On April 25, 2024, Venice became the first city in the world to introduce an entry fee to the historical area, commonly visited by an average number of 20 million of day-trippers per year, while the total number of yearly tourists is about 30 million. Well, the mayor of the city has wanted day-trippers to pay a ticket to ride on a gondola, or on a ferry-boat, and to walk in the streets globally most known. The fact, in my opinion, incidentally shows that the cited authority is a big fan of the Beatles. Apart from jokes, a brief summary of the justifications to support the fee, communicated to press as follows: Venice is a unique place, of incomparable cultural value, but constantly under the menace of salty water, bad weather, and overtourism; the fee serves to encourage tourist to spend one night or more at local hotels, a sojourn already subject to an accommodation tax, that absorbs the fee itself; the money coming from the fee serves to offer better services to Venetians and to tourists; the payment of a ticket has a potential of discouraging day-trippers, and of consenting a better management of the flow of tourists; a congestion tax can contribute in safeguarding the city from overtourism. In 2025, the entry fee has been doubled. The cities of Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Dubrovnik, that suffer from overtourism, have demonstrated a great attention towards the entry fee of the above.
The page serves to propose my opinion about the imposition of entry fees for daily visitors of a touristic town or city, as a part of my visual in the matter of institutions and public administration of any Occidental democracy. Of course, the observations are valid even for accommodation taxes, congestion taxes, and similar decisions of public authorities. Previously, I inform you that the mayor of Venice, responsible of the entry fee, is a man of the center-right political wing, and that the local protest against the fee, organized by the left political wing, has been the weakest I’ve ever seen in my life, and intentionally lacking of whatever valid motivation. In effect, entry fees, accommodation taxes, and congestion taxes belong to the typical leftist culture that is dominating Italy, and is deeply conditioning all kinds of governments, including the national one of today, which is not leftist. Accordingly, there should be no limitations to public powers while acting for obtaining specific public results, except for the coincidence between those results and the pertinent public interest, as expressed by the competent institutions in faithful application of the constitution. Well, my thoughts are radically different, because I’m convinced that popular sovereignty, which is the fundamental element of a democracy, should never be totally delegated to political and career bureaucrats, without any possible intervention of citizens and entrepreneurs, as happens for the Italian constitution. More clearly, there’s anything vaguely resembling to lobbyism, the elected has no binding mandate, and the chiefs of public administrations are never directly voted by citizens. As an Italian citizen, I only have the possibility of paying every kind of taxes, without any equivalent, immediately verifiable by me. Moreover, taxes are a topic excluded from popular referendum by the constitution itself, together with public expenses. In summary, eventual protests or objections against taxes are totally useless, and, in some cases, even illegal. What are some results of the described, oligarchic regime established by the Italian constitution? Here, I talk about the most adherent to the topic of the page. The kinds of taxes have become more than one hundred, and each form of taxation has a different and complex regulation. Given that human brain has precise limitations (about 150 is the maximum number of articulated concepts manageable by our minds), I can affirm that Italian fiscal experts don’t know more than the 10% of the fiscal rules in vigor. It’s an implicit dictatorship, where anyone is always subject to the blackmail of public powers, including foreign tourists.
In conclusion, there’s no democracy wherever fiscal norms are not completely manageable by common human brains. Consequently, in a true democracy, the maximum number of different taxations should be near to four of five, and no specific public goal would ever be able to justify another monetary imposition, of whatever kind. Coming to music, the mix of the page is dedicated to the some of the day-trippers, those who are forced to pay a ticket to ride around a city or town.
File name is “Max Look’s mini-mix, day-trippers paying a ticket to ride (end of June 2025)”, about 26’ and 45” of music suitable to day-trippers, whose trip is subject to an entry fee.
Pay for visit, the playlist:
Intro: Frank Zappa – touring can make you crazy
Urge Overkill – ticket to L.A.
Gwen Guthrie – ticket to ride
Coconuts – ticket to the tropics 12”
Halftones – ghost city
Gaz Nevada – ticket to Los Angeles
Love Committee – pass the buck
Boney M – one way ticket
Beatles – ticket to ride
Darkness – one way ticket
Beatles – day-tripper
Ozzie Torrens & his exciting Orchestra – day-tripper
Ultravox – passing strangers
Otis Redding – day-tripper
Yellow Magic Orchestra – day-tripper
