Swimwear bans and ID bracelets – what to know about Italy’s latest beach and resort rules

An escalating amount of Italian seaside places are bringing in new guidelines to mitigate the outcomes of overtourism and safeguard their shores from sand erosion and other damage. From identification bracelets to entry fees and even towel and swimwear bans, here is what you will need to know about some of the latest laws and in which they implement.

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Swimwear bans

The city of Sorrento is spectacularly wonderful and spectacularly crowded in the substantial season (Easter to Oct) when guests head there for sunshine, balmy weather conditions, and simple accessibility to the Amalfi Coastline, Capri, Naples, and Rome. But the mayor of Sorrento, Massimo Coppola, isn’t really joyful with website visitors using to the streets in their beachwear, despite the superior summer months warmth. Previous week, Coppola reported these going for walks all around bare-chested or putting on swimwear—including bikinis, swimsuits, and swimming trunks—outside of Sorrento’s seashores or swimming pools could experience fines of up to €500 ( $505 / £425). Seemingly, some locals really don’t approve of guests treating the town like 1 giant beach, in accordance to Coppola, who said that the sight of folks strolling the streets in beach front apparel upsets them and ruins the picture of the city, telling The Times it leads to “soreness” and “unease.”

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Putting up on his Fb site, Coppola explained “in a town exactly where the high-quality of hospitality is internationally identified, regard for locations and city decor gets to be important”. The ‘anti-bikini’ ordinance as it’s known is now in effect.  

Very similar guidelines are in position in the town of Rapallo on the Italian Riviera and in the Calabrian city of Praia a Mare wherever in addition to swimwear-on-the-road bans, individuals are also prohibited from strolling all over barefoot. The seaside place of Cinque Terre is also stringent on footwear, imposing fines of up to €2,500 on people for carrying flip-flops or sandals when hiking its renowned coastal paths.

Bird's eye view of La Pelosa beach in Sardinia
La Pelosa beach front has introduced a towel ban and is capping customer quantities © Gian Lorenzo Ferretti Images/Getty Visuals

Towel bans, identification bracelets, and customer caps

Spiaggia della Pelosa in Sardinia appeals to countless numbers of beachgoers every day. It’s a single of individuals photograph-fantastic beach locations that is frequently voted one particular of the very best in Italy with its crescent of powder-soft sand and shallow, crystal apparent waters. But thanks to human interference, the seaside is getting rid of sand at an unsustainable price. Authorities are now trying to limit its acceptance by capping customer access to 1,500 persons daily. According to Euronews, it’s also banning towels to protect its sand (which generally will get caught up in beach towels when packed absent) so guests now have to pay out to lease a sunlight lounger as a substitute. They also have to fork out an entry rate of €3.50 and put on yellow identification bracelets when on the beach front.

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Other well-liked Sardinian beach locations that have not too long ago released visitor caps contain Lu Impostu (1,500 folks for every working day) and Brandinchi (3,330 shorelines goers for every working day) in the preferred summertime vacation resort of San Teodoro.

View of Positano with Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta Church
Perspective of Positano with Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta Church, Positano, Salerno, Amalfi Coast, Campania, Italy – stock photograph

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The Amalfi Coastline calls to thoughts pics of picturesque beaches, dramatic cliffs, sunshine, lemons, spritzes, and… targeted visitors jams. Each individual summer time for the duration of peak period the coast roads are backed up and the air thick with exhaust fumes from Vespas, BMWs, and Fiat Cinquecentos as men and women head on street trips to the Amalfi seaside resorts in their droves. Those people road jams then conclude up doubling and from time to time tripling journey periods. This summer months, authorities made the decision to take action to simplicity congestion and have introduced a summertime limit on driving along the route connecting Positano to Vietri sul Mare.

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The summertime limit permits autos with quantity plates that close in odd quantities to access the highway on odd quantity times of the thirty day period, for case in point the 3rd, 11th, 25th etc. Even though cars and trucks with even quantity plates can access it on even number days. The rule is enforced from 10am to 6pm on weekends through to the conclude of September 2022. Taxis and community buses don’t have to follow the rule.

View of the Italian town of Alassio from the sea
The seaside of Alassio charges some of the greatest fees in Italy © ZM_Image/Shutterstock

Entry costs for community seashores

Italy has miles and miles of pristine shoreline and some of the greatest beaches in Europe. But access to the sea is a contentious difficulty listed here as extra and extra stretches of sand keep on to be snapped up by beach resorts and clubs and turned into non-public spaces where you commonly have to pay back to enter and to use sunlight loungers, umbrellas, and other amenities.

Additional than fifty percent of Italy’s shoreline has been offered above to these personal concessions regardless of getting public land, in accordance to the environmental affiliation Legambiente, with the quantity of private seaside institutions doubling in the earlier two a long time by itself. Some are eye-wateringly costly this sort of as Alassio in the Italian Riviera where you can be charged up to €380 for every working day for a sun lounger in August.

“Obtaining a absolutely free place to sunbathe freely and freely is ever more tricky. In fact, bathing concessions are escalating, [they] at the moment affect more than  50{e9f0aada585b9d73d0d08d3c277fd760092386ec23cac37d50f4b8cd792b062a} of Italian beaches,” Legambiente said in a report, although the Italian Ministry of Health claims that 8{e9f0aada585b9d73d0d08d3c277fd760092386ec23cac37d50f4b8cd792b062a} of Italian beach locations can not be utilised thanks to pollution, significantly in Sicily, Calabria, and Campania. “The consequence is that the absolutely free and bathing beaches in our region is minimized on normal to 40{e9f0aada585b9d73d0d08d3c277fd760092386ec23cac37d50f4b8cd792b062a}, but with good distinctions concerning the regions,” Legambiente explained.

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There are general public beaches (spiaggia pubblica) the place entry is free but some are now charging tiny cover service fees to protect their dunes and vegetation from visitors, especially in Sardinia wherever seashores tend to grow to be overcrowded in summer months. The plan is that the cash elevated from the fees can be place towards the routine maintenance of the beach locations. La Pelosa, as we said, fees a €3.50 entry fee to anybody around the age of 12, and to stop by Cala Mariolu, it prices €1 for every man or woman with a 550 visitor cap for every working day.

Cala Coticcio and Cala Brigantina in La Maddalena national park in Sardinia now involve website visitors to reserve entry slots and cost €3 per particular person to entry the seashores. Quite a few other beaches also demand little service fees so travellers really should examine ahead ahead of traveling to seashores in Italy and make certain they have euro coins in their beach baggage… just in case.