From an Italian source that I follow on Facebook. I removed her advice on driving into historic city centers, because that does not apply to my guests (I am the driver, and I know the rules and follow them) and some other pieces of advice which just don’t apply to my custom-designed tours.
I’m Italian. These things are illegal in Italy and tourists do them every day.
Italy has laws that no other country has. Some of them make perfect sense when you understand why they exist. Some of them will surprise you. And some of them come with fines that will ruin your day faster than a cancelled flight.
The problem is nobody tells you about them before you go. Not your travel agent. Not the airline. Not the influencer who spent three days in Rome and now has a highlight reel called “Italy Guide.”
I’ve watched tourists get fined for things they had no idea were wrong. So here’s every law you need to know before you step off the plane.
Sitting on the Spanish Steps (in Rome) — up to €400
This changed in 2019 and most tourists still don’t know. You cannot sit on the Spanish Steps in Rome. Not to rest. Not to eat. Not to take a photo. Not for a minute.
The Trinità dei Monti steps are a protected monument. The city got tired of thousands of people sitting on 18th-century travertine marble every day, leaving food stains, drink spills, and damage that costs millions to restore. So they banned it. Police patrol the steps constantly and they will fine you.
The fine ranges from €150 to €400 depending on the officer’s mood and what you’re doing. Eating on the steps gets the higher end. I’ve seen tourists sitting down with a gelato and being asked to stand up within 30 seconds.
You can walk up and down the steps. You can stand at the top for the view. You can take photos. You just can’t sit. If you need to rest, there’s a bench at the bottom near the Barcaccia fountain.
Eating or drinking near monuments — up to €500
Rome, Florence, and Venice have all introduced laws banning eating and drinking in certain historic areas. The rules vary by city but the principle is the same: if you’re within a designated zone around a major monument, you cannot sit down and eat.
In Rome, this applies around the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, the Colosseum area, and several piazzas in the Centro Storico. In Venice, sitting on bridges or steps to eat can get you fined. In Florence, the area around the Duomo and several churches have similar rules.
The fines range from €150 to €500. Some cities have added a ban on takeaway food during certain hours in specific streets to reduce the mess.
This doesn’t mean you can’t eat in these areas. You can sit at a restaurant or caffè with tables. You can eat standing up in most cases. You just can’t sit on a monument, a fountain edge, church steps, or a bridge and have a picnic. The locals didn’t make these rules to be difficult. They made them because the cleanup costs were unsustainable.
Swimming in the wrong place — up to €3,500
Italy has rules about where you can swim and they’re not always obvious.
In Venice, swimming in the canals is illegal and will get you fined €350 to €500 and possibly banned from the city. People do it every summer usually after too much spritz. The canals are not clean. They’re essentially open sewage mixed with boat fuel. The fine is the least of your problems.
In the Cinque Terre, jumping from rocks or cliffs into the sea is banned in several areas. The fines are steep and they introduced them after multiple injuries and deaths.
In many coastal towns, swimming near the port areas or boat channels is illegal for safety reasons. The signs are usually only in Italian.
And in several lakes — Como, Garda, Maggiore — swimming is only permitted in designated areas. Lake Como in particular has rules about where you can and can’t enter the water, and the fine for swimming in restricted zones is up to €3,500.
Locking padlocks on bridges — up to €50,000 (This one I love the most because I absolutely detest the entire “Love Locks” craze. It’s stupid and so trashy.)
The love lock trend needs to die. Tourists buy cheap padlocks, write their names on them, and lock them to bridges. It damages historic infrastructure, adds weight that bridges were never designed to carry, and costs cities thousands in removal.
In Rome, locking a padlock to Ponte Milvio or any historic bridge carries a fine of up to €50,000. Yes, fifty thousand euros. The law was introduced in 2012 after the combined weight of locks caused structural concerns.
In Florence, the Ponte Vecchio has the same rule. In Venice, the Rialto Bridge. The street sellers near these bridges will happily sell you a lock. They won’t mention the fine.
Wearing swimwear in town — up to €500
In dozens of Italian coastal towns, it is illegal to walk through the streets in a bikini, swimming trunks, or shirtless. This includes places like Sorrento, Cinque Terre towns, Capri, several Sardinian towns, and parts of the Amalfi Coast.
The logic: these are real towns where people live, work, and go to church. Walking past an 80-year-old nonna’s house in a bikini is considered disrespectful. Italy takes this seriously.
Cover up when you leave the beach. A t-shirt and shorts are enough. The fines range from €25 to €500 depending on the town and how strict they’re feeling that day.
The same applies to entering churches anywhere in Italy. Shoulders and knees must be covered. St. Peter’s, the Duomo in Florence, San Marco in Venice — they will turn you away at the door. Carry a light scarf or a cover-up.
Buying counterfeit goods — up to €7,000
Those street sellers with fake designer bags spread on a blanket near the Colosseum or along the Venice waterfront? Buying from them is illegal. Not just for the seller. For you.
Italian law makes it a crime to knowingly purchase counterfeit goods. The fine ranges from €100 to €7,000. Police occasionally do crackdowns and fine the buyers, not just the sellers. It doesn’t happen every day, but it happens enough that it’s worth knowing.
