So the Costa Concordia ran aground (January 13) and the administration here instantly went into several varieties of fits to show how eager it was to ensure that no such catastrophe could ever be inflicted on the most-beautiful-city-in-the-world by one of these leviathans, whose number is increasing at a Biblical rate.
Passengers see a ship. The anti-ship cadre sees a potential disaster. The city government sees a floating Brink's truck loaded with money, without which Venice can no longer survive. You decide.
Mission: Banish the Big Ships from the Bacino of San Marco where they might well run into a section of historic and irreplaceable real estate. I haven’t seen any calculations on the odds of this risk, but they may be similar to the odds of winning the lottery.
Lots of people who buy a lottery ticket think/hope that the probability of winning could be pretty good. In the same way, lots of people who see the big ships passing think/fear that the probability of a huge catastrophe could be pretty good. The distance between “could” and “might” is hard to measure when emotions run high.
The mayor, of course, promised rapid solutions, to be followed, naturally, by immediate results (hence the use of the word “solution”). As expected, “rapid” is morphing into “eventual” on its way to “maybe” and then — who knows? — “never.”
The Petroleum Canal, which has already done so much damage, is the right angle on the left of the frame. The proposed new extension to the cruise port is the slightly sagging line connecting it to Venice. The idea would be to assign either the arrival or departure of a big ship via this route,thereby halving the number of transits of the bacino of San Marco.
The first proposal launched — and so quickly as to have barely resulted from first thoughts, much less second thoughts — was to dig a new canal. The environmental damage this would cause is so vast and so obvious that it’s hard to believe it was even discussed. A large amount of information demonstrating what a terrible idea it is was instantly thrown in front of this notion to prevent its going any further (latest detail: deepening the Canale di Sant’ Angelo would mean having to tear out and reposition somewhere else a certain quantity of important cables buried there, not to mention the high-tension-wire pylons flanking it). Even the cost of this undertaking hasn’t caused this notion to be officially abandoned, but its momentum seems to have slowed.
But if a new canal makes no sense, the proposal made a few days ago obliterates the line between creative and cuckoo. I wouldn’t even have mentioned it, but I wanted to show how really hard it is to come up with an alternative to the present system.
Ferruccio Falconi, a retired port pilot (who you might think would be more familiar with the lagoon and its behavior than most), has pulled the pin on the following idea and tossed it at the groin of common sense.
He proposes gouging out the mudbanks between the island of Sant’ Erasmo and the inlet at San Nicolo’, an area known as bacan’ (bah-KAHN). On the map, it looks like useless empty space longing for a purpose in life. But it already has a purpose — two of them.
This view shows the lagoon inlet at San Nicolo' on the left; in the middle is the island created for the MOSE project, which has already affected tidal behavior. "Bacan'" is the beige area in the big channel to the right, a swath of mudbanks with a temporarily exposed islet fronting the lower edge of the island of Sant' Erasmo. (Photo: Chris 73, Wikimedia Commons).
Its first purpose is the same as that of similar areas which compose the bloody-but-unbowed natural lagoon ecosystem. Mudbanks and barene, the remnants of marshy wetlands scattered around, are an essential component of the lagoon environment. You may not care about clams and herons and glasswort, but these formations also slow the speed of the tide, something that ought to interest people ashore in the most-beautiful-city at least as much as the vision of a ship heading toward the fondamenta.
Its second purpose is as one of the all-time favorite places for thousands of pleasure-boaters to spend long summer days swimming and clamming and picnicking.
Doesn't this look neat and tidy? Eight ships all snugged up together. While constant dredging would undoubtedly be required to keep the area from refilling with sand and mud, that effort would be helped by the vortexes created by cruise-ship propellers. (Photo: Il Gazzettino)
But according to Falconi, the creation of a basin where nature never put, or wanted, or intends to keep one, would be the perfect place to park the cruise ships. Ergo, there would also have to be the construction of a huge jetty.
As simple geometry, it looks okay, though I failed geometry. But apart from the problems the size, weight, and propeller-power those eight little rectangles represent, there is also the inconvenient fact that Sant’ Erasmo is an island, raising the issue of by what means the floating Alps of the sea would be provisioned, and how the passengers would arrive and depart.
Simple: By boat. Thereby increasing by several powers of ten the amount of waves (motondoso) caused by the multiplied number of motorized craft running around the area (barges, taxis, launches, and scows carrying trucks). Motondoso has already damaged a lot of the lagoon, so this new activity would eradicate a new chunk of what’s left. The summer motorboats are already sufficiently destructive — why would even more be seen as a good thing?
This idea is yet another example of the point where Feasibility and Desirability break up, despite the best efforts of people with assorted motives to make them get married and have children.
The "Ruby Princess" backing out of its berth at Tronchetto, like its companions, scours up a lot of sediment, not all of which settles back where it came from.
