Overtourism is killing Rome

The other day I had a coffee at a bar near the house where Keats lived during his Roman stay, right there along the Spanish Steps, and when I tried to climb up to fetch my car parked at the top, I had to climb over groups of Americans, Japanese and French sitting on the steps, looking at maps and munching on crisps. 

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There were food wrappers and empty plastic bottles everywhere. It was really bad. If you travel to Rome in order to admire its grandeur, these days it’s more likely you’ll end up staring at armies of other tourists. 

They’re all nicely dressed in shorts and T-shirts, sweating and ecstatic. I see them sitting or lying down near ancient fountains, which are turned into open air pools with people trying to cool down by splashing water on their wrists and faces. 

My friend, who runs an art gallery on Via del Corso, told me he’ll soon be forced to walk home. “I can’t find a place to park – not even my motorbike. Tourists are sitting on pavements, in between cars, having pizza with cappuccino,” he said. 

Driving around Rome is now impossible.

It took me two hours last week to get from my house on the city outskirts to the centre. The streets were lined with double-decker tourist buses full of day trippers and visitors on guided tours. 

As I drove past the Coliseum and the Roman forum it struck me how the stunning archeological beauty had been swallowed by the crowds.

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The trouble with Rome is that it does not have the infrastructure and logistics to host so many people. Millions of tourists flock here each week, and more will be coming in summer. Also, the ancient centre is really small.

What really gets on my nerves is how restaurants are adapting their menus to satisfy the palates of outlanders. I was recently shocked to see, behind glass cabinets, cold, gluey and stinky pasta dishes that had been cooked three days before and put on display as if they were corpses. To Italians, this is nothing short of blasphemous.

When we order a dish, we eat it as soon as it’s cooked and served, we don’t order it behind a glass window after seeing it there, or as a photo on a menu. 

But that’s just how the tourists want their Amatriciana or Carbonara spaghetti presented to them, as if straight from a glossy magazine. 

Another issue with Rome is there’s not much public transport, and what we do have isn’t very efficient. Very often the subways are crammed and the buses run late or are canceled. The problem of Airbnb apartments driving up rents is also really bad. To lease one room in the old center you need at least €800 per week. 

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The Eternal City has never been equipped to handle so many visitors, and I’m afraid no entrance fee will limit crowds. The €2 ticket to enter the Pantheon turned out to be useless. Huge numbers of tourists still visit, and lounge outside beneath the shade of pigeon-infested stone colonnades where the ancient Romans worshipped their gods. The Pantheon is now also a church, but good luck praying in there.

Same goes for the Trevi Fountain. The recent €2 ticket to get down to the water’s edge just made the site even more popular, with people desperately pushing each other around like beasts to throw a coin and take a selfie as their gelato melts on their hands and drips on their shirts. It’s madness. 

Some Romans are angry about overtourism, while others see it as a blessed boost for the city coffers. Residents who want peace and silence are at odds with the restaurant owners and all those who profit from visitors. 

You can charge people as much as you want to visit Rome, and they will come regardless. And I fear that sooner or later Rome will collapse under the weight of it.