I usually fly at times of day or in places where I am almost guaranteed not to see another soul. This suits me and I have only had three people question where I was flying (two extremely politely, one extremely aggressively) I have literally zero interest in getting into ‘discussions’ with people.
Sometimes however, it’s unavoidable. On our recent trip to Italy, I was flying in the very southern Alps (incidentally several hundred metres from buildings / people etc.) On landing, I was approached by a local scout leader who said ‘You can’t fly here - it’s a €1000 fine’ - hmm… was my immediate response.
Sure enough there are these signs (some of which do mention the fine directly)
The Italian friends we were staying with were therefore extremely uncomfortable with me doing anything they thought would be outside the rules. I checked Drone Assist and lo and behold - nada, no red zones at all.
Love him to bits, the guy we were staying with then registered through the Italian version of the CAA and downloaded their app (this took a couple of coffees but you know, Italians 
). Sure enough, it uses same data as Drone Assist and whilst some national parks have restrictions, this one does not.
Showed the scout master all of this and it turns out the signs were put up by the campsite / park operator and have literally no legal grounding whatsoever. Unfortunately, locals tend to believe the signs.
In fact, overall the Italians have a pretty chilled attitude overall. Certainly compared to the Swiss 
Just have to keep educating people.
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In Ragusa, Sicilia, I was flying when a copper came and told me I wasn’t allowed to fly. As I brought the drone back, so that I could talk to the guy, he saw his house on my phone and asked for photos.
Landed - transferred photos to his phone - then he said "Fly all you want. Any problems, tell them whatever his rank and name were said it’s OK … and went on his way.
Never did find out what the rules really were. Over 7 years ago there were no apps and maps.
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So, the next time I am accosted by a Karen should I offer a photo of her house to help calm her down?
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Within the last 7 years they probably got all the pics of their houses they needed. Drone were quite rare, and still rather novel, back then.
Also, chances are attitudes have changed a little over that time … as they have here.
@DaveJaVu I’ve flown in Italy quite a few times Dave and their official Italian EASA map of airspace is D-Flight, and when I was last there in 2023, it certainly didn’t match Drone Assist, although I only found this out when I returned to the UK. I am going again in 2025 to Lake Maggiore and the Matterhorn and can assure you from what I learnt today (see maps below) I will not be using Drone Assist maps.
The example below was from when I flew in Simione, which according to Drone Assist was okay. I was put right by an Italian drone pilot and subsequently finally managed to get D-Flight to work on my phone only to show the guy was correct and it was covered by a FRZ.
I double checked today and it still doesn’t show the correct FRZ info.
Compare the last one with your map for reference.
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Have you seen the latest restrictions in Tenerife these days. Our favourite destination, but I dare not take the drone
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@JockyB I had the a similar looking map when registering with Tm-CAD in Malta John. Put me off at first but after I delved into it and paid my 10 Euro’s to use their mapping service, I found I had to register all my Malta and Gozo flights in advance for them to be legal; even in the Open Cat with <250g drone.
I thought, ok I’ll request authorisation to fly in their FRZ’s and see what happens. They were all accepted with one exception where they placed a caveat restricting me to 60m max. My only issue was bloody DJI had GEOlocked some of them and I didn’t have time to use Flysafe to lift the lock (The flights had references that I could paste into Flysafe as supporting evidence).
When was this Colin ? I thought DJI had lifted the unlock via the Flysafe website requirements ( possibly still in force in the EU though?)
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It was Jun this year, so I thought the same John, but it seems this was for the UK only; Countries that come under the EASA are still GEOlocked, at least they were in Malta. Not going to take any chances when I visit Italy next year and will clear all the areas with DJI before I go.
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Moved the topic to the flying abroad category as it may help others.
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This is really interesting tbh - the Italian guy we were with said he wouldn’t trust the Italian version
It was D-Flight we were using, this is the D-Flight map for the area we were flying, which shows no restrictions…
I had presumed therefore that Drone Assist was correct as it matched this - apologies if this is incorrect.
Either way, if flying in Italy, if you base things off D-Flight info you’re in a pretty defensible position.
And it’s a spectacular place to fly 
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No need for apologies Dave, just didn’t want anyone to fall foul of the Italian Polizia. TBH, like you said they seem laid back about it perhaps with the exception of Rome and Venice and night flights. 
I agree with you, ie if you use their mapping service, I cannot see how they can complain if its wrong!
I also agree in that Italy is full of fabulous places to fly. 
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So did the scout leader wait all the time you were down loading the app and drinking the coffees for you to show him?
P.
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