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Some of Italy’s best-known tourist attractions have been targeted by students protesting about funding cuts.

In Pisa, dozens of students forced their way into the Leaning Tower, while others formed a cordon to prevent tourists from entering. A banner was unfurled on the tower. In Rome, students occupied parts of the Colosseum, unfurling banners and letting off flares.

It was the second day of demonstrations – the previous day, students had managed to force their way into the Italian Senate in Rome.

The protests were the latest in a wave of demonstrations against austerity measures in Europe. In London, there have been two big demonstrations against a proposed increase in university tuition fees, with some violence and damage.

by Andy Moreton

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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The palm trees that offer welcome shade along the sun-drenched coasts of Italy are being attacked by voracious bugs.

Up and down the country, tens of thousands of trees are being eaten by an army of red palm weevils. Parks, gardens and seafronts have been targeted in some of Italy’s best-known tourist destinations, including the beach resorts of Tuscany, Sardinia and the Adriatic.

Palms are not indigenous to Italy, but were introduced in the 18th and 19th centuries by wealthy collectors and aristocrats keen to give their estates an exotic look.

“It is really a disaster, there are tens of thousands of palms which are dead or dying,” said Valeria Francatti, an entomologist who is researching ways of combating the weevils. “The weevil gets right into the heart of the tree, so by the time the damage becomes apparent on the outside, it’s already too late.”

In Rome, the bug has caused severe damage to the capital’s historic parks, many of them formerly private gardens surrounding sumptuous private villas such as Villa Sciarra and Villa Torlonia.

A scientist in Rome said it was not possible to use chemicals because many palms were planted near beaches or in towns and cities, where insecticides would pose a risk to human health.

Researchers in Sicily have found they can capture the bugs using traps laced with pheromones, but deploying the contraptions is time-consuming and costly.

by Andy Moreton, with Nick Squires in Rome

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Part of Nero’s Golden Palace, a popular tourist site in Rome, has collapsed.

A large piece of the vault ceiling, which topped one of the corridors linking the many halls and chambers of the sprawling complex, crumbled and fell to the ground – possibly because of water seepage. No-one was injured.

The city’s, Mayor, Gianni Alemanno, said he was very worried, and ordered an investigation to determine the exact cause of the collapse. The site, which is situated in central Rome not far from the Colosseum, was cordoned off as sand bags were placed to support the remaining parts of the corridor’s walls.

Nero built his ornate palace, the Domus Aurea, after the great fire of Rome in 64 A.D. to use as a party villa rather than a residence. Covered in part by gold leaf, it also had walls decorated with semi-precious stones and frescoes.

The incident has raised fresh concern about the state of one of Rome’s most prized archaeological treasures. It was closed in late 2005 for more than a year after the culture ministry said it couldn’t guarantee the safety of visitors and staff.

The site superintendent, Luciano Marchetti, said the collapse needed to be seen as a warning – more finance for the site’s upkeep was urgently needed.

by Andy Moreton

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I wrote in July about the Japanese couple who went to the police in Rome after being charged nearly 700 euros (£600/$980) for a modest lunch.

Tourists can be ripped off anywhere, of course, but Rome seems to crop up regularly in complaints columns. It’s reassuring to hear, then, that Italy’s tourism minister, Michela Brambilla, has begun a campaign to try to stop the unscrupulous few getting away with sharp practices.

It seems it’s not only restaurants and bars that will come under scrutiny. Another Japanese tourist complained after being charged 20 euros (£18 /$30) for having his photo taken with one of the costumed centurions outside the Colosseum.

Incidentally, Ms Brambilla offered the restaurant couple, the Yamadas, a holiday in Rome at her ministry’s expense, which they politely declined.

The very reasonable Mr Yasuyuki Yamada said that spending taxpayers’ money in this way was not really fair on the Italian population, particularly as his vacation had not been at all bad. He would certainly think about for another holiday – but at his own expense.

by Andy Moreton

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