A WOMAN has revealed how she avoided paying for an expensive tourist attraction while travelling around Europe.
Katie, from the UK, shared the clever hack after visiting Italy – and people have called her a genius.
Posting a video on her TikTok account, she explained how she managed to avoid paying for a gondola ride around Venice – a popular thing to do for tourists, but can be very expensive.
She wrote: "Romanticise talking the bin men into giving you a boat tour of Venice because you don't have €80 to spend on a gondola ride."
The video shows her and her friend sitting on the iconic boat as it goes under a bridge, while surrounded by bin bags and cement bags.
She then panned back to show the two men behind her as they steered through the canals.
Her video has been watched more than 1.5million times with more than 200,000 people loving the advice – one person said: "This is iconic."
Another agreed, saying: "You know what, this is genuinely genius."
Another person wrote: "This will be us on our Wowcher holiday."
Someone asked if the boat smelled to which Katie replied; "Not at all! I think it was just sandbags and building materials."
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Not everyone agreed, with someone adding: "I'd rather spend the €80."
And one person said: "Venice seems like the only city in the world where a tour from the bin men can be romanticised though."
Katie explained in a follow up video: "This is Alessandro and his father, they were both absolutely lovely and we went out for a few drinks with them after to say thank you."
Tourists have often complained about the expensive costs of Venice – in 2018, a group of travellers called the police after they were charged £970 for four dishes.
And another tourist was left fuming after being charged £38 for just two coffees and two bottles of water.
Venice is also set to introduce a new fee from this year where tourists must pre-book and pay a day rate to enter.
Visitors will have to pay €5 and pass through a turnstile in order to enter the city.
If the city is too full, then the electric turnstiles will stop tourists from being able to enter.
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