Plenty of us feel that a little part of every city we visit stays with us once we’ve arrived home, but tourists in Bruges are reportedly taking things a bit too literally.
City councillor Franky Demon has urged tourists to stop picking up cobblestones from the city’s streets to take away as souvenirs, as it shows the city great disrespect.
The old town of Bruges is a UNESCO World Heritage site, after all, yet iconic local spots like Vismarkt, Minnewater, the Grand Palace and the Grutthuse Museum are apparently losing between 50 and 70 cobblestones each month.
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While that figure might not sound too crazy, there are two reasons it’s a problem. The first of these is the simple fact that it’s damaging to the city’s heritage.
‘We ask for nothing but respect. Walking in Bruges means treading on centuries of history,’ said the councillor, according to The Brussels Times, ‘Please leave these stones where they belong.’
Then there’s the cost of repairing them. Not only are the gaps left by missing stones a hazard for pedestrians, but filling them in again costs around €200 per square metre.
Read more on unhinged tourist behaviour at Travel
This isn’t the first time tourists have been scolded for helping themselves to something that’s not theirs to take – authorities in Sardinia recently imposed a €3,000 fine for visitors who pinched sand from its beaches.
In fact, popular spots all over the world have been announcing rules to clamp down on disrespectful tourist behaviour in recent years.
There’s Amsterdam’s long-standing battle with rowdiness, Prague’s rules on ‘silly costumes’, and the flat-out ban of tourists from Kyoto’s famous Geisha district. In the Med, there have been crackdowns on alcohol consumption and inappropriate dress.
We could go on – have a read of our investigation into why tourists have become so unhinged. Alternatively, here’s how Copenhagen’s alternative scheme to reward good tourist behaviour might be the solution.
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