Two Australian tourists, filmed as they surfed down the Grand Canal in Venice on Wednesday, have been fined €1,500 each, local media reports. Police also confiscated their motorised surf boards, worth around €25,000, and expelled them from the city..
The mayors office said the two were fined €1,500 (£1,270) each over the incident, and the citys attorney is preparing further action against them for damaging the citys image.
The mayor had asked for help in apprehending what he called "two overbearing imbeciles who are making a mockery of the city," and promised dinner for anyone who identified them.
On footage captured by various locals, the two men were caught dodging a water bus and a taxi under the Rialto Bridge and zipping past the Salute basilica, one of the city’s most famous sites.
In a video of the pair as they passed under the Accademia Bridge, one of the surfers fell off his board but made sure to hold what appeared to be his phone out of the water, filming his companion.
The two boards, worth around €25,000 (£21,000), were confiscated for not being insured, according to local paper Il Gazzettino , with each surfer also fined €1,500 for endangering the navigation of the canal.
In 2019 the city fined two German travelers $1,00 for making coffee on the 430-year-old Rialto Bridge. Visitors also are prohibited from swimming in the canals and from eating on the steps of monuments. or face fines.
