Inside Italy is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip from Italy that you might not have heard about. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.

Rome ends 20-year taxi drought – but will it be enough? 

Following years of customer complaints about long queues and lengthy wait times when trying to hail a ride, Rome will soon have new taxis as officials this week issued a public tender for the release of 1,000 new licences – the first in nearly two decades.

The move, which aimed to solve long-standing cab shortages ahead of the 2025 Jubilee, was praised by Rome mayor Roberto Gualtieri as “a historic day for the city”.

But will the upcoming release of 1,000 new licences be enough to solve the Eternal City’s chronic lack of taxis?

According to Nicola Zaccheo, president of Italy’s transport regulation authority, the new 1,000-strong fleet will only scratch the surface as the city would need at least 2,330 additional cabs to solve its shortages after it registered 4 million ‘unresolved calls’ in 2023 – that is people who tried to book a taxi but couldn’t find one.

Zaccheo also highlighted how “meeting demand does not depend solely on the number of licences, but also on how service shifts are organised”.

In May 2023, city officials brought in new rules allowing a second driver to take a shift in the same taxi, and setting out new requirements to organise shift rotations via digital platforms.

Whether or not these rules are being enforced however is a different question altogether.

And as the old Italian adage goes, tra il dire e il fare c’e’ di mezzo il mare, which roughly translates to: “There’s a distance as big as a sea between saying one thing and actually doing it”.

Trevi Fountain tickets? 

But news of the upcoming issuance of 1,000 new taxi licences wasn’t the only Rome-related story to make headlines in national media this week. 

After Rome tourism councillor Alessandro Onorato said city officials were mulling charging people for access to the iconic Trevi Fountain to cut down crowds, mayor Roberto Gualtieri called the idea a “very concrete hypothesis” on Thursday. 

“The situation at the Trevi Fountain has become very hard to handle,” Gualtieri said.

“There is a buildup of people that makes it difficult to properly enjoy the monument.”

Following a drop in tourist figures during the Covid pandemic, large numbers of visitors have returned to the Baroque masterpiece over the past couple of years, with crowds often being so deep that it is hard to get a proper look at the fountain.

According to the latest estimates, the Trevi monument sees over 10 million tourists a year – more than three times the number of people residing in the entire Rome municipality (2,755,300) 

But issues are not simply related to overtourism, as reports of ‘rogue’ international visitors swimming in the fountain have become something of a regular occurrence during the peak tourism period. 

Given the long list of incidents reported over the years, the latest of which occurred last weekend, it would be hard to blame city authorities for wanting to control access to the monument.

More than a cricket ban

The small town of Monfalcone, on Italy’s Adriatic coast, made international headlines on Friday after a BBC report dubbed it “the Italian town that banned cricket”. 

The report referred to rules prohibiting Monfalcone residents from playing the sport in local parks and outdoor areas, with fines of up to €100 for those flouting the ban.

But while authorities’ official explanation for the ban was reported as being that cricket balls posed a danger to passersby, local players said it was an anti-immigration policy targeting the local Bangladeshi community.

This was not the first time authorities in Monfalcone were embroiled in major controversy.

Last July, mayor Anna Maria Cisint, who’s a member of Matteo Salvini’s anti-immigration League party, sparked nationwide outrage after she demanded “Muslim foreigners” stop swimming “with their clothes on” when visiting Italian beaches.

Later that year, some 8,000 people took to the streets of Monfalcone after Cisint ordered the closure of two local mosques on grounds that they were “illegal”. 

League leader Salvini has so far avoided addressing the tensions in Monfalcone in public, but as another questionable (to say the least) policy from local authorities makes international news, it’s hard to see how he’ll be able to put off that discussion much longer. 

Inside Italy is our weekly look at some of the news and talking points in Italy that you might not have heard about. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.