent, Duncan Kennedy. “In these austere times, the government does not have enough of it to do the job. So it’s turning to private business to come up with some of the cash to help. Yes, the Colosseum is to be sponsored.”

Mario Resca, the head of Italy’s museums and heritage, used to run McDonald’s operations across Europe, so he’s familiar with the world of commercialism. “There’s no problem in bringing in private money, as long as it’s done responsibly,” he says.

But sponsoring the Colosseum has raised concerns about how it can be done tastefully. “We already see that much of central Rome is beginning to look like Times Square,” says Darius Arya, from the American Institute for Roman Culture. “It can be overwhelming to see some of the advertising hoardings on existing classical buildings.”

The Colosseum is one of the most widely known buildings in the world,” says Mr Arya. “They have to get it right.”

• The Colosseum is currently running tours at night – between 9pm and midnight. They’re on Saturdays until October 2nd.

by Andy Moreton

Luxique offers a selection of luxury hotels in Rome and a handy city guide.

Michelangelo and the other Renaissance masters who created the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican could never have imagined that four-and-a-half million people a year would wander through to admire their handiwork.

The problem is that those tourists breathe, perspire and give off hair and dust – and that’s not good news for paintings that are 500 years old.

Following the first cleaning operation for four years, experts have expressed alarm at the state of the exquisite works.

The Director of the Vatican Museums, Prof Antonio Paolucci, said: “All the 4.5 million tourists who visit the Sistine Chapel each year bring in dust on their clothes and shoes.

“They shed tiny particles of skin and of course they breathe. We can’t do anything about that — if you don’t breathe, you die – but each human body increases the humidity inside the chapel. All this produces an accumulation of dust on the frescoes. They are not going to start crumbling tomorrow, but over a long period of time there is a danger that they will be damaged.”

Prof Paolucci said that with advanced technical instruments it was possible to maintain constant levels of humidity and temperature, but the systems used at the moment were between 15 and 20 years old and needed replacing. Vatican officials will work with technicians to ascertain how to replace the climate control system, with the cost as yet unknown.

by Andy Moreton

If you’re planning a visit to the Italian capital to take in the Vatican, don’t miss Luxique’s selection of luxury hotels in Rome.

It was reported by the Daily Telegraph newspaper last week that the Vatican’s Swiss Guards are the latest authority figures to clamp down on skimpy clothing worn by tourists (see previous posts about Barcelona and Salou).

It’s always been the norm to dress modestly when entering St Peter’s Basilica – or indeed any place of worship – but the paper reports that the Pope’s private army has now extended this to the whole of the Vatican state.

The guards apparently drew aside men in shorts, and women with uncovered shoulders and short skirts, to tell them that they were improperly dressed. Some of the female tourists bought shawls and scarves from stalls close by, while a few men had to wander off to the nearest shops to buy long trousers.

The tough dress code also applies to Romans using the Vatican’s pharmacy, supermarket and post office.

The Daily Telegraph quoted visitors as saying that at a time when the Catholic Church was battling scandals over paedophile priests and decades of cover-ups, it should have more important things to worry about.

by Andy Moreton

If you’re planning a visit to the Italian capital to take in the Vatican, don’t miss Luxique’s selection of luxury hotels in Rome.

The perils of buying counterfeit designer label goods in Italy (which I’ve written about before) have been brought sharply into focus in an incident in the resort of Jesolo near Venice.

A pensioner from Austria, Ursula Corel, was fined 1000 euros (£825/$1,195) for buying a fake Louis Vuitton handbag from a street vendor.

She was spotted handing over seven euros (£6/$8) by police officers as they scanned crowds with high-powered binoculars from a lifeguard’s watchtower.

Hotel owners, worried that tourists will be put off visiting Jesolo on holiday, have clubbed together to help pay Mrs Corel’s fine.

A spokesman for the Jesolo Hoteliers’ Association said: “We understand what the Mayor is trying to do, but at the same time there should be more communication with tourists explaining the risks they run … there are no signs warning they face fines if they buy from street vendors.”

The Mayor, Francesco Calzavara, said: “If it takes fines of this level to stop this sort of thing taking place then so be it. Tourists coming to Jesolo should think twice about buying fake goods from street vendors.”

by Andy Moreton

If you’re planning a visit to Italy, take a look at Luxique’s comprehensive selection of luxury hotels in Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan and many other cities.