The following letter to the Gazzettino (March 29, 2012) gives an excellent analysis of this suggestion (translated by me):
LAGUNA CROCIERE E GRANDI NAVI (Lagoon, cruises, and big ships)
I read in the Gazzettino of the new proposal to “save” the cruises.
One appreciates the fantasy that unfortunately is right in step with the temerity of certain choices which we see at all institutional levels in the management of this problem.
To excavate bacan’ at Sant’ Erasmo to make it feasible for the big ships to maneuver and moor, ships which are tending to get bigger, would signify changing the hydrodynamics of the North Lagoon.
The creation of the new island in front of the inlet (at San Nicolo’) has already caused an increase in the velocity of the incoming tide, creating hydrodynamic imbalances with important consequent damage to the city.
To create a basin of 12 meters (40 feet) deep, at the least, to move and accommodate ships would make even that piece of lagoon into a piece of the sea.
Perhaps the fanciful pilot who has come up with this “loveliness” has forgotten about the abyss in front of San Nicolo’ with the resulting collapse of the bastions of the Fort of Sant’ Andrea a few years ago.
One understands that unfortunately the mentality still hasn’t changed: One tries to resolve a problem creating others. Or to put it this way: the application of the theory that has created MOSE: one creates a “solution” which, to talk about it, resolves the effects but not the cause.
The question arises spontaneously: Is the port worth the city?
(signed) Manuel Vecchina, Venezia
Excellent question, but don’t put it to Falconi. He’s already got the answer.
Here's a view of the area where the eight ships would park, with Sant' Erasmo in the background. Low tide reveals how much mud and sand there is, and how far below the surface it is. Guess Vittorio Orio will have to find another place to work on his mascareta, to make room for the Queen Victoria, the Norwegian Gem, and so on.A winter view of the same area, seen from the shore of Sant' Erasmo. It may look empty, but you should just see how much life there is bustling around in there.And here's a glimpse of how much life is bustling around the surface on a typical summer day here. Actually, this is nothing -- there are boats anchored all over bacan'.Egrets like to eat too, but if the big ships move in, all this will wash out to sea and the birds will have to bring their lunch with them.By "big ships" I mean something like this.
The Venetian lagoon is one of the most important coastal ecosystems in the entire Mediterranean. A century ago there were 35 square miles of salt-marsh wetlands in the lagoon; due to erosion by motondoso and the tidal force increased by the Petroleum Canal, by 1990 there were only 18 square miles left. Now we have MOSE, the floodgates whose installation required extreme deepening of the inlets, creating even stronger tidal flows.
In little more than 30 years, some 25,000,000 cubic meters of sediment have been flushed out to sea. At the current rate of erosion, the World Wildlife Fund has estimated that by 2050 there will be no wetlands left. So Venice is spending masses of money to rebuild a batch of them where they’ve been eroded away. Where they will be eroded away again. Now we want a fantasy port to speed up the process which is turning the lagoon into a bay of the sea?
I sometimes think that if these people want to change the lagoon so much, why don’t they just drop a bomb on it, and get it over with?
The fort of Sant' Andrea was built in the mid-1500's to defend the approach to Venice from enemies entering at San Nicolo'. The cannon were placed at the waterline in order to blast out the hulls of any approaching enemy ships. At low tide the cement apron is easy to see.
The reference to the Fort of Sant’ Andrea in Vecchini’s letter recalls the fact that some years ago (even before MOSE) the force of the tide was eroding the island beneath this historic structure, and the walls of the entrance were beginning to sag and open up. Solution: Throw masses of cement on the shallow lagoon bottom in front of it to stop the slow-motion collapse. When we row past there, we have to avoid what is essentially a broad cement shelf reaching outward from the fort. Of course I’m glad it’s there. I’m just saying.
Venice wanted the ships, but playing with them and their effects is beginning to look a lot like getting into a game of strip poker with no cards at all.
Out in the lagoon, there's plenty of room to go around. On land, the situation changes.
Some time ago I embarked on a series of what were going to be five posts, each dedicated to one of the classic senses, and how I indulge them here.
I haven’t yet shared my thoughts on the remaining two (sight and touch) and I’ll be putting that off for a little while longer.
What has pushed ahead of them in line are few non-traditional senses which have inordinate importance here. If you awaken these senses, the benefits ought to be many, such as helping to increase your enjoyment of Venice and, at the same time, minimize your impressive ability to spoil it for others.
By “you” I originally meant “tourists,” and much of what I’m going to say is, in fact, aimed at people who are just passing through. But I have to say that Venetians themselves can be astonishingly oblivious to the world around them. I just want you to know that I recognize that, in case anyone is tempted to retort “Well what about them?” Fine: They’re guilty too. But this is their city, and their country, too.
