A Dubai-based influencer has been fined €1,800 for trespassing on an off-limits pink-tinged beach in Sardinia before sharing a series of video clips and photos of her escapade on social media.
The woman arrived by dinghy on the shore of Spiaggia Rosa, a beach famous for its pink sand on the tiny Sardinian island of Budelli, allegedly ignoring all the prohibition signs, according to reports in the Italian press.
Tourists have been banned from walking on the beach – from which sand has often been pilfered – and swimming in the sea there since the 1990s, but they can visit the island during the day via boat and are permitted to walk along a path behind the beach.
The woman, of Brazilian origin living in Dubai, uploaded the content on to @Rogeriaguiadubai, an Instagram account with more than 35,000 followers. In one of the video clips, she homes in on her footprints in the sand to the tune of Édith Piaf’s La Vie en rose playing in the background.
The trespass, which is alleged to have happened a few days ago, sparked indignation among people in Sardinia, prompting officers from the coastguard for La Maddalena archipelago, which includes Budelli, to investigate further.
They soon traced the woman to Dubai and have notified her of the €1,800 fine, of which €300 is for flouting the ban and €1,500 is for arriving onboard a vessel that did not have access authorisation for Budelli. The woman rented the dinghy and the owner of the hire company was unaware that she was planning to sail it to the island.
The Instagram account is on private mode. The Guardian has emailed Rogeriaguiadubai for a request for comment.
Budelli is uninhabited, although for more than 30 years it was home to one resident, Mauro Morandi, who had stumbled across the island in 1989 after his catamaran broke down on the way to the south Pacific.
Morandi, compared by some to Robinson Crusoe, was able to stay after becoming the island’s de facto caretaker, but in 2021 the by now 84-year-old was forced out by the authority that manages La Maddalena national park.
