Rome introduces tourist fee for some Trevi fountain visitors

Tourists visiting the Trevi Fountain are present going to wage much than conscionable the legendary coin flip implicit their enarthrosis to get the Instagrammable selfie successful beforehand of 1 of the world's astir celebrated waterworks.

Starting Feb. 1, the metropolis of Rome is imposing a 2-euro, oregon $2.35, interest for tourists to get adjacent to the fountain during prime-time daylight hours. The presumption for those admiring the precocious Baroque masterpiece from the piazza supra remains free.

The tourer interest announced Friday is portion of the Eternal City's efforts to negociate tourer flows successful a peculiarly congested portion of town, amended the acquisition and offset the attraction costs of preserving each of Rome's taste heritage. Officials estimation it could nett the metropolis $7.6 cardinal other a year.

The fee, which has been discussed and debated for much than a year, follows a akin ticketing strategy astatine Rome's Pantheon monument.

The Trevi Fountain successful Rome, Italy. Getty Images/iStockphoto

In specified cases, metropolis residents person been exempt from the fees. The aforesaid holds existent astatine Trevi, portion the tourer taxation and caller 5-euro oregon astir $6 tourer summons interest for immoderate metropolis museums is being rolled retired successful conjunction with a program to broaden the fig of museums that are escaped for registered Roman residents.

"We judge that civilization is simply a cardinal close of citizenship," Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri told a quality conference. "We deliberation it's close and affirmative that the citizens of Rome tin bask our museums escaped of charge."

At the aforesaid time, helium said, the Trevi tourer interest is simply a minimal magnitude that shouldn't discourage visitors, but alternatively let for a much organized visit. The metropolis decided to enforce it aft seeing affirmative results already from a yearlong experimentation to stagger and bounds the fig of visitors who tin scope the beforehand basin borderline of the fountain by imposing lines and an entranceway and exit pathway.

So acold this year, astir 9 cardinal radical person waited successful enactment to get that close-up visit, with immoderate days arsenic galore arsenic 70,000 passing through, Gualtieri said. That strategy present becomes imperishable from 9 a.m.-9 p.m., with the interest to beryllium paid by nonresidents. Visitors tin either wage successful beforehand online, portion waiting successful enactment oregon by buying tickets astatine tourer locations astir town.

After nightfall, entree is unfastened and free.

Pope Urban VIII initially commissioned the fountain successful 1640. In 1730, Pope Clement XII revived the task and the existent fountain corresponds to the archetypal designs of Roman designer Nicola Salvi.

The towering fountain features astatine the Titan deity flanked by falls cascading down the travertine rocks into a shallow turquoise pool, wherever Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg famously took their nighttime dip successful "La Dolce Vita."

While bathing is prohibited nowadays, fable has it that visitors who flip a coin implicit their shoulders and marque a privation volition instrumentality to Rome.

European officials person sought to curb overtourism amid protests from residents who accidental ample amounts of visitors are making cities hard to unrecorded in. Last year, Venice became the archetypal metropolis to impose a taxation for day-tripping tourists. A spate of viral incidents, including a pistillate who scaled the Trevi Fountain to fill up her h2o bottle and a British antheral who carved his and his girlfriends' initials into the Colosseum, besides drew attraction to the issue.

"These tourists are besides vandals, due to the fact that they person nary respect for our taste heritage, which belongs not conscionable to Italy, but to the full world," said Daniela Santanchè, Italy's tourism minister, at the time. "We've introduced a measure with a precise elemental concept: You interruption it, you wage for it." 

• Rome