So today I present the sense of space. There isn’t much of it here. The city covers only about two square miles, and I estimate that 97 percent of that area is occupied by buildings or water. So you can see how tricky it’s going to be to fit everybody, particularly 20 million tourists or so, into a town not much bigger than New York’s 41st Precinct.
And it’s not useful to imagine there’s any difference between “public” and “personal” space. All the space here is personal. I mean public.
This street, Ruga Giuffa, is actually something like a major artery. The value of not taking more than your share of space is easy to see here.
Venice has always been crowded — in fact, it was once almost three times more populous than it is now. But that didn’t particularly bother anyone, if the songs are to be believed.
There are many which praise some aspect of the city’s beauty or the beauty of life here. I’m not aware of a modern song praising Venice. (I do not regard “Ciao Venezia” as a song, even if it is transmitted by human vocal cords.) Maybe I should try to write one.
Anyway, one particular Venetian song (which naturally sounds better in Venetian) contains this refrain: “Long live this great immensity/only Venice is beautiful/only our city.”
“Great immensity”? Besides being redundant, it seems crazy. This is a city that’s all twisted up in lots of skinny little streets and random knotty open spaces swarming with people pushing children in strollers, dragging overloaded shopping trolleys, brandishing large open umbrellas, or merely groups standing stock still at the exact point where there is no room to get around them.
The “immensity” praised in the song about Venice refers, I believe, to its environment: the lagoon. Anyone who has ever gone out in a boat even a quarter mile from the city realizes that this extraordinary city is floating in the center of a vast amount of water and sky.
My experience, and — I deduce — that of countless Venetians who have come before, shows that the lagoon is not only the matrix of the city but the only known antidote to its compression.
A not unusual sight on the biggest vaporetto there is, the #1 local going down the Grand Canal. Theoretically, the correct thing would have been to have made a pile of his baggage in the outside area and stayed with it. What the picture doesn't show is that he or his things are occupying all three seats, and the aisle.
But even if your only chance to feel this spaciousness is from a vaporetto (which will be crowded….), I hope you will somehow feel the enchantment and, yes, immensity of the city’s surroundings.
In any case, you’ll have to go ashore eventually, which is where your sense of space is going to have to get to work. Because your awareness of where you are, and what you do there, is going to have a really important effect not only on how you feel about Venice, but how everybody around you — especially any Venetians, if you care — feels about it too.
I respectfully recall to your attention the fact that Venice, small as it may be, at its apex was both the home and the workplace of almost 200,000 residents, not to mention an uncounted number of visitors, here on either business or pleasure or even displeasure. Among other things, Venice was a major port for pilgrims headed from Europe to the Holy Land. They could have been here as long as a month, waiting to find a berth on a ship (no reservations, obviously). This was much longer than the average modern tourist’s visit, and there were periods in which there were 50 ships leaving in a single month, or roughly two a day. (Not made up.) Which adds up to a fairly crushing quantity of people.
Furthermore, if you think the city is crowded now, spare a thought for the old days, when everyone who had a choice lived as much of their lives outdoors as they could. Except for sleeping and eating, families (which were numerous) spent most of their day out in the courtyard or the street, or somewhere other than home, where there also was no space.
This lady decided that her carryon bag would be more comfortable on the floor in front of the central seat rather than in the aisle. You want to sit there? Good luck with that.
And then there was the cargo: Vast amounts of often really space-intensive items being offloaded and transported from A to B. Bricks. Blocks of marble. Lumber. Bales of wool. Imagine yourself walking down a street behind three people who are carrying enormous wicker backpacks loaded with coal. So it’s always been pretty cramped here.
Nevertheless, today we have all sorts of modern ideas about comfort and manners which make Venice demanding in an equally intense way.
Having said all that, I’d like to offer a few fundamental suggestions as to how to minimize the crampage. If you accept them, you have a chance at making life more pleasant for you and certainly for everyone around you. If you don’t really care — and there seems to be an abundance of visitors in this category — then you may fire when you are ready, Gridley.
Equal time here for Venetian transgressions: The woman on the right has claimed the space (single seat and open area) intended for people in wheelchairs with a friend. Since her trolley needs all that space, the tourist in the wheelchair has to sit half-out in the aisle.
There are three situations in which you have no choice but to share space outdoors: Walking, standing, and sitting.
Walking: To keep everybody, including you, moving in even some semblance of progress, try to imagine that you’re driving your car. The same general rules apply here when you’re walking.
If you’re moving slowly, keep to the side. Do not make sudden stops. Do not make sudden turns. Do not stop in the middle of the street and just stand there. Check your rear-view mirror often, because it’s very likely somebody is coming up behind you intending to pass you. In which case, move aside and let them. You’d be astonished at how many people do not do any of those things.
