Uncategorized

Now tourists are robbing tourists?

11 Comments
Tourists want beautiful glass, so this shopowner sometimes has to dust everything, or wash it with Windex, or whatever she’s doing. The visitors I’m talking about aren’t interested in glass, though.

The story about making money off tourists has taken a few turns since my recent post.  It would probably be more accurate to call the following characters “short-term visitors” rather than tourists, because their purpose in being here does not resemble in any way whatever the typical tourists are seeking.

First, there are what journalist Elisio Trevisan, in his report for the Gazzettino, calls “beggar-commuters.”  We are now learning that an increasing number come to Venice from various Eastern European points on what you might call, not a vacation, really, but a sort of brief work-abroad project.  They come on the cheap Flixbus (which is great, by the way), set themselves up as beggars, eat at the community soup-kitchens, sleep in doorways, and can make as much as 100 euros per day.  They manage to wash up at some public source of water before the return trip (the bus driver won’t let them board otherwise) and go home to their families with enough to live on till the next trip becomes necessary.

Then there are the regular thieves.  They too are coming from elsewhere; they also are not exactly tourists, but tastes on vacations vary.  Some people take a break and go surfing, or look at the Mona Lisa, or run with a batch of bulls, while these intrepid pilferers come to Venice to steal for a while.  According to Carlo Mion writing in La Nuova Venezia, they come over from Lombardy, the region next door, and are usually organized by family or clan.

This egret, who seems to have adopted our riva, is also on the hunt, but not for money.  He’s looking for anguele (ang-WEY),  the Mediterranean sand smelt (Atherinus hepterus).  I imagine that anguela mothers are warning their spawn about him the same way I’m warning you, though I suppose their main advice would be “Dive!  Dive!”

The Carabinieri have been studying them and their systems.  They are basically from the Balkans and eastward (Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and also a contingent of Roma).  They dress in a credible way; the women wear panama hats and big scarves (to cover their faces from surveillance cameras), daypack hoisted on their chests and with a city map in hand (to cover their busy hands).  Also, they look very touristy this way.  Favorite targets: Americans, Koreans, Japanese.  During one brief shining period there were also cash-laden Russians.  In any case, a clever faux-tourist can gather as much as 300 euros in a day.

In one recent case, it was 700 euros.  Two Bulgarian women lifted the wallet (that also included her documents such as passport, I assume, and perhaps also credit cards) of an 80-year-old American woman.  The victim wasn’t aware of anything amiss, so I don’t know who raised the hue and cry.  In any case, the filchers were taken away by whichever uniformed officer was on duty.  The hearing is scheduled for the end of July — “in theory.”  That doesn’t sound  encouraging.  In any case, whatever happens, they will be back.  Or their friends and relatives.

Years ago there was a spate of street gamblers playing the shell game around the city, especially on the Accademia Bridge.  (This sort of thief has not reappeared so far.)  I read in the newspaper that one day lightning-fingers managed to milk a gullible player of $5,000.  It’s not funny in any way, but I have to admit that, at least in this case, that the victim, as well as his trickster, must have become a LEGEND in that Serbian family.  Every couple of months somebody will want to hear uncle tell the story again of that time in Venice he peeled the money off the tourist and that’s how come they’re living in such a nice house, with a garden and two cars.  A boisterous toast to uncle and tourist.
I hope this is the last time I’ll be droning on about the situation.  So just take every precaution, and then take some more.
Venice: Worth seeing. Your valuables: Worth keeping.
Continue Reading

Tourism in Venice

Pickpockets 2.0

11 Comments
The finish line of the Vogalonga may well be the only crowded place in Venice where your money isn’t at risk of being stolen.  Please admire the black caorlina and, more to the point, its crew of Franciscan friars from the monastery at the Redentore on the Giudecca.

More advice on protecting yourself from pickpockets (other than staying at home, under the bed).

Where else is your wallet at risk?  At the automated vaporetto-ticket machines.  By the time you’ve finished deciphering and following the instructions, your worldly goods may well have moved on.  If not yet, the pickpockets have seen where you put your wallet.  Getting through the turnstiles is sufficiently distracting that you won’t notice that they are right behind you as you pass through.

“In very crowded areas,” my friend explained, “they get so close to you, you don’t even know they’ve opened your bag.”

Another thing:  “Crossing crowded bridges is another way to get your bag opened up,” etc. etc. etc.

I have no doubt that all this information and advice is valid also in Florence, Rome, Milan, and any other city that attracts lots of people.  They don’t have to all be tourists, there just have to be lots of them and the thieves have their cover.

Tour guides have been stolen from — one German guide was pickpocketed inside the basilica of San Marco.  The spouses of tour guides have been ditto ditto.  On especially busy days (for example, from now till October) there are hundreds of these incidents a day.

Don’t bother pining for the good old days under the doge and the Council of Ten.  As Lino occasionally remarks, “They used to cut the thief’s hand off.  He kept stealing anyway.”

 

Continue Reading

Tourism in Venice

Those tricky pickpockets

11 Comments
This is just to set the scene, the mood, the atmosphere.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but I’m sending out this information anyway.  Short version: Cover your hand whenever you enter your PIN number at the ATM here.

A good friend has told me of her experiences tracking pickpockets who are tracking you.  She’s one of many who’ve taken an interest in nabbing them, and I applaud her wholeheartedly.  Seeing that she lives on the doorstep of the Piazza San Marco, she’s perfectly situated for maximum sightings.  If she can’t intervene in time by shouting, she takes a photo and sends it to the Carabinieri.  That’s the drill.

Back to you.

Everybody knows that they have to be super-careful of their wallets when out and about.  I always advise visitors to not carry too much cash, and to separate their credit/bank cards from their wallet.

