ROME—The last thing on my mind when I arrived here for a long-dreamed-of vacation is that three days later I’d be clamouring to escape.

The situation in Italy is changing rapidly in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak, as tourists try to find flights out of the country and Italians are divided over restrictions on their daily lives.

The crowds of locals and tourists normally occupying the city’s bustling streets and world-renowned historical monuments have been reduced to a trickle. Rome has become a ghost town.

Before I travelled here, 90 per cent of tourists had already cancelled their plans to visit Italy. Those of us remaining now — myself included — are scrambling to find a way home after the government extended a lockdown in the hardest hit areas in the northern provinces to the entire country on March 9 in an effort to stem the virus’s spread.

That move prompted some airlines — including Air Canada — to cut service to and from Italy entirely. Others have severely curtailed flights as demand has plummeted in the wake of an outbreak that has now infected more than 9,000 people in Italy, and killed more than 460.

Just a day earlier, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte ordered museums and other indoor sites that would usually be open to the public to close down until at least early April.

The nationwide lockdown caught tourists and residents alike off guard. It imposes severe restrictions on movement within Italy, and requires all restaurants and shops outside of supermarkets to close at 6 p.m. Diners must also be kept at least a metre apart.

The city’s once-vibrant nightlife, which was already struggling after the precipitous drop in the number of tourists, is now shut down completely, leaving streets nearly completely empty by 9 p.m.

I spoke to Italians who are deeply divided over the government’s unprecedented decision to essentially shut the country down after 6 p.m. and effectively ban travel in a nation of roughly 60 million people.

The hotel in Rome where I’m staying is down to five guests, and plans to shut down for a few weeks after the last of us are able to escape the lockdown.

Hotel employee Simone Dall’Ara applauded the government’s decision, and said he would actually like to see further restrictions imposed to bring a quick end to the growing health crisis.

“It’s not enough what the government is doing because if there is a dangerous situation like this one, maybe it’s better to close everything for two weeks — but everything, not just leave open the shops in morning and afternoon so people can move around the city without problems,” he said, adding he’d like to see measures similar to those China has put in place.

“China has closed everything for weeks and nobody can go out from their houses except one person for essential supplies,” he added.

Others I’ve spoken with feel the government is overreacting, given the relatively small number of confirmed cases in Rome and the southern regions of Italy compared to the north, where the vast majority of infections and deaths have been reported.

I did not see this coming — at least, not at first. Having lived through the 2003 outbreak of SARS in Toronto, I wasn’t overly concerned about travelling to a country, which at that point, only had two confirmed cases. After all, Italy appeared to have moved fast to get ahead of the virus, declaring a state of emergency to ensure a speedy response.

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Just two weeks before my arrival, Italian officials were cautioning against panic and were still assuring travellers the country was safe for tourists outside of the northern region. Canadian authorities advised travellers to avoid that area, but merely to “exercise normal precautions” if travelling to other parts of Italy, including Rome.

That was still the message as late as last week, when I boarded my flight in Toronto, despite a quickly growing number of cases and rising death toll in the affected areas.

The situation escalated very quickly. I checked online for travel advisories before boarding my connecting flight from London to Rome during the early morning hours of March 8, and all was normal in the “Eternal City,” despite a rash of trip cancellations.

With what in hindsight seems like a touch of hubris, I decided to carry on, admittedly intrigued by the idea of taking in Rome’s usually busy tourist sights with a fraction of the usual crowds.

When I reserved my seat on the plane a week earlier, almost every seat was reserved for passengers heading to Rome. By the time I boarded, the plane was a quarter full and most of us got to enjoy an entire row of empty seats. Getting through airports was a breeze. It all seemed like it was going to work out great.

I was still in transit when the Italian government decided to shut down tourists sites for a month. I didn’t find that out until I arrived at the Colosseum, only to find it closed.

At that point, it made little sense to carry on with my planned visit to Pompeii. I decided to move my connecting flight back to London up a few days and spend the rest of my vacation there.

The next day, the whole country went into lockdown.

Public transit is still running, but pretty much any place a tourist might want to visit — the Vatican, museums, ancient ruined cities and anywhere else that large groups of people might congregate in confined spaces — is closed down.

Rome now resembles a ghost town. Outdoor venues like Trevi Fountain, the Spanish steps and St. Peter’s Square remain accessible — there’s just no one around. The city’s once-vibrant nightlife is non-existent, and the streets are more or less empty by 10 p.m.

It’s a bizarre and somewhat creepy experience to see one of the world’s busiest cities nearly empty of people. Fortunately, airports in most of Italy are still open, so foreign tourists can compete for seats on the few remaining flights out of the country. I’ve resigned myself to paying for a flight to another European country with fewer restrictions, from where I can catch a plane back to Toronto.

I hope my travel insurance will help cover my expenses.