Forget the car metaphor and keep in mind that you are living in three dimensions. Fingers: Tempting as it may be, try to avoid suddenly pointing at something, no matter how surprising or beautiful it is; for some reason, a person pointing is often indicating something dangerously close to eye level. Elbows: If you stand somewhere with your hands on your hips, you’ve just taken space away from the persons on your elbow side for no clearly necessary reason.
If somebody wants to get past you, they will most likely start with a polite “Permesso.” (Or “con permesso.”) Venetians may say this as many as three times; if there’s no reaction, they push. The international language. If it happens to you, there was a reason.
Standing: If there appear to be too many people, you can be sure there will be far too much of their stuff. If you need to stop to check your map or hold an unscheduled meeting of the family committee, make an effort to put your boxcar-load of baggage somewhere out of the way. Slalom races are fun if you’re aiming for a medal in the World Cup, but not for somebody trying to get somewhere that’s important to him, like his accountant or home to his kid who’s running a fever.
This curious construction behind the wheelhouse is, in fact, an excellent place to stash your baggage. Just so you know.
On the vaporetto, try to organize your bags in as little space as possible. A person (for example, me) shouldn’t have to explain that you could put your smaller bag on top of your larger bag, instead of next to it. I mean, when you think about it.
If you’re carrying anything larger than an empty messenger bag, handle it with the awareness that wherever you put it, it’s taking precious square inches away from somebody else. I know it’s really hard to haul all that baggage down cramped streets and over bridges and so on. I know that there is little or no space on the vaporettos for anything larger than you, and often not even that. But the fact that many people devote more attention and concern to their steamer trunks or Himalayan-expedition backpacks than they do to their fellow passengers is something that baffles, and can often irritate, any nearby Venetians, especially if they’re trying to get past you (see: “slalom,” above).
What to do?
First: Minimize the space you occupy. For example: Do not put your suitcases/duffel bags/backpacks on the seat next to you. Seem obvious? Apparently it isn’t. “Hey! Empty space! It’s mine!” Actually, it’s not!
For a while, these signs were up on many of the vaporettos. As Einstein said, Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. Judging by the public response (which was nil), this design is so simple that almost nobody understood, it.
Second: Take off your backpack. They’ve even made it a rule on the vaporettos, but the simple sense of this little act continues to elude nine and a half out of every ten people. If it’s on your back, take it off. Even a daypack is a huge nuisance to everyone around you. You may think it’s part of you, but the only person who wouldn’t annoy their fellow passengers with something protruding from his or her spine would be the hunchback of Notre Dame. If you can take it off, do so immediately and put it at your feet. Or in a corner. Or maybe don’t even bring it. How far could it be to the next oasis?
Third: Get out of the way. Every day, oblivious people stand right where everybody else needs to pass. On the street, on the vaporetto, wherever. On the vaporetto dock — particularly, for some reason, at the Accademia stop — masses of eager people who want to get on fill the entire area needed for the arriving passengers to get off. If there is an explanation for this, it will have to come from the realm of astronomy, where matter retains all sorts of contradictory characteristics. Here, though, matter occupies space.
Then there are people who find a spot that works for them and just……you know…..stand there….as if nobody else existed. They block doorways, they block aisles. It’s not as if their kid is having an asthma attack and nothing else matters. They just stand there. Even the fact that you have to contort yourself to get past them doesn’t make any impression whatever. That’s where they are, just deal with it, Maude. I have never understood what attracts people to standing in the vaporetto doorway. Go out, or stay in. Why are you trying to do both? Are you not able to decide where you want to be?
Then there are all those time when you must force your way onto a vaporetto because it’s crammed with people in the open middle space where boarding and exiting takes place, while the interior of the boat is almost empty. I realize that visitors want to be outside where they can look around and take pictures. If you’re determined to stay outside, please do everything in your power not to block the only area available for getting on and off.
I cannot grasp the idea here: We'll just sit here blocking the street right near a corner. No one else exists.
Sitting: People between the ages of 12 and 18 seem to have decided that the floor is their tribal territory. Sitting or sprawling in groups on the ground anywhere that appeals to them is not merely the best thing ever, it has become something like a right. I’ve seen teenagers literally lying on the ground where lots of people need to walk. One memorable pair of girls (American) was stretched out across the wooden dock in front of the ramp leading to the vaporetto dock. Hundreds of people needed to walk there. (See: “slalom,” above).
It all seems so obvious.
But wait! — I hear you cry — what about all those rude Venetians who do all those rude things (except for sitting on the ground), as if WE didn’t exist?
I know. I know they’re there, and I know they do those things, and they don’t have any more of a good excuse than anyone else.
I know theyalso position themselves in the exit area of the vaporetto dock so that they can get on the vaporetto first.
