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No kissing please, we’re disgusted, say Florentines

Published on December 6, 2005 11:41 PM | Comments

I guess this is another one of those modern problems - the article is sort of funny in an unintentional way - maybe some of it is the translation, but even though I agree with the premise (getting tourists to behave) they way they plan to go about it sounds both a bit archaic and sexist (pretty young girls to tell you what to do?):

FLORENCE is to deploy a squad of hostess vigilantes to reprimand visitors who offend the authorities with casual holiday acts such as picnicking on church steps or, worse still, exchanging kisses inside.

Leonardo Domenici, the centre-left mayor, is appalled by the behaviour of many of the 3m tourists who litter the city’s cobbled streets, stretch out idly in historic squares or surreptitiously dispose of their chewing gum by sticking it on the walls of museums they are queuing to enter.

“I don’t want to turn against tourists but Florence is an open-air museum and we have to protect her,” Domenici said. “What I want is a pact with both tourists and local residents to ensure that people respect Florence and behave in the street just the way they would behave in their own home.

From The Times Online, more here.




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