A man in his 80s drove a car down the landmark Spanish Steps in Rome at dawn on June 17, 2025, before getting stuck, the city's police said. The man, wearing a suit and tie, told police that he thought he was going to work.

Before dawn on Tuesday, an 80-year-old Italian man behind the wheel of a Mercedes A-Class tried to navigate the sedan down the iconic steps, which are closed to vehicles, according to Rome’s police department. The car made it part of the way down but got stuck, the authorities said.

An 80-year-old man has told police he was “wrong” to drive down Rome’s famed Spanish Steps, after firefighters had to recover his vehicle from the landmark in the early hours of Tuesday.