Giovanni Andrea Martini, a member of an opposition group in the Town Hall who joined the residents’ protests, called it “a sad day because Venice is becoming a museum, a theme park”.
Holding banners reading “No to ticket for Vene-Land” and chanting “Here we live and here we stay”, a few hundred people peacefully marched through one of Venice’s main squares to express their opposition to the new measure.
Apr 25 is a national holiday in Italy and is the first of 29 days this year when people must buy a ticket if they want to access the lagoon city from 8.30am to 4.30pm.
Reservations are meant to be made online but there is also a booth on hand for those who don’t have smartphones.
Although there are no turnstiles at the city gateways, inspectors will be making random checks and issuing fines of between €50 and €300 to anyone who has failed to register.
However, Italian tourists arriving on Thursday said imposing another charge on visitors was unfair.
“I consider Venice to be the most beautiful city in the world and so to deprive a person on a low budget of the opportunity to come here for an hour or two to enjoy this city is surely a shame for these tourists,” said Gabriella Pappada, who came from Lecce in southern Italy.