You still have to be super-careful, but the reason for it has accelerated.  Because the thieves operate in teams, she told me.  Their “work,” if we want to put it that way, goes like this:

One person — whom you will never see, just assume that person is there — watches you enter your PIN number at the cash machine.  If you haven’t covered your hand, he or she will immediately memorize that number.

The next person in the team of thieves follows you and he/she, or whoever is next in line in the light-fingered relay, steals your wallet the old-fashioned way.  They take your bank/credit card to an ATM, enter your PIN number, and withdraw as much as they can.  Many banks here have limits on how much can be withdrawn in a day, but the limit is sometimes rather high.  My friend told me of someone who discovered that 1000 dollars had been removed from his account in the time it took to report the theft and block the card.

So much about Venice seems designed to give thieves the advantage: Crammed spaces, lots to look at, and you not paying attention.  You can’t do anything about the first two, but it’s up to you to handle the third.  Pay attention to your wallet, and your PIN number.  No need to be unduly alarmed.  Venice is not unlike Antarctica or the Naruto Whirlpools: Things go better if you’re prepared.

Or just stick to streets that look like this.

 

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Gondola overboard

10 Comments

Newspaper headlines have to do two things: Be short, and make you want to buy the paper.  You’ve got to have emotions about whatever it is, and Lord knows there’s no lack of emotions around here.

Be careful, though, not to draw the wrong conclusions or make wild assumptions when you have more feelings than information.

Case in point: This simple but fraught headline on today’s announcement board at the newsstand.

It contains nothing but emotional words: “Moto ondoso gondola capsized two boys  saved.”  Anyone here has only to read the words “moto ondoso” to brace themselves for the worst.  This term refers to the chaotic waves caused by the ever-increasing motorboat traffic, and obviously is never good.  Moto ondoso has recently reappeared — yet again —  in the forefront of Venetian minds as the clearest and most present danger to waterborne vehicles and their passengers.  The city itself is being victimized, too, pounded all day by the impact of the thrashing water.  So we see “moto ondoso” and instantly we intuit danger, and knowing nothing more we assume that the gondola had people in it (tourists, probably).  Perhaps the passengers were the two boys? Boat overturns, people being “saved” = nearly avoided drowning, is my quick assumption.  What other danger would they need to have been saved from?  All this is what the telegraphic headline implies.

The very brief story in La Nuova Venezia basically said that two 18-year-old boys were towing a gondola between the Bacini and San Pietro di Castello on a wide canal known as the Canale delle Navi, known also as a stretch of water becoming increasingly wild with the wakes of every motorized vehicle known to Venice.  They were bringing the boat to the squero for repairs.

Some water entered the gondola, courtesy of a wave, and more followed.  The boat became yet more unstable, and before long the combination of internal and external liquid pushed the boat overboard, so to speak.  The article says that the boys fell in the water, but didn’t explain how.  Waves and some variety of panic could have done the trick.

A passing boat rendered immediate aid, the firemen were called, as were the local police.  The story will undoubtedly develop with claims and counterclaims (there seems to be some talk of a big tourist launch that was speeding).  Allow me to shake my two raised fists and bellow “Curse you, moto ondoso!”

But I thought I’d reflect for a moment on the fact that towing a boat here isn’t as simple as you might think. I have participated in numerous transfers of rowing boats under tow, and you quickly discover that, even without waves, you need to pay attention.  It’s not unusual to see motorboats towing some Venetian boat from the area of the race eliminations at very high speed, and some of those boats flip over too.

This was Lino a few years ago towing an eight-oar gondola and two normal gondolas. We were returning from a big event in Nafpaktos, Greece in which Venetian boats were major participants. Each boat here has some people aboard, which may well not have been the case of the unfortunate boys.

We know nothing about how this operation was being carried out.  Was the gondola tied by the bow or the stern?  How fast were they going?  How long was the rope linking the two boats?  Was there wind?  In the early afternoon they would have been going against the tide; was that a factor?  Don’t think I’m trying to defend the waves, I am just saying that this is a tricky undertaking for anyone who may not yet know some of the fine points.  If one of the boys had been sitting in the gondola, using the oar as a sort of rudder to keep the boat from slewing around, that would have been a huge help.  Or you can usefully tie a length of chain, or some deadweight object, to the stern to act as a sort of sea anchor keeping the boat from skidding around.  The boat wants to fishtail because it is already riding on the swervy crest of two waves that are the wake created by the motorboat itself.

Here the foreground gondola has been allowed to skew to the right; the people aboard weren’t paying attention. As you can see in the gondola behind it, each of the two men aboard are holding oars to use as a sort of rudder.  The right pressure just before the boat begins to wander off course keeps it in line.  If there were more waves here, it would be clearer how vulnerable the already-low left side of the gondola is to taking on water.
Here I am with a friend, each of us working with our oars to keep this caorlina on the straight and narrow. It’s not just the gondola; any Venetian boat wants to wander off course when it’s being towed.

Of course we don’t want waves, and we don’t want boys falling in the water all of a sudden.  I’m certainly ready to blame moto ondoso for every bad thing on earth.  But towing a boat is like driving in the snow.  Things can happen.

Another view of the boats moving around.  You really need to anticipate the boat’s tendency to slither out of line, otherwise you’ll wear yourself out hauling on your oar way too hard.  Lino has towed as many as nine boats by himself. Naturally that’s the Expert Level, because the person driving the motorboat has to be extremely sensitive to the motion of the boats behind him or her.  When the towed boat pulls in one direction, it exerts pressure on the motorboat to veer off in the opposite direction.  There are just any number of factors to keep track of, and everything is moving all the time.  At least here there weren’t any waves.

 

Continue Reading