A brief 700-year history of overtourism

IN ROME, all roads seem to lead to the Trevi Fountain. On my last visit, every other time I asked Google Maps to figure out a route to sites in the historic centre of the city, the app coursed me through the tourist magnet commissioned by Pope Clement XII in the 18th century.

If I had never seen the Trevi before, I’d be grateful. But three round trips on one day past the baroque aquatic fantasy made me rococo loco. The standing room in front of the fountain was an intake pond for tourists streaming in from all over. I was drowning in the tussle and drenched in summery sweat – not all my own. Ick and eek. And this was just the start of Rome’s high season.

Foreign tourists like to complain there are too many of themselves. But the locals do, too – and have horror stories to tell. A grainy CCTV video apparently shows a visitor to the crowded Uffizi Gallery in Florence awkwardly posing in front of an 18th-century portrait of a Medici heir, only to buckle a bit and tear a hole in the painting with either his hand or elbow.