I know they somehow manage to slither past you to claim that minuscule empty spot in front of you. You might feel that they’re jumping a queue, but they don’t see a queue. I have finally concluded that a person who does this has decided that since you’re not occupying that space, that means you’ve relinquished it and it’s available to anybody who wants it. Now I actually do it myself because it makes sense to me — seeing how little space there is around.
So what solution is there to the problem of trying to put 100X of people and things into just 1Y of space?
Be aware. Be courteous. Create as few problems for other people and you will simultaneously be creating fewer problems for yourself.
That’s the only possible solution.
Just like on the highway.
There's not an abundance of space in the canals, either, and parking your boats like this is guaranteed to cause problems. No tourists are guilty of creating this situation, I just wanted to show another way in which ignoring other people can make life challenging. It annoys me, not because I need to pass through the eye of the needle here, but because I simply can't grasp the concept at work. .
To drive a barge here you need a Ph.D in geometry, and a tote bag full of tranquilizers. And the tide chart, too.
Or you can just go back out into the lagoon, where you can breathe.
The catastrophe of the Costa Concordia two weeks ago today has been a good thing in at least one (sorry, I mean only one) way: It has given a turbo-boost to the local opposition to allowing big cruise ships to slide past the Piazza San Marco like floating Alps.
By now, images of these behemoths and Venice have become as trite as Venice and acqua alta.
Just one example at random of a typical big ship coming to Venice. The top deck is lined with thousands of people, all making the same photograph of the Piazza San Marco. As far as I can tell, this is the main reason why the big ships insist on entering and leaving Venice by the Bacino of San Marco.
There was murmuring before, but the death of a ship and some of its people has created a good deal of commotion, not only in Venice but also at the national level, concerning the desirability of allowing these ships to come here. Needless to say, the political parties have all hoisted their shields and battle-axes and are ready for combat. And, as usual, the trumpet sounding the charge tends to drown out any other sound.
I’d like to review the main points, though I have to warn you that this subject, like most other subjects here, has become a mass of insanely knotted statistics and semi-statistics and facts and semi-facts interpreted in 11,552 different ways, according to who is speaking and, ergo. what they want. Debates of the pros and cons of heavy cruise ship traffic in the world’s most beautiful city and environs are so loaded with emotion that it has become virtually impossible to hear what anybody’s really saying, though the various viewpoints are fairly simple to summarize.
Cruise statistics for 2011 as published by the Gazzettino.
Pro: There is only one item in the “pro” column on the proverbial yellow legal pad, and that’s “Money.” Venice has done everything possible to attract and keep cruise business. In 2000, only 200 ships visited Venice, and it is now the Number One cruising homeport in the Mediterranean, and the third in Europe. With the shrinking of the income from the Casino, the starving city budget is being kept alive primarily by this new touristic medium.
Don’t be distracted by the number of companies whose ships come to Venice (43), or how many ships visited last year (654) or the number of transits they made of the Bacino of San Marco (1,308) — I’d have thought there were more — or the number of passengers last year (2,248,453), even though all these numbers are pretty impressive (fancy way of saying “huge and scary”).
The only number that matters to the city, and the only factor which virtually guarantees that cruising will continue to be crucial here, is the money the city earns from it: 300 million euros (US$390,246,000) last year.
If you want to object to cruising in or around Venice, you need to come up with a suggestion for some other activity that will make that kind of money. Or, preferably, even more. Feel free to get back to me on this.
A view of the docks at Tronchetto. As you see, seven assorted ships can fit in here at any one time, though these is space for smaller ones (yes, there are smaller ones) at the Zona Marittima nearby -- three are moored there in this picture, just to the right of the big docks. Discussion is underway to expand the dock area.
Con: The conscientious objectors to cruising offer many urgent reasons why it is deleterious to the city. These reasons are more or less persuasive, depending on how deeply their proponents have managed to bury their ulterior motives.
The two main items in the “con” column concern the environmental damage wrought by the floating Alps.
They are:
Erosion caused by waves (there are no waves) and/or by the suction of the motors. This suction is real: I can attest that the motors of these ships perform a phenomenal sucking/pushing action, very much like what happens to the mouthwash when you rinse your mouth. I have seen with these very eyes the waters surging in and then surging out as a ship passes, even if it passes at a distance. It’s hard to think that this could be unimportant. As we know from the humbler but more destructive daily motondoso, water going into a fissure in a foundation pulls something with it — soil, mainly — when it comes out. This eventually creates empty spaces under buildings and sidewalks.
Ships maneuvering to enter or back out of their berths also create massive suction, as the brown sediment churned up here attests.
