A tourist in Venice has sparked outrage after allegedly scattering a relative’s ashes into the city’s famous lagoon from a speeding water bus.
The French visitor was reportedly filmed by a friend as she emptied the remains into the water after boarding a vaporetto near St. Mark’s Square.
The middle-aged woman, wearing sunglasses and a striped top, was seen pulling out a plastic bag before tipping its contents into the lagoon in front of San Giorgio Maggiore, the small island where Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos got married last summer.
The act quickly drew backlash in a city already fed up with tourists breaking the rules.
It is illegal to scatter human ashes in the lagoon in front of St. Mark’s Square, and the woman could now face a major fine. Venetian authorities have launched an investigation.
Human ashes can only be scattered in specific areas of Venice, including gardens of remembrance, cemeteries and out at sea beyond the lagoon.
The footage was shared by Venezia Non è Disneyland, which translates to Venice Is Not Disneyland, a civic organization that regularly calls out bad behavior by tourists visiting the World Heritage city.
Venice receives around 20 million tourists each year, and locals have grown increasingly frustrated with visitors who treat the historic city like a playground rather than a living community.
“Enough, this is forbidden,” one Venetian woman wrote on social media. “To scatter ashes you need to be at least 500 metres from inhabited areas. And she did it from a public ferry, no less.”
Another resident questioned why the moment was filmed at all.
“Is it really necessary to make a video of scattering a loved one’s ashes — it should be an intimate and private gesture,” the person wrote.
But not everyone condemned the tourist.
Some locals argued there are bigger problems in Venice, including residents and visitors who throw cigarette butts into the water.
“I would argue that there are much more serious problems that we should be talking about, such as Venetians who smoke and chuck their cigarette butts in the water,” one Instagram user wrote. “That’s something that I see every day.”
The incident comes as Venice continues to wrestle with overtourism and the strain it places on the fragile city.
Officials have already introduced entry fees and issued rules against behavior such as walking around bare-chested, eating packed lunches in St. Mark’s Square and feeding pigeons.
