A POPULAR European city is set to bring back its ‘tourist tax’ for visitors this summer.
The city became the first metropolitan area globally to charge day-trippers an admission fee, which was introduced on April 25, 2024.
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A popular European city is set to bring back its “tourist tax” for some visitors this summerCredit: Getty
Day-trippers who book last-minute trips to Venice this summer will feel the biggest sting, with reservations that are made less than four days in advance costing €10 per person.
Holidaymakers who are a bit more organised, and book their trips more than four days ahead of their planned visit, will only have to pay €5.
Entering the city before 8.30am or after 4pm exempts you from paying, as does being a current resident or a Venetian-born visitor, a student, worker, or someone in the city on an overnight stay.
When you’ve secured your QR code via the booking platform, it will be checked at one of seven entry points across Venice, which includes Santa Lucia railway station.
However, if you do not pay the fee and are not registered for exemption, or if you fail to produce the QR code, you could be fined anywhere between €50-300.
That’s equivalent to up to £260.
The number of pay-to-enter days is increasing from 54 to 60 this year.
However, last year’s stats show visitor numbers dropped only slightly over the summer, from an average of 16,676 in 2024 to 13,046 in 2025.
The new tax is to help incentivise tourists to visit the smallItalian cityon weekdays, rather than during the weekend.
“How you feeling, Sabrinawood?” Sabrina Carpenter asked as she gazed out at the tens of thousands of fans she’d gathered into a makeshift city Friday night. “I can’t believe I’m headlining Coachella.
“I mean, I can a little bit.”
Indeed, when Carpenter made her Coachella debut in 2024, the Disney kid turned pop icon vowed that the next time she played the desert festival, her name would be atop the bill.
She returned as promised this weekend as one of music’s biggest acts, with two No. 1 singles and a pair of Grammy-nominated albums under her belt and a story to tell about her rise to stardom.
Heading into Coachella, I’d wondered whether Carpenter, 26, would simply play the same show she’d already brought several times to L.A. (as recently as November) on tour behind 2025’s “Short n’ Sweet” and last year’s “Man’s Best Friend.”
To her credit, though, she created a whole new production, which began with a video in which Carpenter is pulled over by a police offer played by the actor Sam Elliott as she drives toward a new life in Hollywood. In the video, Elliott lets her go, after which she turned up in the flesh at Coachella to strut down a Walk of Fame situation and end up onstage in a detailed simulacrum of the Hollywood Hills.
The first half of the show featured a bunch of songs from the singer’s last two LPs — she sang “Please Please Please” in a mock-up of a recording-studio vocal booth, while “When Did You Get Hot?” sounded like En Vogue’s “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)” — as well as an oldie in “Because I Liked a Boy.”
Sabrina Carpenter performs at Coachella on Friday, April 12, 2024.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Then came a very long appearance by Susan Sarandon, who delivered a monologue about … the trauma of childhood celebrity? Honestly, it was hard to tell — a bit of a miscalculation on Carpenter’s part, as though she’d assumed that everyone at Coachella wanted to hear her deepest (if vaguest) thoughts about the pain of growing up in the Mouse House.
“She better come out in an amazing outfit,” one woman next to me said of Carpenter as Sarandon continued to extend the singer’s costume change.
Once Carpenter was back — wearing leggings and a blue sweater — she did “Go Go Juice” and “Sugar Talking” in a sort of dance-studio setting then interpolated a bit of Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana (At the Copa)” into “Feather” before Will Ferrell appeared as an irritated stage tech moaning and groaning about the demands of Carpenter’s show. (Again: kind of a fail.)
Yet she finished strong with speedy versions of “Juno,” “Espresso” and “Goodbye” into “Tears,” which got an elaborate water show that proved Carpenter can provide the right amount of razzle-dazzle when she wants to.
NEW YORK — In his first 100 days in office, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has governed with a star power unusual in politics.
Crowds of supporters show up to his news conferences. Basic municipal services have been infused with newfound excitement. Celebrities help him promote his agenda.
In the process, he’s been able to notch a few notable early wins. And he’s reached a detente, at least for now, with President Trump, a mercurial leader with an affinity for celebrities.
