The Cruise Ships are back in Venice

[Pauline]

Showing that nothing will change after our pandemic year, a massive cruise ship passes by St Marks Square in Venice.

‘We were deceived’: hundreds protest in Venice at return of giant cruise ships

Ban on huge vessels passing St Mark’s Square proves to be temporary after liner docks in city for first time in 17 months

www.theguardian.com

“Residents were caught by surprise on Thursday when a cruise liner sailed into the lagoon city for the first time since the pandemic began, despite prime minister Mario Draghi’s government declaring that the ships would be banned from the historic centre.”

 

[joe]

The New York Times ran an article yesterday on another aspect of not returning to pre-Covid policies, this one concerning flight emissions. Airlines are under a lot of pressure to become carbon-neutral, but there is no way this can be done any time soon. Solutions being looked into are biofuels and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but nothing really viable at present. It doesn't help that travel is supposed to continue to grow.

The situation in Venice just goes to show how hard it is going to be to get people to change their behavior in a world that is used to growing and consuming, mostly above all other considerations.

 

[Eleanor]

You also forgot to add the selfishness of expecting to be able to do exactly what they want without anyone telling them that they can't!!!

 

[FedericoBoston]

Le crociere sono fastidiose. The cruise ships are annoying (to say the least). I'll acknowledge up front that I'm taking an elitist attitude, but so be it. My wife and I joke "what are all these tourists doing here?"
Venice is magical and we've found districts where you feel distant from the hordes, especially Giudecca (at least as of our last visit 2013). But the flood of cruisers really overwhelms many parts of La Serenissima - as in, she's not very Serene during the day. But late at night (after 11PM or so) we could find Piazza San Marco almost deserted, which was wonderful.
I suspect that merchants don't benefit as much from the cruise crowds as does the city with docking fees. It's a sad tension at work.

 

[Pauline]

Great news! Italy bans cruise ships in Venice.

Italy bans cruise ships from Venice lagoon after Unesco threat

Vessels weighing more than 25,000 tonnes barred from lagoon from 1 August

www.theguardian.com

 

[Sharon J]

Great news! Italy bans cruise ships in Venice.

Italy bans cruise ships from Venice lagoon after Unesco threat

Vessels weighing more than 25,000 tonnes barred from lagoon from 1 August

www.theguardian.com

Hopefully, we will be in Venice this October. Three trips have been cancelled over the past two years, and we hope we will finally make it back to Italy this October, and again next May. This Trip will be Venice and Nico's, with the return in May, Lake Como, and again Nico. We always end our trips at Sant'Antonio and Nico.

 

[Amy]

From Venezia Autentica’s Facebook page…

———————————————-
"NO MORE CRUISE SHIPS IN VENICE!"
Please, don't fall for it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, again, media outlets all around the world are writing that cruise ships will no longer come to Venice and that everything will be all right from the 1st of August.

Is that so?

Yes, it is true that from the 1st of August cruise ships will no longer pass in front of Saint Mark's, therefore avoiding potential collisions like the one that happened in 2019 (and a narrow miss that followed two weeks later)

However, cruise ships will still enter the Venetian Lagoon through the "backdoor", hidden from plain sight:
they will reach Venice through an existing channel that will be further enlarged to accommodate those ships and will have devastating repercussions on the local environment, the Venetian Lagoon: a unique and fragile area of 550 square kilometers that hosts hundreds of species of birds and fishes and, due to its importance and uniqueness, is part of the UNESCO world heritage site known as "Venice and its Lagoon" since 1987.
You won't see cruise ships passing right next to Venice anymore, but experts say that their impact on the local environment will be far worse than it is today!

But that's not all:
Cruise ships in Venice keep their engines running 24/7 when docked and are a massive contributor to air pollution. When we mean massive, we mean that the pollution in Venice is so so bad that there is a statistically significant higher percentage of lung cancer in the area compared to the Italian national average.

Finally, Italy has already promised millions to those multi-billion dollar cruise ship companies that operate in Venice for the inconvenience of having to stop passing right in front of the heart of the city. Only a part of this money will support workers.

 

[Andrew]

New York Times story: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/02/world/europe/italy-venice-tourism-cruise-ships.html

If you get a paywall, you might try to Google nyt looking for st mark's square

 

[artnbarb]

I'm glad to know it actually happened. Thanks for the link.

 

[mdtravel]

First message here after posting on SlowTrav.

Not to offend anyone, but we (wife, daughter, me) made it to Venice for a week in July of 2021 with zero cruise ships in our five days. It was a unique experience compared to our prior 5 visits.