The famous tourist attraction of Italy's Trevi Fountain renovation has sparked visitors' outrage and disappointment.
According to CNN, the Trevi Fountain of Rome has been emptied for renovation, and the authorities have constructed a temporary swimming pool for the tourists to toss their coins.
The temporary pool that was constructed last week is made up of unpainted plywood and a tall fence covered by transparent plastic, over which tourists can only hope for the coins to hit the water.
The city officials announced that they have built a temporary poll to protect workers who are working inside the fountain from getting hit by coins.
Claudio Parisi Presicce, Capitoline superintendent for cultural heritage, told CNN, “The basin, which is of course temporary and was installed during the exceptional maintenance work on the fountain, is used to collect coins thrown by tourists. It is a well-established and much-loved tradition.”
Meanwhile, the visitors have made fun of the new temporary pool on social media and called it a “footbath, “architectural infantilism,” and a “small children’s pool where they pee in the water in the summer.”
One of the visitors has described it as “the saddest thing I’ve seen in Italy in as long as I can remember.”
Moreover, the renovation that begins in early October 2024 is expected to finish in 2025 till the celebrations in Rome to mark a “jubilee” year in the Roman Catholic Church.
The authorities have decided to renovate the fountain to make sure that the heritage is secured and it continues to contribute 1.5 million euros ($1.6 million) a year in coins.
For the uninitiated, it is said that if a person throws a coin in the Trevi fountain they will return to Rome, if someone throws two coins they will fall in love with an attractive Italian, and if a person throws three coins they will marry the person they met.