But as Mamdani, a Democrat, marks an early milestone in his mayoralty, it remains to be seen whether he’ll be able to leverage his fame into achieving the progressive policy proposals that propelled him to office.
Though he still has staunch critics, many of whom still view his past criticisms of the police department and Israel as major problems, Mamdani has been able to ease concerns among at least some skeptics.
“It’s early but so far, so good,” said Jay Jacobs, chair of the state’s Democratic Party, who made waves for not endorsing Mamdani during the election. “We may not agree on everything philosophically, but he is getting the job done.”
‘The biggest needs and the smallest needs’
As the mayor approached his 100th day — long a benchmark for judging an administration’s opening vision — his team has moved to highlight the administration’s commitment to the everyday responsibilities of the job.
While much of those duties are typical for his local office — picking up trash, plowing snow and filling potholes — the 34-year-old mayor has leaned on his knack for viral content creation to drive interest and awareness of government programs.
To hype up his child-care program for 2-year-olds, Mamdani recruited Cardi B to help judge a jingle contest that will determine the initiative’s theme song. His slick social media videos helped recruit thousands of new snow shovelers as a storm bore down on the city. A public service announcement he made brought more than 50,000 new subscribers to the city’s emergency alert system in a single week.
A few weeks ago, alongside Natasha Cloud of the New York Liberty, Mamdani announced a bracket-style competition in which people could vote on small projects for him to come and personally fix on his 100th day.
On Friday, Mamdani selected a winner — a garbage-filled lot in the Bronx — and helped pick up some of the junk with a sanitation crew, following a celebratory event that featured an overflowing trash can mascot and a cheerleading squad.
“I think every single day it’s an opportunity to meet the needs of New Yorkers,” he said. “And what we’ve seen over the course of this 100 days is that New York City wants to see a city government that is able to meet the biggest needs and the smallest needs.”
The celebrity status, though, can also prompt backlash. During a bitter cold snap, his surprise appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” was seen by some as insensitive at a moment when the death toll of homeless New Yorkers was rapidly rising.
“Too much styling and profiling,” said Curtis Sliwa, a Republican who ran against Mamdani during last year’s election, noting longstanding problems with street homelessness, public housing and infrastructure.
Still, Sliwa, who hammered Mamdani during the campaign but recently appeared in a comedy skit with the mayor during the City Hall press corps’ annual roast, appeared to give Mamdani some credit, even if it came with a caveat.
“We just had Eric Adams, swagger man who’d party to the break of dawn, and now we have a guy who seems like he’s got a normal working schedule,” said Sliwa, referencing the city’s previous mayor. “So having Zohran as the alternative, I think for a lot of people even if they disagree with him, there’s some stability.”
Still a star among supporters
On the night of Mamdani’s election party, hundreds packed the streets, some spontaneously, waiting for a glimpse of the mayor-elect leaving the venue. Departing campaign aides were cheered, by name, well after midnight. One attendee likened the street party to Beatlemania.
“I feel like I’m at a presidential inauguration,” said Medhavie Agnihotri, a 25-year-old tech consultant. “This is the first time in a while I’ve felt this hope.”
His star power has not appeared to wane since then.
Outside City Hall, New Yorkers and tourists frequently stop for selfies, peering through the iron gates in search of the mayor.
This week, on the mayor’s 97th day in office, a crowd gathered in the lobby of the busy Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan to watch as Mamdani announced the city would start transferring Rikers Island jail detainees with serious medical illnesses to a specialized unit at the hospital.
He entered to woos and applause from the onlookers, as many held up cellphones to record videos of the mayor. Dozens more watched along from a set of elevated walkways.
One man, Ricardo Granados, a 67-year-old retiree, was on his way to take his son to a medical appointment but stopped to see what all the hubbub was about just before the news conference started. He appeared delighted to learn the mayor was going to show up, saying he met Mamdani previously when the mayor was campaigning in his neighborhood.
“I’m extremely fond of him. I think he’s going to make a real difference,” Granados said. “He wants to find out who needs what and he wants to help.”
Izaguirre writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Jake Offenhartz contributed to this report.
