A tourist was kicked out of Venice and banned from the Italian city for 48 hours after being caught posing topless on a war memorial.
The unnamed 30-year-old Czech woman stripped off and went for a dip in the lagoon, leaving her belongings on top of a monument dedicated to Italy’s war heroes, before posing for photos by a statue paying homage to the women who gave their lives to fight fascism.
She was caught by police and fined €350 for antisocial behaviour, plus given an extra €100 fine and a two-day ban on entering the city.
“She wanted the statue in the shot,” a police spokesperson told CNN of the incident, adding that the woman was lying on the monument and posing for a photo. “I imagine she apologised,” they added.
Onlookers were stunned by the woman’s behaviour, with Venice local Mario Nason saying he thought she must be “crazy” when he saw her swimming in the middle of winter.
“I saw she was trying to get out of the water by climbing onto the statue, wearing just her bikini bottoms,” he said.
“She got up on it, then she got back into the water, totally relaxed.
”Her boyfriend and another woman had jumped over the barrier and were on the monument, to take better photos of her.”
Nason said the woman and her companions “didn't have the slightest inkling of what they were doing” and couldn’t understand what the problem was.
He compared their behaviour to jumping into the Trevi Fountain in Rome or the Seine in Paris.
“It's common sense. Why do people do these things in Venice that they wouldn't do elsewhere?” he added.
Venice officials have been trying to crack down on what they deem antisocial behaviour in recent years.
Venice’s #EnjoyRespectVenezia campaign, which launched in the summer of 2017, dictated that tourists are welcome – but only if they play by the rules.
Visitors are instructed not to swim in canals, make picnic stops out of public areas, pause too long on bridges, drop litter, ride or wheel bikes, stand or lie on benches, busk or make art without a permit, attach “love locks” to monuments and bridges, climb on trees, buildings and monuments, get changed in public, feed birds or sightsee topless or in swimwear.
Making too much noise, whether at night or during siesta time (1-3pm), is also forbidden.
