philat98

An expensive experience for 2 German tourists in Venice.
https://www.corriere.it/cronache/19_...fa123548.shtml

heritagestanley

Fair enough to penalise them, I reckon. But the fines imposed are really whopping and seem disproportionate

philat98

The fine for wearing a bikini is Euro250 and for a dog poop Euro450. All the people fined seem to be foreigners.

heritagestanley

If all Italian towns and cities actually enforced laws prohibiting dog fouling the country would have a massive budget surplus

Lorna at Vicenza

Venice didn't have enough bars where this couple could grab a coffee? I seriously don't understand some people.

Sancho

Same approach in Rome. Always foreigners.

https://roma.fanpage.it/si-tuffano-n...in-tutta-roma/

Pica

That's no surprise.

Accetturese

Where were they going to wash the cups etc? Were they going to remove all rubbish? I doubt it. Rome is going downhill, we took our niece there last month and you cannot move for hawkers trying to sell you cheap tat or expensive water.

Sancho

I suppose Rome's been like that - hawkers all over flogging tat and rip-off water, etc - for most of its history. Imperial Rome, Rome in the dark ages, mediaeval Rome, Rome in the Renaissance, Rome in the twenties and sixties. Same with Constantinople and Jerusalem and classical Athens. And the same with Venice, where, in 1968, I slept under a bridge and no-one batted an eyelid, and Florence, where I slept under a newspaper on a bench. I understood very little of the language - like, I imagine, many of the tourists punished here - but it never occurred to me that I might be breaking the law . Nor so far as I could see did it to anyone else.

Maybe Rome was tidier and more orderly in the ventennio. When else ?

Anyway, I thought part of the raison d'être of a fountain was free popular refreshment in the heat. Here's London, where they're obviously not all that bothered:

https://londonist.com/london/feature...uare-fountains

philat98

It reads like you were a Bohemian in your youth Sancho.

Since Venice is already charging an entrance fee you would think that they could check people's bags for cooking stoves, picnics and ban dogs and hawkers completely.

I suspect those German tourists may have been a bit rude when the police spoke to them.