A study done by Worcester Polytechnic Institute on the hydrodynamic effect of big ships found this: “As cruise ships pass smaller canals along the St. Mark’s Basin and Giudecca Canal, they displace and accelerate the surrounding body of water, essentially pulling water from the smaller canals. This caused a noticeable increase in canal speed and a drop in the water levels. A total of five velocity tests were completed resulting in a 57.4% increase in canal speed, and two canal height tests were completed which showed an average water level drop of 11 c (4.3 inches). The observations suggest that the root cause for these accelerations can be explained by the Bernoulli Effect: the colossal geometry of cruise ships creates fast currents and low pressure areas around the moving vessels.”
Particulate Matter, the form of air pollution made up of tiny bits of stuff from combustion exhaust. Nobody made an issue of this when Venice was a real industrial center, and nobody brought it up when the Industrial Zone on the shoreline was going full blast. Nobody made an issue of it, Lino points out, when everybody — everybody — heated their homes or cooked using wood or coal. “You didn’t need to smoke anything,” he said — “smoke was everywhere.” But particulate matter from the ships is intolerable.
The view of the Giudecca Canal as seen by the passengers on a departing ship. I'm on a Minoan Lines ferry to Greece. If a ship were to go rogue here it could endanger city on both sides.
Four days after the Concordia ran aground, Corrado Clini, the new Minister for the Environment, came to Venice for a day. He was shown a number of things (MoSE was not on the list, which I can understand, because nothing can be done about it now), but the subject on everybody’s mind was the big ships.
He offered the following opinion: “Common sense suggests that if the principle value to care for is our natural patrimony, the fundamental resource for our tourism, we must avoid that it be put at risk.” You can’t argue with that.
He continued: “The traffic of these ‘floating apartment buildings’ in the Bacino of San Marco, with a notable impact, are without utility for the environment and for tourism.” If he is seeking utility for tourism, all he has to do is look at the municipal balance sheet. However, “without utility for the environment” is hard to refute.
Luca Zaia, the President of the Veneto Region, who was on hand, remarked that “The big ships in Venice are dangerous and certainly a problem to resolve. I have to admit that to see these colossi at San Marco is, to say the least, horrifying.” I myself have to admit that it’s odd that he only became horrified after the Concordia ran aground; the ships have been passing for years.
Giorgio Orsoni, the mayor of Venice, contributed these observations: “The subject of the big ships is an open one. With the Port Authority we have begun to reflect on a rapid solution which will satisfy the touristic system as well as the economic one.” Rapid solutions are not easy to come up with, because every player wants his concerns to come first. Nor would a rapid solution instill much confidence. If complex, well-reasoned solutions haven’t been found yet, why would a rapid one be any easier to devise, much less implement?
Sandro Trevisanato, president of VTP, which runs the port, stated that the big ships are the least polluting form of tourism, adding that the buses, the big launches, and cars create much more pollution than the big ships. (For the record, I’d like to say that this is the most intelligent comment so far.) He points out that emissions are one of the arguments used by those who want to ban the cruise ships from the lagoon, far beyond the aesthetic question. It’s a question of taste,” says Trevisanato. “In a few seconds the ships have passed and disappear.” Seconds? Has he never stood on the embankment on a summer Sunday evening to watch the March of the Pachyderms as they depart? Even one ship, by my estimate, takes at least 45 minutes to pass from Tronchetto to Sant’ Elena. And there could easily be seven of them, virtually nose to tail.
In any case, everybody directly involved in cruise tourism agrees that pollution must be kept at “level zero.” How to do that isn’t explained.
As for the possibility — remote, all agree — that something could go wrong with the motors, or that the ship for some other reason would suddenly become ungovernable, and that the force of inertia would impel it to ram bow-first into the Piazza San Marco or some other bit of Venice, Trevisanato says that the port is one of the most secure in the world, as the ships are protected from the effect of wind and waves, and the ships pass at a reasonable (I put that in) distance from the shores. Hard to say what is “reasonable” when the Giudecca Canal is only 320 meters (1000 feet) wide, or less. But you will have noticed that referring to wind and waves prevented him from discussing the consequences of a big ship going adrift in the Bacino of San Marco.
Someone reminded him that in 2004 the ship “Mona Lisa” ran aground in the fog in the Bacino of San Marco. His reply: “Exactly: and nothing happened.” This is true; the ship was on its way after a mere hour, undoubtedly thanks to the help of the rising tide. But the “Mona Lisa” is 201 meters (609 feet) long by 26 meters (85 feet) beam, and a gross tonnage of 28,891; not exactly a floating Alp.
The Concordia was 292 meters (958 feet) x 35.5 meters (116 feet); gross tonnage 112,000.
In any case, saying “Nothing happened” isn’t very helpful. It brings to mind the famous exchange in a Ring Lardner story: “‘Daddy, are we lost?’ ‘Shut up,’ he explained.”
The "Mona Lisa." This is what most cruise ships used to look like, before they put them on steroids.
