Rome
CNN
—

The Baroque of Rome Trevi Fountain opened Saturday morning with photographers taking selfies along a newly installed metal walkway, as workers begin the painstaking process of carefully cleaning the 18th-century masterpiece.

The walkway, made of construction scaffolding and covered with vinyl matting, can accommodate 130 people at a time, allowing tourists to get a close look at the statue of Ocean and his horse-drawn chariot.

But a warning to those visiting the attraction as throwing a coin into the fountain, a long-standing tradition, is now prohibited. In fact, anyone doing so would face a €50 ($54) fine. Coins can only be thrown into a small temporary pool located between the walkway and the paved square.

The cleanup and restoration project, costing $330,000, will last until December, Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri told CNN Saturday morning.

The footbridge and temporary pool are a necessary step in finding the delicate balance between conservation and tourism. By studying the peak times of the day when the skywalk is used, the city will be able to implement better crowd control.

“The goal is to improve the visitor experience to make it a unique experience to admire the fountain and avoid overcrowding,” he said. “That’s why there is a limit to the number of people who can stay on this walkway. But after the maintenance work is completed, the number of people who can be inside the fountain to admire it will also be limited.

From the elevated walkway, the details of the 18th-century sculpture are breathtaking. But from this vantage point, we also see millions of dents in the stone ridge at the edge of the fountain, caused by flying coins.

Thousands of round rust marks from the coins sitting in the water are also visible. Each year, more than €1.5 million in change is taken from the fountain and donated to the Catholic charity Caritas, but the projectiles have wreaked havoc on the monument.

Once the fountain is back to normal and filled with water, Gualtieri said the city would eventually like to introduce a ticketing system to help limit crowds. He said it would also improve the experience for tourists, many of whom seem happy to pay the price.

American tourist Arlene Speling, from Florida, was waiting in line when the walkway first opened. She expressed doubts about whether possible new measures would help with crowd control. “I think everyone would pay €2 to come. If you’re traveling here, it’s one of the must-sees in Rome, isn’t it? » she told CNN.

The restoration is among dozens of projects underway in the Eternal City in the run-up to the Vatican’s Holy Jubilee in 2025, when the city expects millions more visitors.

The fountain was last repaired and cleaned in 2014, a job that took more than a year. The mayor promised that the Trevi Fountain would be ready this time in just five weeks.

“We are working very hard to be ready for the Jubilee and all the construction sites that are supposed to be completed by December will be completed by December,” he said.