Venice to Tourists: Keep Your Shirt On!

Travel Blog  •  Michael Yessis  •  05.08.07 | 8:19 AM ET

imagePhoto of Piazza San Marco by robertpaulyoung, via Flickr (Creative Commons).

And don’t take a nap in Piazza San Marco. And, for the love of Ronald McDonald, throw away your Big Mac wrappers. Reuters reports that officials in Venice, Italy plan to crack down on unbecoming behavior in Piazza San Marco. “Six stewards, men and women, will explain to tourists that it is not a good idea to eat, camp out, lay down or walk around the city bare-chested,” said the deputy mayor, Michele Vianello. Stewards won’t hand out fines. Maybe they should, though, and put the funds toward solutions for Venice’s biggest problem: Figuring out how not to sink.



3 Comments for Venice to Tourists: Keep Your Shirt On!

Betsy Koscher 05.03.08 | 10:46 AM ET

I just returned from 10 days in Venice, ten wondeful days of roaming St. Mark’s Square, feeding pigeons, sitting on steps and sketching facades. I now know that may of these taditions are ending, the pigeons, the sitting. I will treasure my yearly trecks and chronicle the delights there until the island decays as the small islands near by are doing.

Keri 05.12.08 | 2:51 PM ET

First of all, WHO eats McDonald’s in Italy?! There are so many better options. Second, clean up after yourself—we Americans are awful with litter! Respect the earth, respect your cuntry, and respect where you’re visiting.

Venice is my ultimate favorite city in the world (and I’ve been on four continents)! There is never enough time to spend in Venice wandering the streets, getting lost with the many twists and turns and bridges, eating gelato, meeting people, speaking Italian in a way only a white girl from Minnesota can… people-watching and relaxing. There’s nothing I don’t like about Venice. (I haven’t been there when it “smelled” so I can’t say anything about that.) If you haven’t been—go there before it’s just a memory…

Imola 11.15.08 | 6:10 PM ET

Well, the pigeons… I can understand. To camp…it`s also a bit too much. I just can`t figure out why do they want to ban sitting down? Having spent several holidays in Venice mostly being very-very tired because walking all day long and wanting to see everyting, sometimes u just need to sit down!! They should try arriving to Venice at 8 o` clock in the morning after having spent 17-18 hours on the train,walking around (because you can`t get into your hotel room yet),arriving to St. Mark`s—-and at this point if they are telling me not to sit down…well, seems absurd!! Place some banks then,so I`ll sit on those! After all all these tourists are paying out enormous amounts of money to be there,so leave them in peace or give them an alternative! And if I`m hungry,let me eat,I won`t leave any litter around.Or if I do,THEN you can fine me!

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