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Does Venice deserve this?

8 October 2018

Not at all, but the ones that voted three years ago yes, for sure, because they are definitely not aware about the situation, ignoring the real risks or pretending that the reasons why many locals protest are imaginary or false.
I don't want to speak like a scientist or an engineer  because I am not one of them and anyway there are several articles reporting numbers, but this doesn't seem normal to me in a city that is 1579 years old, a town more than a city that born for rowing boats not for cruise ships.
Yes, these monsters are perfect for the short term vision of our major and his supporters, a huge number of tourists means wealth and money for Venice, but without thinking about the fact that really few of those tourists are going to bring something positive here, because it's undeniable that the quality of our tourism now is much worse than few years ago.
No, these monsters are not a good thing for a long term vision that implies to take care about a precious and extremely delicate environment and about the health of its inhabitants and there are many reasons to think in this way. Ok, looking at this the reactions could be different:

Shooting Different_Venice Photo Tours
all pictures by Riccardo Tosetto Ph

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in the beginning it's stunning, magnificent, incredible and so on..but then getting over the first impact this is not comfortable anymore. The aesthetic impression could be subjective right, but it can't be ok that a cruise ship 300m long and 60m high, higher more than the double than any other building of the city, crosses a city like Venice just to appease thousand tourists.
Clearly it's not their fault, tourists are obviously not aware about all the problems that affect Venice and for them a cruise ship is just another way to spend their holidays, yes cruise ships are probably too many all over the world and they are a bad thing for the environment in general, but this is another story. Our rulers should be the ones in charge to solve these problems, to save Venice and its citizens because these monsters pollute a lot and the health risk is high even if they tell us that those engines are off (because leaded), but it's difficult to believe that while a lot of smokes comes out from those huge chimneys. It doesn't seem to be a problem just relate to the Lagoon but also to other cities like Marseille and the island of Malta. The risks and danger are many, in general, and Comitato No Grandi Navi explains, better than I can do, the situation and what a lot of  locals and people in love with Venice are asking for .

On September 30th there were more than one thousand people on Fondamenta Zattere to protest against what's happening, they were not just locals, but also students, or people of different ages living here that take care about Venice more than many other locals,  intoxicated by the though of money, do.

Yes, many students, the same ones that despite the four universities on the Island are forced to leave it, without having the chance to live and enjoy the place where they study, because everything is slowly going to be tailor-made on tourism activities. Young people that were there to protect their city, trying to prevent it from becoming a luna park, because Venice is first of all culture, tradition, art and authenticity in several ways. Frullatorio is a big part of this young movement and the ones that are part of it spent a lot of their time trying to help people, in a smart, ironic, sarcastic and funny way, to be aware about these topics.

Tourism is obviously an amazing thing for Venice, a great (the main) source of income but like any other big aspect it needs to be strategically planned to not be overwhelming, otherwise the risk is to kill forever the main attraction for many visitors. Again, Venice is a town more than a city, so the space is limited and more hostels, more cruise ships, more airbnb all year long can't be a good thing for the quality of life, not just the locals' life but also the tourists' one! Visiting Venice now is not a great experience like it should be, crowd and cues everywhere, people seated on every bridge, eating on the ground or over the platforms for the high tide (definitely clean), it's actually worse than a theme park.
Venice needs help, and everyone should help Venice, unfortunately now our administration doesn't seem to be willing to give this help, so there's first the need of people, locals, students but also tourists, we all have a big responsibility once here if we want that this treasure will be still amazing in few years.

Cheers

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