Tourist numbers restricted to just 400 at romantic Italian attraction as entry fee floated

There is practically no end to the picturesque, romantic, and historic attractions dotted around Italy, with Brits making more than 3 million trips there every year to soak in its rich culture. But many holidaymakers heading to the popular Mediterranean country could find themselves disappointed if they want to make a wish at one of its top attractions.

Reopening on a rainy Sunday before Christmas, Rome’s world-famous Trevi Fountain regularly draws crowds of around 12,000 people per day, but will be strictly limited to groups of 400 at a time from now on. This Baroque landmark, made famous as a romantic location by films from La Dolce Vita (1960) to The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003), has undergone major renovations for the last three months.

The site had been restricted while work to clean limestone deposits and vegetation off the lower part of the fountain was carried out, a process that took more than two months. But now that the work has been completed on the attraction, Brits looking to soak in its majesty and chuck a penny into its greenish water might find themselves paying a fee for the privilege.

While the 260-year-old landmark has received repairs, many visitors to Rome this autumn were confronted with a drained fountain that they could only view through glass. City officials erected a small pool in front of the site so that tourists could still throw in a coin.

This is because the fountain is famed as a place where people make wishes by throwing in a penny, hoping that Italy’s most famous water feature will make their dreams come true. But with thousands of tourists visiting the site daily, these coins have to be collected each week by authorities, who then donate the roughly 10,000 euros gathered to a poverty charity in Rome.

However, the city’s Mayor Roberto Gualtieri has announced that numbers will be restricted now that renovations have taken place. He said at the reopening: “400 people at a time will be able to be here (…) and the goal is to allow everyone to enjoy the fountain to the fullest, without crowds or confusion.”

These measures could also include “a small entrance fee,” for the continued maintenance of the Trevi Fountain, the mayor admitted. This follows a massive few months of cleaning and fixing across Rome’s many monuments, in preparation for the Catholic Jubilee year, when followers mark the forgiveness of sins – often with mass pilgrimages to Rome and its sites.

Rome’s lead on preserving the city’s roughly 3000 years of history, Claudio Presicce, told AFP that the work, which saw many of the city’s major monuments blocked off to the public, had restored “the majority of the monuments to the city in time for the start of the Jubilee”

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