Selfie fee: Rome officially starts charging for Trevi Fountain

ITALY’s Trevi Fountain launched a new ticketing system this week, making the famous Rome landmark the latest tourist site to charge entry in a bid to raise funds and battle overcrowding.

- AFP

People posed in the sunshine in front of the Baroque masterpiece after paying the two-euro fee to access the now largely crowd-free area next to the basin.

“Tell me it’s not worth two euros! It's worth thousands if not millions; it’s beautiful!” 41-year-old Polish tourist Agata Harezlak told AFP.

The backdrop to the most famous scene in Federico Fellini’s film “La Dolce Vita’, when actress Anita Ekberg takes a dip, is top of the list for many visitors exploring the Eternal City.

But in the past, crowds in the public square have been so dense that it has been hard to get a proper look.

Briton Phillip Willis, wearing shorts and a T-shirt despite the cold, said he was pleased to get “a decent picture of myself without being bombed by lots of other people”.

It also felt good to spend money that would go to “preserving the fountain for many generations to come, hopefully”, he said.