“Everyone is at least a dormant ballet nerd,” declares 22-year-old Eden Lim, while sitting for an interview in the suburban Dallas studio where she and her sister, Jordan, 24, film and edit their popular YouTube channel “Ballet Reign.”
Judging from the near-universal backlash to Timothée Chalamet’s recent bad-mouthing of ballet, Eden’s summation of the central tenet of their show may be true. With 67,000 subscribers in 166 countries and growing, the Lim sisters are mixing Gen Z humor and exuberance with astounding erudition to bring ballet to a new generation and fire up older, longtime fans.
With episode titles such as “Addictive Ballet Moments to Alter your Brain Chemistry” and promises like “This will increase your lifespan and double your morale,” they are on a mission to ensure that ballet not only survives but thrives.
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Mirthfulness is the Lim sisters’ medium, but their message is serious. During each show, they parse video clips of great performances, often by explaining the history of the piece and giving detailed behind-the-scenes stories. They dissect the most famous pas de deux with trenchant insight and introduce their audience to the greatest dancers, including Natalia Osipova and Roberto Bolle. With signature, irrepressible enthusiasm, the sisters help viewers see precisely what makes the shows and dancers so extraordinary.
Eden, left, and Jordan Lim of YouTube channel “Ballet Reign” trained as professional dancers before deciding to focus on their show full time.
(Larsen & Talbert / For The Times)
A video clip featured in the “Addictive Ballet” episode shows New York City Ballet principal dancer Ashley Bouder launching herself into a jeté so high she seems to leave Earth’s gravity. In midair she manages to turn herself 180 degrees before being caught by her partner, despite her momentum seeming to drift into his arms like a feather blown by a breeze.
While watching the singular feat, Eden exclaims, “Call the news channels! We found a person who can actually levitate!”
Jordan says the goal is to make viewers feel equipped to say, “I understand what’s going on, and I can appreciate it, and I can appreciate that this was done well.”
“Ballet Reign” launched three years ago with modest hopes. The sisters sought a mere toehold in the YouTube universe, aiming for a narrow niche audience of fellow ballet fanatics (“ballet nerds”) ages 16 to 25. To their initial astonishment, they have attracted a far wider viewership spanning all ages, even followers who hitherto had only scant interest in ballet. They have drawn in many young children and older adults, with those 65 and up now their third-largest subscriber group.
The show has rapidly won acclaim from within and outside of the ballet world — perhaps because the depth and breadth of their knowledge makes it hard to shake the suspicion that they secretly are Ivy League professors.
The Lim sisters speak with sophistication about classic ballets and dancers they love — delivering their message through a whimsical show that has attracted fans of all ages.
(Larsen & Talbert / For The Times)
They comment with equal sophistication on ballet steps, choreography, history, musicology and the minute details of costume design. Eclectic references pop out of nowhere — a metaphor from quantum physics, an aside that the flute is the instrument whose sound is closest to a sine wave, that a serinette is an 18th century music box used to teach caged canaries to sing.
Even actual professors laud the show.
Nicolas Krusek routinely shows “Ballet Reign” episodes in his classes for adults on ballet history at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. Krusek says what makes the show compelling “is the spirit of the videos, just the sense of joyousness and benevolence that they communicate, and a real sense of reverence for the art and the artists.”
John Meehan, a Vassar College professor of ballet and former principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre, calls their episode on Igor Stravinsky’s “The Firebird” ballet “amazing,” adding that it conveys at least as much information in much more palatable form than a “dry” university lecture.
Julie Cronshaw, director of the Highgate Ballet School in London, says even for learned, longtime balletomanes the show opens up a whole new realm of understanding and appreciation. For those weighed down by adult concerns, watching an episode leaves them feeling uplifted.
This is why Jordan believes “Ballet Reign” has attracted a significant older audience — and also because the sisters honor tradition.
“They’re looking at the content and saying, ‘These are pieces that I grew up watching. And these are the dancers that I adored when I was younger,’” Jordan says.
Eden says she hopes “it’s because our content, and the way we deliver it, is able to touch hearts.”
