Two Czech tourists caught swimming nude in Venice canals

Two Slavia Prague fans in town for a match against Inter Milan were fined nearly 80,000 for swimming in the Venice canals

Jason Pirodsky

Written by Jason Pirodsky Published on 19.09.2019 13:52:09 (updated on 19.09.2019) Reading time: 1 minute

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Doge's Palace by San Marco in Venice (illustrative image)
Doge's Palace by San Marco in Venice (illustrative image)


Two Czech tourists were fined €3,000 earlier this week after they were caught by police skinny dipping in the city’s famed canals, reports news server CNN.

The two men, identified as Slavia Prague football fans in town for a match against Inter Milan, were discovered by Venice police on routine boat patrol of the area heard shouting in the water near Piazza San Marco on Monday evening.

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Instead of finding a potential drowning victim, however, police came across the naked Czechs swimming in the canal.

“Two men, completely nude, intent on laughing and joking with each other, and trying to catch the attention of passers by,” police described the pair to CNN.

But the men probably weren’t laughing after being detained by police, who forced them to dress and accompanied them to the police station. Swimming in the canals of Venice is strictly prohibited under any circumstances, let alone doing so in the buff.

The two Czech men were ultimately fined €3,000 (nearly 80,000 crowns) for “obscene acts” under city legislation covering public decency.

Like Prague, Venice has fought to combat overtourism in recent years, and has seen numerous related incidents this summer. Last week, video surfaced of one of the city’s gondoliers being headbutted by a tourist after reportedly refusing entry to his gondola to take a selfie.

In Prague, two German tourists were caught spraypainting the landmark Charles Bridge in July. The city has been fighting so-called alco-tourism in recent months; a recent story in The Guardian claimed that Prague was “collapsing under the weight of drunken tourists.”

Czech tourists, meanwhile, have also proven unpopular this summer. A pair of Czech Instagrammers stirred controversy in Bali after washing their privates with holy water at a shrine, while three Czech men were filmed performing some dangerous maneuvers up the side of a mountain in Slovakia’s Tatras.

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