They eat fish priced “all’etto” and get a bill for 200 euros.
This is the restaurant trick that makes international headlines every year and it’s still happening. Japanese tourists were charged 430 euros for two plates of fish, spaghetti and water near the Trevi Fountain. A couple in Venice got a bill for 1,100 euros for four people.
Here’s how it works. Fresh fish in Italian restaurants is often priced per 100 grams — “all’etto” on the menu. You see “branzino 8 euro” and think you’re getting a plate for 8 euros. You’re not. You’re getting a fish that weighs 400 to 600 grams, so your plate costs 32 to 48 euros. Add the other person’s fish, a shared antipasto, a bottle of wine, coperto and servizio, and suddenly lunch for two is 180 euros.
The worst restaurants inflate the actual weight. One TripAdvisor complaint showed a restaurant had more than doubled the amount of fish on the bill compared to what was actually served.
When you see “all’etto” or “/etto” or “al kg” on a menu, ask the waiter to weigh the fish before it’s cooked and tell you the total price. This is completely normal in Italy. Anyone who refuses that question is someone you should not eat with.
They use a Euronet ATM and pay an 11% hidden fee. (I call these ATMs “Bandit ATMs and I always point them out right away to my freshly arrived guests)
The ATMs at airports and tourist areas — branded Euronet, Travelex, or with no bank name — are designed to extract money from tourists. They offer “convenient” home currency conversion that costs 8 to 12% more than your bank’s rate. (Note from James: Do NOT withdraw Euros at the airport. There is no need to. James will escort you to a safe, secure bank site where you can withdraw Euros at the fair, bank-issued rate. DO NOT PURCHASE EUROs FROM YOUR US BANK BEFORE YOU TRAVEL – ever. It’s a terrible idea and you lose a lot of money.)
A 300 euro withdrawal through dynamic currency conversion can cost 33 euros in hidden fees. That’s money gone before the trip even starts.
Use ATMs belonging to actual Italian banks: Intesa Sanpaolo, UniCredit, Monte dei Paschi. When the screen asks “charge in your home currency?” always say no. Always choose euros.
They don’t know pharmacies can solve most medical problems in 15 minutes.
A stomach infection on day 3 of the trip. In most countries, that means a doctor’s visit, a waiting room, hours wasted.
In Italy, you walk into a pharmacy — look for the green cross — describe your symptoms, and the pharmacist can dispense medication that would require a prescription in other countries. Cost: 5 to 15 euros. Time: 15 minutes.
Italian pharmacists handle stomach problems, allergic reactions, minor infections, skin issues, cold and flu. If it’s not an emergency, go to a pharmacy first. It saves an entire day you’d otherwise lose. (Recent experience with a urinary tract infection where my client wasted valuable vacation time when a simple visit to a pharmacy and a quick lab test was the ticket. I intervened and hopefully saved a lot of misery for my client)
They build their entire trip around monuments and miss Italy completely. (This is the Number One thing that I do to try and help my clients, who are the smartest travelers out there because they chose a private, custom-designed tour, avoid. I pace the day so that there is time to reflect and remember and store memories. Touring around from 8 to 6 is just not possible for the mere mortal. I pace the day so that we are active from around 9 to around 3 or 3:30, then that’s it. End of scheduled sight seeing. Time to relax in a piazza with a beverage, people watch, lazily shop along a boutique-lined avenue. Even – oh my – take a nap! I am fully aware that this is your vacation and I work hard to keep it feeling like a pleasurable experience and not something you need to recover from once you get home.)
This is the one that actually matters. The one I see ruin more trips than ZTL fines and train strikes combined.
They land with a list. Colosseum. Vatican. Uffizi. Duomo. Rialto. Pompeii. They schedule every hour. They book every ticket. They run from one to the next, photograph everything, and experience nothing.
At the end of 10 days, they’ve seen everything on the list and can’t remember any of it. The churches blur together. The photos look like everyone else’s. They go home tired and confused about why Italy didn’t feel the way they expected.
Italy doesn’t happen in the monuments. It happens between them. In the trattoria with the paper tablecloth where the waiter brings you things you didn’t order because he decided you needed to try them. In the piazza at 9pm where three old men are arguing about football and a cat is sleeping on a Vespa. In the 10-minute conversation with a shopkeeper who tells you the history of the street you’re standing on.
That’s the Italy people remember 10 years later. Not the queue at the Vatican. Not the selfie at the Trevi Fountain.
Leave gaps in your itinerary. Leave entire days empty. Walk without a destination. Say yes to the thing you didn’t plan.
That’s how you actually experience this country instead of just visiting it.
The short version
Italy protects its history, its environment, and its way of life more aggressively than almost any other country in Europe. The fines are real. They are enforced. And “I didn’t know” is not a defence.
Don’t sit on monuments. Don’t drive into city centres. Don’t take sand from beaches. Don’t lock things to bridges. Don’t walk through town in your swimsuit. Don’t fly your drone over the Duomo.
Respect the country and the country will give you the trip of a lifetime.
Save this. Some of these fines cost more than your flight.