The Lim sisters keep a disciplined schedule, turning out polished, deftly produced episodes 52 weeks a year.
(Larsen & Talbert / For The Times)
The show also benefits from its high production values, with expertly edited clips from performances, clever blurbs of text and quirky cutaways to, say, a pole vaulter as an allusion to how high a dancer jumps.
Episodes generally begin the same way, with the sisters sitting behind a table with an old-fashioned radio-days microphone nicknamed “Mike-elangelo” between them. Eden kicks things off by announcing, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Ballet Reign.”
A flash of superimposed text identifies them as “*Very certified*, extremely serious ballet experts.”
Jordan and Eden revel in each other’s company, finish each other’s sentences and play off each other with insightful or witty interjections.
“We grew up best friends from the beginning, and that’s never changed,” Jordan says.
They keep a disciplined, grueling schedule, turning out polished, deftly produced episodes 52 weeks a year.
Comments validating their efforts come in frequently. “You really helped me through a dark time,” reads one. Another notes, “I was going through a really difficult life transition and having your videos helped me get through.”
Jordan says, “That’s a sort of impact that I genuinely did not see coming.”
The sisters are openhearted and enjoy revealing ballet’s best-kept secrets, but they have kept a remarkably mysterious online profile. Until now, they have never even disclosed their last names, let alone anything about their background, education or experience.
There is also nearly nothing on the internet, and fans have long wondered about their credentials, including whether they are professional dancers themselves.
On the show the sisters certainly come across as if they were. Surprisingly, the answer is no — with an “almost” caveat.
The oldest of four siblings, Jordan and Eden spent nearly all of their childhood in Ottawa. From the time they were small the sisters beelined toward becoming professional ballet dancers. Jordan says when she was 4 she got up at the crack of dawn every day and put in a VHS tape of a ballet class that her mother, Mary Lim, had bought. With fierce determination, she performed tendus and relevés along with the older students on the tape.
Eden’s ballet fascination quickly followed. Mary says she soon realized she had no choice but to send them to ballet school.
“Obviously, if you look at a 4-year-old doing ballet at 7 a.m. every single day, you’re like, OK, let’s try lessons,” Jordan says.
Eden, left, and Jordan Lim of “Ballet Reign” are the oldest of four siblings and spent nearly all of their childhood in Ottawa before relocating to Texas to pursue their careers.
(Larsen & Talbert / For The Times)
By 2015, the girls needed a better ballet school than was available in Ottawa. Their parents packed up the family and moved to Dallas, where the pair enrolled in the Ballet Academy of Texas. Aside from ballet classes they were entirely homeschooled, but they had plenty of experience dancing in school performances, ballet competitions and with real companies.
Mary says the intent was “to give them an opportunity to move and carve their own path … We wanted them to find their passions.”
The moment the sisters had worked for all their lives arrived in 2020, when the time came to set off around the country — and the world — to audition for ballet companies. But the COVID-19 pandemic hit just as they got started, and almost everything in the ballet world shut down.
Jordan says the hiatus led them to reflect for the first time on whether their lifelong ambition was truly what they wanted. At the same time they groped for a way to put their passion for ballet to temporary use.
For years the sisters had fantasized, half-seriously, about having their own YouTube channel. Eden convinced an initially reluctant Jordan it was time to make the daydream real, and “Ballet Reign” premiered on Dec. 21, 2022.
The sisters say they convinced themselves they were using the show to take “a gap year” while waiting out the pandemic. As the first months passed, and their audience widened and sent glowing feedback, they began to realize they were having a big impact and touching lives. It dawned on them that this wasn’t just an interlude but their calling.
In an agonizing twist, just as the show had gotten underway, Jordan received word she had been accepted by a professional ballet company. She turned down the offer.
“It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make,” Jordan says, but in retrospect the right one.
On a night when my family watched Austin Reaves pull off the miraculous intentional missed free throw put-back basket on the way to a thrilling Laker overtime win against the Denver Nuggets, we talked more about the newest Lakers super fan on the way home. Kudos to Bill Plaschke for recognizing and capturing the power of 6-year-old Jackson Tuyay’s passionate cheering that helped ignite the laid-back crowd and inspire the Lakers to a huge comeback win. As a lifelong Laker fan since the same age as Jackson it was so awesome to see such innocent and authentic passion for the Lakers. In an arena full of stars in the stands and on the court it was the voice of a 6-year-old that reminded us how awesome it is to be a Lakers fan for life!
