Going on holiday is a green light to behaving badly

A British tourist was this month ordered to pay for restoration work after scrawling his and his two daughters' initials on wall of Pompeii's World Heritage Site.

In June a Dutch tourist was accused of defacing a wall in an ancient Roman villa in Herculaneum, an ancient city that was buried under lava along with Pompeii in 79 AD

The man tagged the wall with his graffiti signature using a black marker, according to Italian police. He was charged with damage and defacement of artistic works. The same month two more tourists were caught apparently defacing the Colosseum in Rome.

Last year an Irish tourist was arrested after damaging a historic statue in Belgium just a day after it was unveiled to the public following a £15,000 restoration.

And a gym instructor from Bristol was filmed carving 'Ivan and Hayley 23' into the walls of the Colosseum. Would they do the same on Clifton Suspension Bridge?

For a growing number of people, being away on holiday is a green light to behaving badly.

I remember years ago when I was in Italy visiting the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. In many rooms there were clear signs asking visitors not to take pictures, but some went ahead and took them anyway, brushing off protestations from staff.

And in Spain my family watched in amazement as other tourists brazenly barged to the front of a long queue for a cable car - in which we were waiting - without a care in the world. No one dared challenge them.

But carving your name into ancient monuments is taking bad behaviour to another level. And to do it in front of your children - I assume the culprit’s daughters were there - really is shocking. It’s hard to believe that anyone of any age, let alone adults, would think such behaviour was in any way acceptable.

Tourists can be a problem in some Mediterranean villages. Image: Pixabay

It seems the minute people go on holiday they forget their manners, lose the ability to read signs and show no respect for the area or local people. There’s much criticism of Brits abroad, but bad behaviour is not confined to us, and it isn’t always abroad.

I was in Cambridge recently and was alarmed by the behaviour of the hordes of tourists from here, there and everywhere, who gathered in the small city centre streets, refusing to budge an inch when others wanted to get past.

They meander along holding selfie sticks - I hadn’t seen one of those for ages but in Cambridge everyone seemed to have one - with zero consideration for others.

Tourists hurtle along pavements on hire bikes without warning and how there wasn’t a major incident on the punts as families jostled for position on the River Cam I will never know.

I can understand completely why some tourist hotspots have decided that holidaymakers are not welcome.

This summer locals across destinations such as Majorca, Menorca, Ibiza and the Canary Islands held protests to reclaim space for themselves after feeling overwhelmed.

One Menorca village, Binibeca Vell, chained off alleyways to keep out trespassing tourists who wandered on to their properties.

Locals have had problems with tourists climbing up private stairs and balconies, blocking doorways and littering as they search for the best selfie spot.

They placed restrictions on visiting hours in some streets and asked tourists to keep quiet. This month they held a vote on whether to ban tourists completely and ended up tightening visiting hours.

I don’t blame them. I’m surprised we haven’t seen such protests in the UK, and not only in seaside hotspots such as Whitby, Newquay and Brighton but in cities like Oxford and Cambridge too.

It’s all well and good having visitors and a great boost to the local economy, but people should show respect or stay at home.

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