Most holiday mistakes cost you a bit of pride. A few cost you €250.
Cities tired of overcrowding have started charging, and fining, visitors for things that feel completely normal at home: sitting on some steps, wearing flip-flops, taking home a handful of sand. Most of these holiday rules are signposted somewhere. Almost nobody reads the sign.
Here are the ones most likely to catch you out, grouped by what you were doing when it happened.
Where you sit
Sitting on the Spanish Steps, Rome
The Spanish Steps look as if they were built for sitting. Since 2019, sitting on them has been banned.
Rome treats the 136 travertine steps, which climb from Piazza di Spagna to the Trinità dei Monti church, as a monument, and sitting or lying on a monument is against the rules. The fine is €250, rising to €400 if you dirty or damage the steps. They had recently had a €1.5 million restoration paid for by the jeweller Bulgari, so the city wasn’t in a forgiving mood.
You can still walk up and down them as often as you like. You just can’t stop for a rest.
The Spanish Steps look as if they were built for sitting. Since 2019, sitting on them has been banned.
Rome treats the 136 travertine steps, which climb from Piazza di Spagna to the Trinità dei Monti church, as a monument, and sitting or lying on a monument is against the rules. The fine is €250, rising to €400 if you dirty or damage the steps. They had recently had a €1.5 million restoration paid for by the jeweller Bulgari, so the city wasn’t in a forgiving mood.
You can still walk up and down them as often as you like. You just can’t stop for a rest.
A picnic near St Mark’s, Venice
In July 2019, two backpackers from Berlin set up a camping stove on the steps of Venice’s Rialto Bridge and made themselves a coffee. Police fined them €950 and asked them to leave the city.
Venice bans sitting on the ground to eat or drink at its best-known spots, including St Mark’s Square and the Rialto Bridge. Around St Mark’s, you can’t even sit in certain places, such as under the arcades of the Doge’s Palace, unless you’re at a café table. Feeding the pigeons has been illegal since 2008, with fines of €50 to €200, and a swim in a canal can cost €450.
What you wear
Flip-flops on a Cinque Terre trail
The five cliffside villages of Cinque Terre look like a beach holiday. The paths between them are closer to mountain trails, with steep stone steps, narrow ledges and long climbs.
After years of rescuing visitors who tackled them in beach shoes, the national park brought in fines in 2019 for hiking in flip-flops or other unsuitable footwear. Reported fines range from €50 to €2,500, with the top end linked to serious cases that end in a rescue. The park asks hikers to wear closed shoes with a non-slip sole.
Flip-flops are still fine in the villages and on the beach. The rule starts where the trail does. You’ll also need a Cinque Terre Trekking Card for the paid paths, which in 2026 cost €10 a day, or €15 in high season. Check the park’s trail map on the morning you go: the lower coastal path between Manarola and Corniglia was closed in summer 2026.
Swimwear in Barcelona’s streets
On a Barcelona beach, almost anything goes. Walk a few streets inland in your swimsuit and you may be breaking the rules.
Barcelona bans going shirtless in public spaces, except while playing sport, and keeps swimwear to the beaches, pools, promenades and the streets right next to the coast. Going shirtless elsewhere can cost €120 to €300, although police must warn you first and can only fine you if you carry on.
Other Spanish resorts are stricter. In Alicante and Marbella, going shirtless outside the permitted areas can cost up to €750.
What you take home
A bottle of sand from Sardinia
Sardinia’s white beaches are among the most beautiful in Europe, and a surprising number of visitors try to take a bit of one home.
Since 2017, removing sand, shells or pebbles from the island’s beaches has been illegal. Fines run from €500 to €3,000, and anyone caught with large amounts can face prison. Customs officers at Alghero airport regularly search bags and turn up plastic bottles full of sand, piles of shells and even large rocks.
In 2023, police arrested a Frenchman with 41 kilograms of pebbles and stones from Lampianu beach in the boot of his car. Campaigners estimate that at least six tonnes of sand leave the island every year.
Take photos instead. They weigh nothing.
Where you point your camera
The private lanes of Gion, Kyoto
Kyoto’s Gion district, with its wooden teahouses and lantern-lit streets, is where many visitors hope to spot a geiko or maiko, Kyoto’s geisha and apprentice geisha. Residents complained that tourists were photographing performers and private homes without permission.
In 2019, photography was banned on the private lanes near Hanamikoji Street, with a ¥10,000 fine. From April 2024, Gion went further: signs now ask tourists to stay out of the private alleys altogether, warning of a ¥10,000 penalty.
“We don’t want to enforce this, but we are left with no choice,” local official Isokazu Ota told reporters.
Hanamikoji Street itself is a public road and still open to visitors. Stick to it, and always ask before photographing anyone.
What you bring in
Chewing gum in Singapore
Singapore banned the sale and import of chewing gum on 3 January 1992, partly because vandals kept sticking used gum on the door sensors of its new metro trains.
Chewing gum isn’t illegal, and the rumour that you’ll be caned for it is a myth: the law allows only fines and prison. Since 2004, you’ve been able to buy therapeutic gum, such as nicotine gum, from a pharmacist. Ordinary gum still can’t be sold, and travel guides disagree on whether a pack in your luggage is tolerated, so the safe option is to leave it at home.
When a BBC reporter suggested the rules stifled creativity, former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew had an answer ready: “If you can’t think because you can’t chew, try a banana.”
A coin’s throw from the Trevi Fountain, Rome
Throwing a coin into the Trevi Fountain is supposed to mean you’ll return to Rome. Since 2 February 2026, getting close enough to throw it costs €2.
The ticket covers the area by the basin, closest to the fountain, every day from 9am to 10pm. You can buy it on the fountain’s official website, at Rome’s tourist information points or at the entrance, by card only. Rome residents, children under five and disabled visitors with their carers go in free, and looking at the fountain from the square above costs nothing.
A day trip to Venice on a busy day
Venice now charges day-trippers an entry fee on its busiest days. In 2026 it applied on 60 days between 3 April and 26 July, from 8.30am to 4pm, to anyone aged 14 or over.
The fee was €5 if you booked at least four days ahead and €10 if you left it later. You pay online and get a QR code to show at spot checks. In 2025, people caught entering without one faced fines of €25 to €150. Staying the night? You don’t pay the fee, though you may still need to register online. Check the official access fee website before any spring or summer trip.
Climbing Mount Fuji
Since 2025, every climber pays ¥4,000 per person, whichever of the four main trails they take. Before that, three of the four trails were free.
On the busy Yoshida Trail, numbers are capped at 4,000 climbers a day, and the gate is shut from 2pm to 3am unless you’ve booked a mountain hut. Staff also check that you have proper hiking footwear, two-piece rain gear and warm clothes before you start. The season is short: in 2026, the trails opened in early July and closed on 10 September.
Which holiday rule would catch you out?
Sitting on steps, wearing flip-flops, taking home some sand: none of it feels like breaking the law, which is exactly why so many tourists get caught. Rules and fines change often, so check local guidance before you travel.
Which of these surprised you most?
Planning somewhere a little more magical? Our round-up of 12 real places that look like they were lifted from a fairytale is a good place to start. And pin this one before your next trip.