Austria Offers Free Rail Travel for a Year, If You Get a Tattoo

(CNN) - You’ve probably heard the adage that “there are no bad ideas." But that was before Austria’s climate minister endorsed a campaign to give people a year’s free public transport if they got the rail card logo tattooed on their body.

Backlash was swift, reports Salzburger Nachrichten, after music festival attendees were invited to turn their flesh into a permanent billboard for the Klimaticket (“Climate Ticket”), which usually costs just over 1,000 euros for unlimited rail, bus, tram and metro travel throughout the country. That translates to about $1,080 dollars – or, you know, two to five treatments for laser tattoo removal.

The Italian city of Florence was also struck by foolhardy inking this week. Two German tourists were arrested for spraying Munich soccer-related graffiti on the 460-year-old Vasari Corridor leading up to the Uffizi Galleries. The museum director is calling for “an iron fist of the law.”