Many of us may have asked for a doggy bag to take back home after a full meal in a restaurant. It’s not a custom particularly widespread in Italy (Abruzzo excepted) and is likely to remain so if a recent article in the newspaper ‘Il Secolo XIX’ happens to be true.
Under the title ‘Fido can now go shopping’, a new regulation sponsored by the Minister of Tourism, Michela Brambilla, and ANCI (the National Association of Italian Comunes) now allows domestic animals to frequent public places previously off limits. We are talking post offices, buses, trains and even restaurants etc.
Only hospitals, creches and schools are out of bounds.
Off course, this has nothing to do with stimulating tourism, bearing in mind that this is the same flamed haired Minister who wanted to ban the Palio of Siena because of the participation of the horses, but you have to admire the persistance.
Now we are animal lovers, and animal owners, and once even took our house beast to in the Castelli Romani, but with Pompeii crumbling, the Domus Aurea collapsing and public funding of Italy’s cultural patrimony under particular strain, all we can say is … Cave Cavem!