Leaning Tower of Pisa among sites in Italy to reopen after lockdown

Tourists wear face masks while posing for a photograph near the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which reopened on Saturday. Photograph: Laura Lezza/Getty Images

Some of Italy’s most famous cultural sites are coming back to life after being closed for more than three months as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopened on Saturday, the Colosseum and Vatican Museums will welcome visitors again from Monday and Florence’s Uffizi gallery from Tuesday.

A huge exhibition marking the 500th anniversary of the death of the Renaissance painter Raphael will open at Le Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome on Monday.

All sites and museums are reopening with strict safety measures in place. The Leaning Tower of Pisa, which usually attracts 5 million visitors a year, is only permitting 15 people in at a time. They have to wear face masks and an electronic device that warns them if they are less than a metre of anyone else.

Pierfrancesco Pacini, the president of the board of directors responsible for the tower and surrounding monuments, told the Italian news agency Ansa: “Our budget will suffer heavy losses but we wanted to send a signal of confidence and hope.”

Johns Hopkins graph Italy

Visitors to the Colosseum will have to purchase their tickets online, wear face masks and have their temperature taken before entering. Group numbers have been capped at 14.

The Pompeii archaeological park reopened last Tuesday with similar measures in place. The 104 people who visited on the first day were mostly local residents. Massimo Osanna, the park’s director, said he hoped the site could attract 1.5 million visitors this year, 2.5 million fewer than would usually visit.

For now, the sites can only be enjoyed by local residents. Restrictions on inter-regional travel are due to be lifted on 3 June.

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While Italy is also preparing to open its borders to EU tourists, and those from the UK, from 3 June, Italians could be barred from visiting some fellow EU states because of the severity of Italy’s Covid-19 outbreak. Luigi Di Maio, the foreign minister, wrote on Facebook: “We do not accept blacklists … if anyone thinks they can treat us like a leper colony, then they should know that we will not stand for it.”