Rome’s famous Trevi Fountain reopens to limited crowds

Rome’s famous Trevi Fountain reopened on Sunday after a three-month cleanup, but visitors will now be limited to 400 to avoid past crowds, the city’s mayor said.

Applying the limit, which could be revised later, “will allow everyone to enjoy the fountain well, without crowding or confusion”, Roberto Gualtieri told reporters in front of Italy’s famous landmark.

Gualtieri also said city officials are considering charging a modest admission price to finance the maintenance of the fountain, among other things.

The cleaning of fountains and other major city sites is aimed at “returning most of the monuments to the city for the start of the Jubilee,” said Claudio Parisi Presice, Rome’s superintendent of cultural heritage sites.

The Jubilee of the Catholic Church begins on December 24.

The Trevi Fountain, a baroque masterpiece, is one of the most visited sites in Rome.

Featured in many films set in the city, it famously appears in a classic scene from Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, when Anita Ekberg invites Marcello Mastroianni to join him at the fountain’s basin.

Sunday’s re-opening took place in light rain in the presence of several hundred tourists, many of whom followed the mayor by tossing coins into the fountain.

The Trevi Fountain used to have 10,000 to 12,000 tourists every day.

Making wishes and throwing coins into the water is such a tradition that city officials collect about 10,000 euros (US$10,500) a week. It was handed over to the Caritas charity to provide food for the poor.

The three-month cleaning project included removing mold and calcium encrustations.

The Trevi Fountain is just one of the sites being cleaned in the Italian capital as it prepares for an expected influx of 33 million people for the Jubilee in 2025.

This event, announced by Pope Francis, is a year of pilgrimage and prayer, marked by religious and cultural events held in the Vatican and Rome. This happens about every 25 years.

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