And the mayor’s statement that a “rapid solution” is in the works isn’t very reassuring, even if it were true. Solutions have been debated for years.
Proposed solutions so far:
Building an “offshore port” in the Adriatic where the floating Alps would tie up, and offload passengers (and luggage) into launches which would bring them to Venice. Objections: Cost, feasibility, and the obvious pollution, primarily motondoso, which would be caused by thousands of launches trundling to and fro all day. I can add the element of potential danger to people, if not to Venice, of boarding and traveling in a launch when the bora is blowing.
Make the Bacino and the Giudecca Canal a one-way street. Tourists get to snap the Piazza San Marco either coming or going, but not both. This has the advantage of not depriving them totally of this scenic opportunity, while cutting in half the number of transits. A tour operator told me that it isn’t uncommon for a potential cruise customer to ask if the ship passes in front of the Piazza San Marco. If the answer is no, it’s an immediate deal-breaker.
Bring the ships into the lagoon via the inlet at Malamocco. Heavy shipping already passes here, heading for the docks at Marghera, so more heavy ships wouldn't make any difference. Theoretically.
But this new system would require deepening a heretofore unimportant natural channel known as the Canal of Sant’ Angelo in order to create a sort of bypass. Enter the lagoon at the inlet at Malamocco, steam up the shoreline via the Petroleum Canal, then turn right in the Canal of Sant’ Angelo, which neatly brings the behemoth to Tronchetto. The ship would depart via the Giudecca Canal, so the passengers could all snap their photos.
Or, the ship would enter, as it does now, by the inlet at San Nicolo’, steam past San Marco (snap snap snap) to Tronchetto, then depart down the Canal of Sant’ Angelo, Petroleum Canal, and out into the Adriatic at Malamocco.
Sometimes a big ship moors downstream from San Marco at the Riva dei Sette Martiri. It might seem like a bright idea to put them all here, except that the passengers wouldn't get their snaps; also, there isn't enough shoreline for the typical job lot on a summer weekend. And there is also the issue of the vibrations from the generators and the blocking of television reception which are major irritations for the residents. Who would want to spend the summer with these just outside the front door?
What’s extremely wrong with this idea — in my opinion, as well as many environmentalists — is that deepening the Canal of Sant’ Angelo would be a reprise of the digging of the Petroleum Canal, a deed which many have long since recognized as a disaster for the lagoon. A channel as straight as an airport runway and deep enough for cargo ships and tankers behaves like the average water faucet, concentrating and accelerating the force of the water passing through it. Many environmental groups date the beginning of the deterioration of the lagoon ecosystem from the creation of the Petroleum Canal. Among other things, it is estimated that this canal is responsible for the loss of one million cubic meters of sediment every year. We don’t have to care, but the myriad creatures and plants which depend on the sediment certainly do.
Digging another deep channel will almost certainly cause the same phenomenon, thereby multiplying the damage. Just what we need, when you add in the same effect caused by the deepening of the three lagoon inlets for the installation of the MoSE floodgates.
So the bypass canal, which looks so good on paper, would be yet another blow to an ecosystem which UNESCO, along with the city of Venice, designated as a World Heritage Site. Now that I think of it, the only group that hasn’t weighed in yet on this is UNESCO. Maybe they’re thinking.
Last idea: Forget Tronchetto. Move the whole passenger port over to the shoreline at Marghera. Docks already exist, or could be created, so logistically the idea has a lot in its favor. Except that Marghera is part of the dying Industrial Zone, with all the aesthetic appeal of a dying Industrial Zone. It’s like selling a cruise from Venice that actually starts in the Port of Newark or Liverpool. Intending no offense.
Speaking of the force of inertia, debates, meetings, commissions, studies (oh good, we can always use more of those) and assorted pronouncements will undoubtedly continue. I can make that claim because when the “Mona Lisa” ran aground in 2004, the then-mayor, Paolo Costa, ringingly declared that a stop must be put to the big ships passing in the Bacino of San Marco.
He said (translation by me): “What happened has unfortunately confirmed my worries, and that is that an absolute certainty doesn’t exist on the possibility to guarantee the security in this zone of the city (Bacino San Marco) which is so important and delicate. It was horrifying to see the ship aground a mere 30 meters from a vaporetto stop, and fortunately consequences were avoided that could have been disastrous and unimaginable. Now we must take rapid measures, more than one, and very detailed, that eliminate the danger of finding, one day, a ship in the Piazza San Marco. Because everything which today is at risk in the Bacino of San Marco isn’t something that can be protected only probably, but certainly, and with safety.”
Eight years have passed, two mayors have succeeded him, Costa is now President of the Port of Venice, and those “rapid measures” are still being fervently invoked.
The Port of Venice may be protected from potentially dangerous winds, but there seems to be no way to protect it from hurricanes of hot air.
