The 25- and 29-year-old tourists have not been identified by local media, who reported they were discovered early on Monday morning in the famous monument. The alarm was raised by a passerby who saw two figures climbing the outside fence. When the police arrived, they found the tourists sitting on the second ring of the ancient amphitheatre. "We did not damage anything and we wanted the Colosseum all to ourselves," Leggo quoted them as telling police in broken Italian.

Misbehaving tourists

The 2,000 year old Colosseum has long been one of Rome’s major tourist attractions, receiving more than seven million visitors each year, although entry is not permitted at night. It's not the first time visitors have misbehaved at the landmark. Several months ago, an Irish man engraved his initials on a pillar on the first level, Leggo reported. Shortly before, two American girls were reported for aggravated damage for engraving their initials on a wall to take a selfie and in 2019 an Austrian tourist tried to remove a brick and hide it in his backpack.