Paul Stapleton Los Angeles
To quote Jackson Tuyay, “Yeaaaaah!” It looks like the Lakers can play some defense and beat the better teams after all.
Vaughn Hardenberg Westwood
The Los Angeles Times welcomes expressions of all views. Letters should be brief and become the property of The Times. They may be edited and republished in any format. Each must include a valid mailing address and telephone number. Pseudonyms will not be used.
The village has been crowned the world’s most beautiful by Forbes and receives 20,000 visitors on weekends – but overtourism has caused serious problems
The council has decided action must be taken (Image: Snowshill via Getty Images)
A UK village crowned the most beautiful in the world has moved forward in the fight against overtourism, with a huge cash boost and a raft of new potential measures.
Bibury, nestled in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds, is an undeniably charming spot. It boasts honey-hued stone cottages, a gently winding river, and a historic, fairytale-like atmosphere. Its allure led Forbes to name it the world’s most attractive village for 2025, approximately 150 years after poet William Morris declared Bibury “the most beautiful village in England.”
The cottages of Arlington Row are often hailed as the most photographed and breathtaking cottages in Britain. Built in 1380 as a monastic wool store, it was later converted into a row of weavers’ cottages in the 17th century.
It’s easy to see why Bibury garners such accolades, with accommodation options like the Swan Hotel and The Catherine Wheel pub both welcoming inside and festooned with climbing plants outside. The village’s charm has put Bibury firmly on the tourist trail. And now, some locals say, things are getting out of hand.
Do you have a story to share? Email webtravel@reachplc.com
Chairman of the local parking action group, Mark Honeyball, who has resided in Bibury for a decade, has had some rather unpleasant experiences with visitors. He revealed to the Express that he asked a coach driver to move on from some double yellow lines before drama unfolded.
He said last year: “I’ve been physically attacked four times now, but once really quite badly two weeks ago, I was kicked in the chest and stomach and kneed and punched in the face full force by a driver that I’d just asked simply to move on from double yellows at the top of the village.
“The coach drivers themselves are being pushed here by their coach companies, they don’t really want to be here, they find it really difficult to park. The tour operators are the key behind this, the coach operators are doing what the tour operators ask them to do, primarily with people from China, India, and South Korea at the moment.”
Up to 20,000 tourists flood into Bibury over weekends in the high season, with as many as 50 coaches arriving daily. That’s a staggering number for a village home to merely 600 residents.
Following the period of consultation, the county council is considering a series of measures to control the impact of tourism. They include:
Permanent removal of coach parking bays and implementation of on-street parking restrictions.
Additional enforcement of parking restrictions.
Introducing pay-and-display parking.
Restricting coach parking/waiting using enforcement officers to support traffic flow.
Exploring if there are improvements that can be made to local bus services including options such as park and ride.
Restrictions on coaches entering the village were implemented in May last year. At that point, parking bays in the heart of the village were shut and new public bus stop clearways were established. The objective was to put a stop to “unsafe coach manoeuvres.” Following the summer trial period, Gloucestershire County Council decided to implement permanent restrictions on coaches entering the area.
Cllr Lisa Spivey, leader of the county council, said: “Hopefully we are getting somewhere. We did a trial last year which has been extended where we essentially removed the coach parking bays in the centre of the village and created drop off and pick up points for coaches, so we are now going to make that a more permanent solution.
“They have currently got some red and white plastic barriers which don’t look very nice in a historic village so we want to make that look nice. We are going to introduce pay and display parking so we can pay for more enforcement to make sure people aren’t parking where they shouldn’t be and causing an issue.
“We’ve been working alongside the coach operators and other stakeholders to really encourage the use of smaller vehicles to come into the village. There’s been a huge amount of engagement with the coach operators, Cotswold Tourism, the parish council, businesses, the police etc. Lots of people have been involved.”
