7 Instances of the Most Appalling Tourist Behavior in Italy

Including lurid descriptions of how I want the perpetrators punished.

I am fiercely protective of my adoptive land. This, I make no apologies for. Whether Italy loves me, hates me, chews me up, or spits me out (as she has sometimes done), I will always adore her. Her occasional contempt for me has no impact on my endless and unconditional love for her.

I’m just grateful to have an Italy to love.

Even when Italy tests my worthiness to be here (and this she does daily, an occurrence one measures in pints of blood squeezed from my desiccated carcass), I am her slave. When she stuns me with her mindboggling short-sightedness (the collapse of Prime Minister Draghi’s very effective government and the likely sweep of September’s elections by the far right), I forgive her.

Italy is thousands of years old, you see. She knows her own toughness and resilience. Not even a festering fascist pustule like Giorgia Meloni, who is slated to become Italy’s next prime minister, will blemish her perfection in my eyes.

And that’s why I am incandescent with rage when I read news reports like the ones I am about to share with you: tourists scribbling on the Colosseum. A**holes frolicking in the Trevi fountain. And most egregiously—although to be fair, the Vatican is complicit here—rich celebrities getting private tours of the Sistine Chapel and the Colosseum, no lines, no tourists, and apparently no problem taking photos that are forbidden to the rest of us.

Why do I consider this a violence done to Italy? Because there are millions of Italians who are not afforded the same privilege and this is their country.

Who the hell are these celebrities to go waltzing in here with their cameras and their laughable sense of entitlement? And what is the Vatican thinking?

Low estimate, the Vatican is worth 15 billion dollars. You can’t tell me they’re that hard up for money.

All this to say with some vehemence that if I ever catch tourists doing damage to this country, I will personally end them. I will go full medieval on their candy asses. All non-Italians who come here are welcome to appreciate the country’s beauty and buy locally sourced goods, but they are not invited to treat Italy like their own personal litterbox.

As you will see, it’s not just (or even primarily) Americans who do this. Plenty of Northern Europeans, Brits, and Germans do, too. I, for one, feel as though they should all be rounded up and tased repeatedly with a cattle prod.

Here’s why.

Two years ago, an Austrian tourist broke three toes off the plaster model for the Paolina Borghese masterpiece, Venus Victix, sculpted by Antonio Canova in 1804. This vandalism took place after the tourist sat on the sculpture for a selfie. A selfie! The presumption alone makes my stomach curdle. Who on earth wants to see anyone’s ugly mug in front of a work of art like this one?

Fair punishment: he should be forced to lick the floor of the entire museum.

The sculpture itself in the Villa Borghese museum that was created from the plaster cast maliciously vandalized by an Austrian tourist. The whole thing makes me want to drink hot blood.

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Two tourists, a German and a Slovakian, aged 61 and 44, tried to carve their names on the base of the staircase in front of the Trevi fountain. Are you kidding me? These weren’t children. They were fully formed adults with (presumably) fully formed prefrontal cortexes. They knew right from wrong. But that didn’t stop them from attempting to willfully vandalize one of the most beautiful works of art in the world.

Fair punishment: Both of them should be waterboarded—specifically with water taken from the Trevi fountain and then administered by carnies under my direct supervision.

Rome’s famous Trevi fountain in one of the rare moments it isn’t a mob scene.

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Three French nationals—a 32-year-old who knew better and two 23-year-olds who should have known better—swam in Bernini’s beautiful Quattro Fiumi (Four Rivers) fountain in Rome. They got in with their dirty feet and dirty clothes and dirty everything and splashed around. For their own selfish amusement. They used a priceless work of art as a bathtub. It is hardly the first time this has happened, and there are reports of various foreigners trying to climb it.

Fair punishment: if I had been there, I would have dropped a live toaster in the water and walked away.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s masterpiece in Piazza Navona.

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In July of 2019, a couple of German tourists were ordered to leave Venice after using a portable gas stove to brew coffee at the foot of the Rialto Bridge. Let me make sure you understand that. Two German adults who were too goddamn cheap to buy coffee from a local bar instead used an open flame on one of the most beautiful and important bridges in the world. What kind of mental deficient does something like that? I’m actually shaking with anger as I write this. How dare they.

Fair punishment: flame from the portable gas stove is applied to the soles of their feet while we watch.

The morons who did it being confronted by Venetian police.

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Just a few months ago in Rome, a Saudi tourist in a rented Maserati drove down the Spanish steps after becoming “disoriented.” He had ample opportunity to turn his car around, but he didn’t. He didn’t because it’s not his country, and he has nothing but disdain for Italy and everyone in it. I was speechless with horror after reading about it. What kind of rich, overprivileged wankmaggot drives his car down an UNESCO Heritage site—breaking off pieces of marble along the way—and then zooms off? Did he get help? No. Turn himself in? No. They caught him at Malpensa Airport trying to flee the country.

Fair punishment: this guy, stuffed in the trunk. This car perched next to a 4,000 foot drop. One brick applied to the gas pedal. Me, waving from the cliff as he plunges to his doom.

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No non-Italians should be receiving special treatment in Italy, but especially celebrities like Jason Momoa and Russell Crowe. What did they contribute to society? Did either of them invent a vaccine for Covid? No? Then send their asses to the back of the line along with all the rest of us.

Crowe was in Italy filming a movie when he decided to treat himself and his family to private tours of everything. He did this without a trace of compunction for the thousands of tourists who were waiting in the blistering heat while “Rusty” took his sweet time perusing the sights. And he got raked over the coals for it, too, on social media, especially after posting tone-deaf selfies like this one:

Somebody let a yeti into the Colosseum. Notice how he has the whole place to himself.

The admittedly prettier Momoa, who at least looks better in his apology video where he groveled, sweaty and shirtless, while doing biceps curls, made a “generous contribution” to the Vatican in exchange for a private tour. He did this without realizing that paying for access is also gobsmackingly tone deaf. During his “me time” at the Vatican, the Aquaman star took photos of the Sistine Chapel (forbidden), fondled sculptures (forbidden), and fondled keys to priceless artefacts (a privilege that is apparently available to the highest bidder). The whole thing was a win/win—except for the Italians whose cultural heritage is being auctioned off to spoiled celebrities.

Fair punishment: Since Crowe and Momoa committed no overt vandalism (except to my sunny disposition) I’m only sentencing them to twenty consecutive trips to a Taco Bell drive-thru, all of which must occur within the same two hour period, including but not limited to the forced consumption of twenty chimichangas, ten nachos bellgrande, and a Diet Coke.

Trying working that off at the gym, Momoa. Here’s his “apology video,” by the way. Just watching it makes me want to claw my eyes out.

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A 46-year-old Israeli tourist didn’t like his exchange rate on the hundred euros he shoved under the window, so he held the currency exchange worker hostage. This happened in Venice, 2019, and the woman was terrified, especially when the Israeli pulled down the shutters and forbade her to exit the booth. Fortunately, she was able to contact the carabinieri, who arrested the moron for kidnapping. Much to his chagrin, he did not receive a refund.

Fair punishment: being hotboxed in a closet with Crowe and Momoa after they finish making those Taco Bells runs—emphasis on runs.

Venice, overrun with tourists, has implemented separate walkways for them, apart from walkways used by the locals.

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And there you have it! Seven reasons why this would be a better world if I were in charge. Certainly a far more entertaining one.

Remember to behave yourself when you come here. I just might be watching ….

Copyright © 2022 Stacey Eskelin

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