Tourism: Elbow-to-Elbow at the Louvre

Overcrowding, pollution and plain incivility have become Europe' unwelcome summer guests

Costantino Federico, the mayor of Capri, has had enough. The hordes of tourists who inundate the Mediterranean isle every summer will no longer be permitted to lounge around the famed piazzetta. Nor can they camp outdoors in sleeping bags, walk around in noisy wooden sandals or loiter bare-torsoed in public places. Farther north, on the island of Ponza, a favorite vacation spot for Romans, officials have banned automobiles until the end of August. The last straw, say residents, was the hundreds of cars that rolled off the ferries from the mainland every day last summer, choking the narrow roads and causing...

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