A big ship leaving Venice. These proportions once shocked and dismayed me. But you can get used to almost anything.
They go on all year, all over Italy, but for some reason it’s only in the autumn that I give any thought to the innumerable festivals dedicated to food. Or food products, or plants or animals, or anything peptic or nutritious.
This sign in the village of Giavera del Montello is announcing the local "Sagra dei Spinei," which are the stoppers of the wine barrels. In case these don't sound especially tasty, the point of the sagra is to drink the newly fermented contents of the barrels, plus the traditional accompanying roasted chestnuts. Why didn't they just say "Sagra del vino"? You'll have to ask them.
The keyword is sagra, which the dictionary defines as “feast,” “festival,” or “religious festival,” because the local product being celebrated is sometimes linked to the local patron saint. Not required, though. It’s more the local product that is worshiped and glorified. Anyway, the public tends to respond more quickly to the phrases “gastronomic stands” and “typical products” than to “religious procession and Mass,” and these events are usually aimed at the paying visitor, not the quaint locals who in days of yore would have been the only participants.
Rummaging through assorted calendars for something fun and comestible to celebrate this month in the Veneto , I discovered that in October there are sagre devoted to chestnuts, pumpkins, cheese, grapes, jujubes (known in Venetian as zizoe), honey, wine, baccala’, black truffles, ducks, walnuts, apples, eels, and the gnocco (plural gnocchi, since you tend not to eat just one). This one is tempting, as “gnocco” is also slang for “dullard,” “poltroon,” “dimwit,” which I think is funny, though I assume the organizers are not referring to the people they want to attract.
If they set up stands of fresh-picked chile peppers at the Automotive Dealers' Day, do you think anyone would think it odd?
I see that “Automotive Dealer Day” sneaked its way onto the list for the area around Verona. Hard to think of what would be good to eat here, though I guess 40W oil might be useful for frying. Maybe this is one event in which food isn’t involved, hard as that may be to imagine. Unless they are cleverly referring to the automotive dealer as the edible item.
The few sagre I’ve been to tend to follow a simple pattern: Pick a local product you wish to festivize; get lots of it; organize it on stands or in halls, possibly with demonstrations of its cultivation, history, industrial management, recipes, or whatever other features seem important; cook lots of it in various ways to sell at inflated prices; add some extra events, such as demonstrations of historic skills (how to make cheese or spin wool or other things the old-fashioned way is popular); perhaps add some race or competitive event; publicize, provide parking (this one is optional), make money.
Oh — and make sure you hold your event in a picturesque little place that is almost (or better, completely) unreachable by public transport. Trains? Buses? Of course they exist, except on Sunday, when often they do not. Then you get off at the nearest station and try to find a taxi or, as happened last year, you walk. We did eight miles. Lino has made it clear that we are not going to repeat this exploit.
The pumpkin known as "zucca barucca" is also called the "veal of Chioggia." Gives you some idea of the subsistence level down there. I can imagine mothers telling their children, "Eat it -- it tastes just like veal."
The problem is that any sagra reasonably near home base isn’t very appealing. You need distance, even a frustrating distance, to create the necessary allure. Because — let’s be honest — spending the day wandering among pumpkins or grapes doesn’t have a lot more intrinsic appeal than spending the day in the produce department of the supermarket. Spending the day among gnocchi — why travel? As soon as you walk out the door here, you’re surrounded by them. So to speak.
I spent two days trying to organize the logistics to go to Arqua’ Petrarca, which devotes two consecutive Sundays to its local star, the zizoe. In fact, I had my heart set on it. This is always a bad move, because disappointment is usually right behind. I discovered that while a train does go to the nearest town, Monselice, there are two choices for traveling the four miles (six kilometers) to Arqua’ Petrarca. The first was by taxi — there is one taxi in Monselice — and the driver wanted 20 euros ($27) each way. You see that it’s not only in Venice where they flay your wallet alive. Or the bus. I checked, not without some difficulty, with the bus company, and guess what? They don’t run on Sunday.
I myself would seriously considering getting a folding bicycle , which would be easy to carry on the train, but Lino didn’t want to hear about it. He may have sensed I was edging too close to committing an Americanata.
I forgot to mention that for us to arrive at a sagra at a reasonable hour (say, 9:00 AM, when it might be opening), it means getting up at 4:00. Because to be at the train station by 6:00 or so means there is only one vaporetto running — sorry, I meant crawling. So if I’m prepared to get up in the middle of the night like some shift worker in a Christmas-ornament factory, the sagroids — or however the organizers are called — ought to make some provision for me.
Sending a limousine would be acceptable.
I think they should have a sagra of the sunset. The best thing is, you don't have to buy anything, not even a ticket on a bus or train that doesn't exist.
