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St Mark's Basin will be turned into a motorway when 13 cruise
ships travel through in one day, say protesters. Residents of Venice will
protest over the procession of cruise ships through St Mark's Basin.
Residents of the beautiful, fragile city of Venice are
preparing to stage a canal-bank protest on Saturday over an invasion of up to 13
cruise ships in the space of 24 hours, which they say will turn St Mark's Basin
into a motorway.
The particularly busy weekend, apparently caused by a quirk in the cruise ship
calendar, has reignited growing fears over the impact the vessels are having on
the city and the alleged risk they pose to its infrastructure and inhabitants.
The groundswell of popular consternation has swept up Adriano Celentano, one of
Italy's most famous singers, who took out a page in the country's
biggest-selling daily newspaper to voice his anger.
"Tomorrow will not be a nice day for our city, even if the sun is out," declared
the 75-year-old in an advert in Corriere della Sera, half of which was taken up
with a black and white photograph of himself.
"With the ignoble procession of 13 ships in the Venice lagoon comes the Eternal
Funeral of the world's beauties," he added.
Celentano is far from alone in his concern.
Silvio Testa, spokesman for the No Big Ships (No Grandi Navi) committee, which
has been fighting against the rising traffic of cruise ships in Venice, has
called on residents to attend a vigorous protest on the narrow Giudecca canal –
a strip that cruise ships sail down daily, usually in far smaller numbers.
"We want to say 'enough' to this situation," Testa told La Nuova Venezia
newspaper. "St Mark's Basin is like a motorway. Soon we'll have to put traffic
lights up."
An estimated 40,000 tourists will be brought into Venice on board the cruise
ships on Saturday and Sunday. Some view the influx of visitors as a much-needed
economic boost, with tourists spending and thousands of locals employed in jobs
related to the industry. But others fear the shiploads of tourists encourage a
"Disney-fication" of their city – already one of the most visited in Europe. The
number of tourists arriving in Venice on board cruise ships rose from below
100,000 passengers in 1999 to 1.7 million in 2012.
Earlier this summer, a large ship was alleged to have come within 20 metres of
the shore and almost squashed a vaporetto, or water bus. Owner Carnival denied
the incident, saying the report was mistaken and photographs had distorted the
distances involved.
But Italy's environment minister, Andrea Orlando, has said that in general the
issue is cause for concern. "As much as there may be a high level of
professionalism in the controls and in the management of the traffic, there is
always a margin of risk," he told La Stampa newspaper last week. Convinced that
something needs to change, he has invited the various parties to present their
suggested solutions to the government. |
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