Posted on 02/11/2026 8:38:54 PM PST by SeekAndFind
As a general rule, once a city erects turnstiles to tourist attractions which were once free to visit, it is time to go elsewhere. Never more so than in the case of Rome. Last week the Italian capital introduced a €2 charge to visit the Trevi Fountain. Tight-fisted tourists like me will still be able to see the Trevi from a distance – it happens to stand in a public street. The charge will be only for sad Instagrammers who want to get close enough to chuck their coins in the water.
The city’s tourism department has suggested the fee is needed to manage the throngs of holidaygoers. Even then, God forbid, they won’t be able to take off their sandals and take a dip – that will earn them a €500 fine. Which raises the question: why bother visiting the fountain at all? You’ll find more attractive water features in your local B&Q.
This 17th-century vanity project was built on the part of Clement XII to make supposedly dramatic use of the waters fed by the Aqua Virgo, an eight-mile long Roman viaduct. Had the Romans known to what use the waters would end up being put, maybe they wouldn’t have bothered. Their grand purpose was one of promoting sanitation and health. The Trevi Fountain, by contrast, is founded on frivolity and excess. Its ghastly over-decoration is the very opposite of the fine piece of engineering that feeds it.
The Trevi is Rome all over. The Romans built an elegant, functional and technologically advanced city – before their descendants buggered it up through neglect or redevelopment. From overpriced food to decaying infrastructure, these days you’ll find only potholed roads lead to Rome.
When it comes to its crumbling monuments, the vainglorious Victor Emmanuel II Monument is the absolute end: a 19th-century wedding cake dumped in the heart of Roman Rome. It should be taken down and its stone recycled – just as the locals did to the Colosseum so many centuries ago.
The Spanish Steps? You may as well visit one of the terraces at the original Wembley Stadium. In their heyday, they were just as crowded and there was usually something more interesting to watch. Oh, and it didn’t cost to linger at Wembley, either – you get another €250 fine for sitting on the Spanish Steps.
The first time I visited Rome, the place was heaving – and yet, still, a waiter was so miserable about his employment prospects that he begged for my help finding him a job in Britain. Eleven years on and it seems little has changed: according to Istat, Italy’s answer to the Office for National Statistics, tourism makes up 9.6 per cent of the country’s economy. Yet total numbers were down by almost 1 per cent in the second half of last year compared with the same period in 2024. It may be a small decline in what is otherwise the fifth most visited country in the world but, even so, it puts Italy in a perilous position. The country really can’t afford to upset its tourists by springing fines and charges on them.
If you really must visit Rome, then take my advice: go and see the Pantheon – which has lasted so much better than the crumbling tower blocks and motorway bridges that blight modern Italy – and then get out. The best bits of Rome aren’t even in the city itself. If you want to see Roman remains in their proper context, the best place is Ostia Antica – a town’s worth of ruins a 45-minute train from the capital.
All the same, perhaps it’s best to give Italy a miss altogether these days. It’s always been full of dodgy gelato salesmen, but now it’s not just them trying to rip you off – it’s the city authorities, too. The sign to turn your back on Venice was when the city introduced a €5 entry charge three years ago – not to visit museums or buildings but just to walk the streets and squares. Italy’s cities are reverting back to closed, medieval spaces surrounded by walls and gates.
The Instagrammers can have Venice, although Italy’s tourism chiefs shouldn’t take them for granted; they will be off somewhere else when it gets more ‘likes’. As it stands, the influencers may as well take Rome, too. But when the city’s authorities find they’ve drained the capital’s lifeblood through sheer greed, they’ll have only themselves to blame.
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But only of tourists.
Illegals welcome!
Some of those charges may be to keep the tourists clear of their “migrants”.
I went to Rome in 1989. Even then the taxi driver tried to con me out of money. Some gypsies had pickpockets who stole my stuff. It is a Beautiful city with lots of history but I don’t think I shall ever return.
In Italy Communists run the big cities.
How many times a year must the city remove most of those tossed coins from the bottom of that fountain? There has to be steady build up of discarded coins and other debris.
That water is trapped and probably stagnant.
I would still like to visit there, though.
I’m going at the end of March
Spent a week there in 1996. Covered most of it and same with you unlikely I will return.
Everything is better in Istria.
Lived in Rome for 6 months over the past couple of years. It's stunningly beautiful, and while Ostia Antica is an enormous pile of ruins with a great small museum, nothing I've seen in Italy matches the grandeur of Rome: when I first visited, it's hard to believe the ruins of the ancient buildings are as large as they are. And then you see a piece of bronze furniture encrusted with jewels that belonged to a garden villa owned by Maecenas (Augustus' friend) and you realize just how much wealth the Romans piled up century after century.
The ancient city is stunning and even in places swarming with tourists most of the Italians remain amazingly hospitable and charge a fair price given where you are. Remember Rome is not just packed with tourists: it's the capital city and largest city in Italy, so it's expensive even for Italians.
Childish. “Look at me, none of those cool sights affect me in the slightest. It’s all so.... beneath me.... sniff”.
“the vainglorious Victor Emmanuel II Monument is the absolute end: a 19th-century wedding cake dumped in the heart of Roman Rome. It should be taken down and its stone recycled”
It’s incredible, as are the Spanish Steps and other sights he mentioned.
Typical snooty Brit scribbler...
Those tossed coins at the bottom of the fountain add up to about 1.5 million Euros a year.
Wish my plumber was as good as his.
You nailed it.
Is Ostia Antica worth a visit if one has never been?
Take a day trip to Pompeii - totally worth it; Rome is still worth seeing; so much to see. Went this fall. Skipped the colosseum, and did some museums and churches. Trevi Fountain and subway are filled with Roma pick pockets. Just be aware. Night life in the less touristy districts totally worth it.
In Ostia Antica you walk the streets and it feels somewhat like what it must have been like when it was inhabited. It's not as well preserved as Pompeii. The museum is small but it has exquisite sculptures and mosaics salvaged from the city. The best pieces, of course, were looted by Popes and Cardinals centuries ago.
If you have time and are physically capable, walking around the imperial port (Portus) on the other side of the Tiber near the airport is amazing, not for its good state of preservation (it isn't) but the sheer size of what was built. You have to drive there or go to the airport and walk quite a bit.
My wife and I spent 10 days in Italy and Rome was amazing. St Peter’s Basilica was unbelievable. It could not be built today. The artists and craftsmen don’t exist. Amazing too are the statues standing out in the weather that would be in museums in other countries.
The restaurant name: Ristorante Monumento dal 1884
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