As we have said before, the Trevi Fountain is probably the most beautiful fountain in the world, but surprisingly, its beauty is not the main reason why so many people visit it every day. What everyone wants is to follow the tradition by throwing the 3 coins into the Trevi Fountain and making the different wishes.
Today we are going to tell you all about the legend and about the correct way to throw the coin, but we will also answer you all the questions related to how much money does the fountain receives and where does it go.
How does the tradition of throwing 3 coins work?
As the myth says, whenever you go to the fountain, you will have to get closer to it, and throw between one and three coins to the water. Each of the coins will make one of the wishes come true. But it´s not like everyone thinks, you can´t just ask for whatever you want. These are the three wishes for each of the three coins:
1) Making the First wish at the Trevi Fountain
Most of the people who visit the monument instead of throwing 3, they only throw one coin to the Trevi Fountain. The wish you ask for when you throw the first coin, is to come back to Rome in the future.
In our case, we threw the coin when we were just 12/13 years old, and this year we came back being 23 years old…Now we hope we will visit Rome again in the future as we threw another coin.
2) Which is the wish for the second coin?
If we listen to the tradition, when you throw the second coin you are asking to find your true love, but…Not any true love! It has to be the love from an Italian person and in Italy. In our case, Alfonso wants to keep being single and Gonzalo is happy with his girlfriend so we didn´t risk ourselves by throwing the second coin.
3) The third and last wish
What you will get by throwing the third coin, is getting married with that same person…So, if you are ready to get married, you know what to do!
The myth about Trevi Fountain comes from a movie
Don´t get fooled! When you hear the story for the first time, it´s normal to think that it comes from a very old legend of something that occurred in the history hundred years ago, but the truth is that the origin of the tradition of throwing the coin to the Trevi Fountain comes from a movie.
The name of the movie is “Three coins in the fountain” and it is old, but not so old! It was created in 1954, which means that the people have been throwing the money for a long time.
How to throw a coin into Trevi Fountain?
Okay, now you know that you have to throw between one and three coins, but before you do it, it´s important that you learn the correct way to throw them…Actually, if you do it in a different way, the wishes won´t come true.
As soon as you are about to throw the coin, turn your back, take your quarter, cents, euro or whichever coin you want to use with your right hand and throw it by passing it through your left arm.
This is the official way to throw the coins to the Trevi Fountain, but there are also people who believe that you need to close your eyes and make the wish before the coin touches the water…If you want to do that, it´s up to you!
What type of coin do you need to throw?
Apparently, this is something that worries many people, but being honest, after reading a lot of information about it, and seeing the types of coins people throw to the fountain, we can tell you that the size doesn´t really matter.
In our case (we are cheap), we threw coins of just a few cents (Which maybe it allows us to come back to Rome, but on a low budget trip…We will see), and there were also people who throw coins of 1 or 2 euros, because they believe that way, they will have more chances of making their wishes come true.
In conclusion, you can throw whichever coin you want!
How much money Trevi Fountain collect every year?
The tradition of throwing coins to a Fountain is the biggest marketing campaign in the history. Although probably it wasn´t made in purpose, imagine how much money the Trevi Fountain receives every day, that they have to take It out each morning because if not the Fountain would collapse.
Being more concrete, the Trevi Fountain is able to collect around 4.000 euros per day (imagine what you could do with all that money), and what is more impressive, the total amount of a single year is around 1.5 million euros. Crazy right?
What do they do with the coins in the Trevi Fountain?
Now…Where does our money goes?! We all throw our coins to the Fountain hoping to see it there the next time we come back to Rome, but as we told you, they take all the money out of the Fountain every single day, so…Where does the Trevi Fountain money go?
Well, at the beginning, until 2006, the coins were considered an “abandoned good”, which literally means that whoever wanted to, could get into the water and take coins out of it. Since that year, they changed the law and now the city of Rome owns the money, but fortunately they are giving it to Caritas (Charity) and doing great actions with it.
And if you want to know who gets the money from the Trevi fountain? There are actually workers who visit it every day, and they vacuumed up the coins and separate it in different sacks.
Which of the three wishes of the Trevi Fountain would you ask for?
That´s all you need to know about the coins, the money and the tradition of Trevi Fountain, as you have seen, almost everyone who visit Rome, stops by the Fountains to throw their coins and make their wish.
Before you leave, we would love to know…Which of the three wishes would you ask for? All of them? Just one? Tell us in the comment section bellow.
