Good news day for Venice
 

At last - some restrictions on enormous cruise ships visiting Venice: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-...entre/11398434

Finally! :yay:

Odd...a cruise ship ON the Grand Canal itself. "some residents complained" apparently not all of them. I guess the various tour operators and merchants are thrilled about potential loss of revenue, too.

A step in the right direction.

They're not banned from visiting at all, just from the Grand Canal/centre and sent to a mooring a bit further away than at present. And it's been phased in over several years because they have to build new facilities for docking at Marghera: https://www.independent.co.uk/travel...-a8044026.html

Hurrah!

That is good news, there should be restrictions. I do think it will be hard to find the perfect balance.

Here is how I felt about it a few years ago. I still feel the same way.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fod...b0db8ec8e8.jpg

I still have to see a big ship going up the Canale Grande.
And I wonder why a city like Venice built a massive cruise port infrastructure and then wonders why big cruise ships go there.
If they had not built it, there would not have been big ships.
Homemade problems, I would say.

Big ships never used the Canale Grande of course. It's way too shallow, narrow and the bridges very low.

They get banned from the Giudecca channel.

Thanks for the clarification.

I don't know where that news item came from. I've searched all Italian news services and don't see anything on new regulations about giant cruise ships since the last two accidents, the most recent over a month ago. I also don't think the Italian (national) government has any way to impose such a rule.

As someone else pointed out above, any ban would have await the opening of an alternative channel, which doesn't seem to be proceeding with celerity.
​​​
The local government depends for a substantial portion of its budget on the cruise ships, which don't get to sail up the St. Mark's Canal and the Giudecca Canal for free. So they are a bit lukewarm on the idea of banning the cruise ships. Also vendors of pizza slices, gelato, and fake Murano glass are opposed to any such ban.

The most radical proposal I've heard is a restriction on the size of the cruise ships that can pass in the center of Venice. That was not recent. If anyone can point me to a first-hand source, preferably Italian, for this article, I'll be grateful to know about it.

Big cruise ships are pollutants - both for people and the environment. I hope these steps can conserve Venice.

The seriousness of the proposal is contained in the words "potrebbe essere possibile". The article says that it "may be possible", starting in 2020, to reduce the number of cruise ships in the St. Mark's basin by up to one third. They've been saying stuff like that for years.

The original article, from Australian ABC news, seems to have no foundation.

Here's another gem from that article (my translation): "The terminal Ro Ro at Fusina could be an alternative... even though the docks are still being constructed."

And another: "When the plans for the passage of the large ships are complete in all their elements, they can be brought up to public discussion."

Maybe our grandchildren will live to see it.

Great photo werth! (:

Indeed it is! Why do people go on those horrible things? Its like an apt bldg turned on its side--hideous!

I'm surprised and disappointed if the ABC have jumped the gun - they're usually pretty reliable but maybe there was some wishful thinking going on? bvlenci, I'll be keen to hear if you hear anything further in Italy.

me too werth.

In other news:
https://www.thelocal.it/20190810/no-...rom-its-lagoon

I'll keep my ear to the ground!

Sadly retracting my celebratory response. :(

The picture made my day, werth! Thank you. I feel the same way.

Maybe something got lost in translation.

There is one thing they got right, though. To my surprise, the Ministry of Transportation is trying, or maybe pretending, to get involved. That vague statement I translated above was issued by the Ministry. Obviously, they can't make regulations for Venice, but they could make national rules about distances from land to be respected by large ships.

For the 1,837th time here, I say.....go see the doc 'The Venice Syndrome'. It examines the daily lives of several diverse Venetians and how tourism, as symbolized by the large cruise ships, effects their lives (does it ever). By strange coincidence, it premiered in our city the eve before we flew over to Italy!
On that visit to Venice, I chanced across the aristocratic contessa widow who was one of the aforementioned doc's featured locals. At first, she was hostile and demanded to know why I was photographing some of her neighbour's roses there in Dorsoduro (I was in fact discretely standing on the public path). After suddenly recognized her, I played the star-struck groupie: "Oh my!! Aren't you that Contessa from the big documentary film?!" She was extremely flattered (my design) and her suspicions about me disappeared beneath much vanity. We then hit it off and had a nice chat.

By fluke on that same visit, we also chanced across local nobleman/TV presenter Francesco da Mosto on Vap. #1. We tried hard not to gush as we told him how much we've enjoyed his various BBC travel docs. His informed opinion about the cruise ship controversy would be worth hearing.
I am done. The leviathon.

Today I saw a similar story on the BBC web site, saying that beginning in September some of the largest cruise ships would be diverted from the center of Venice, and that by the end of 2020 they expected one third of large ships to be diverted.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49276730

They quoted the Financial Times. I found the article, "Venice to give cruise ships a wide berth", but I can't read it because I'm not a subscriber. From the BBC article, I found a few other possible search terms, so I searched again for news in Italian, but couldn't find anything concrete. The only thing I found is the news article that I quoted above, which was apparently based on a news conference held by the Minister of Transport. Anyway, the government is about to fall, and they say there will be new elections in October, so he won't be around any more in Novermber.

Werth,

Me, as well and still laughing!