An Australian travel blogger urged tourists to carefully plan their outfits after she was barred from visiting several of Rome’s top attractions.
The NZ Herald drew attention to the TikTok video. In it, 26-year-old model Jackie Hodge showed off a dress she wore during a recent walk through the ancient city. During the 46-second clip, she reveals that girls who also like to wear minis “should listen to her experience” because this piece of clothing has given her trouble.
Hodge said her dress, in a photo taken while sightseeing in Rome, looked “great in the pictures” but wasn’t modest enough. As a result, she was not allowed into the Pantheon, or the Vatican, or the Museum of Souls. The tourist admitted that she did not know that some attractions in Italy require a dress code, and wanted to share the information she received first-hand:
“You shouldn’t have open shoulders, open chests, and you definitely can’t have cutouts. Also, my dress was backless. It’s a shame that I didn’t bring a scarf or jacket or anything to cover up. And I advise you to take something like that with you,“ the video blogger shared her advice with the spectators.
In particular, according to the girl, the knees of visitors wishing to enter the Gothic Museum of Souls in Purgatory must be covered, so it is better to bring clothes that meet these requirements.
The video has collected almost two million views and received about two thousand comments. Some (predominantly female) viewers said they would be taken aback by the demand to “cover-up”:
“I would never have thought of that, thanks!” – wrote a grateful viewer in the comments.
“You can take the dress with you and change for the photo,” someone suggested a compromise.
Some were shocked by the frivolous attitude of the blogger, while others even criticized her for not knowing the rules, especially in terms of visiting religious sites or ancient buildings.
One user wrote that this is “pretty common” in religious buildings, while another shared seemingly obvious advice: “As a general rule if you want to enter a church, dress like you’re going to a church.”
Another commenter wrote that the tourist’s ignorance seemed almost deliberate:
“It seems to me that people refuse to do research before going somewhere. I was in Rome, and the first thing I read was information about clothing suitable for visiting churches,” he wrote.
In defense of the girl, the New Zealand edition notes that many areas of Italy have recently tightened the dress code and introduced several rules against the “destructive behavior of tourists.” For example, the mayor of the coastal town of Sorrento said that wearing ultra-short men’s swimming trunks (the so-called thongs) in public places or walking around topless for men is “common indecent behavior.”