Category Archives: Venice

Venice to trial €5 ticketing system for day visitors from 2024

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Authorities want to cut number of tourists as Unesco considers putting Italian city on heritage danger list

Venice will trial a ticketing system from spring next year, with day visitors charged €5 to enter the Italian city’s historic centre in an attempt to reduce tourist numbers.

The city’s council executive backed the move on Tuesday, just weeks after Unesco recommended Venice be added to its list of world heritage sites in danger, in part due to the impact of mass tourism.

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Venice police investigate source of bright green liquid in Grand Canal

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Speculation climate protesters could be responsible for phosphorescent patch that appeared by Rialto Bridge

Police in Venice are investigating the source of phosphorescent green liquid that appeared on Sunday in the city’s Grand Canal, amid speculation it was caused by climate protesters.

Gondoliers could be seen punting through the phosphorescent waters while tourists took photographs of the green patch, from the Rialto Bridge up and along part of the canal.

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Italians condemn ‘insult’ of Austrian-Chinese ‘European mozzarella’

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Brothers of Italy councillor in Veneto reports package featuring gondola and Tower of Pisa for ‘counterfeiting’

Sliced mozzarella cheese produced in Austria by a Chinese company and wrapped in packaging featuring images of a gondola and the Leaning Tower of Pisa has been branded the umpteenth “insult to Italian food excellence”.

Tommaso Razzolini, a councillor in the Veneto region for Brothers of Italy, the party leading Italy’s rightwing ruling coalition government, said he reported the existence of the offending mozzarella to the ministry of agriculture and food sovereignty after coming across a photo of it online.

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Venice mayor hunts for ‘idiots’ filmed surfing along Grand Canal

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Luigi Brugnaro offers dinner to anyone who can locate duo who ‘make a mockery of this city’

The mayor of Venice has said he is on the hunt for the “two overbearing idiots” who were filmed gliding along the Grand Canal on motorised foil surfboards.

The young men were spotted dodging gondolas and waterbuses as they navigated Venice’s main thoroughfare on Thursday morning. The scene was recorded by several astonished onlookers.

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Cruise passengers shuttled into Venice by motor boat to dodge big ships ban

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Move by Norwegian Cruise authorised by city’s port authority despite plans to curb daytrippers

A cruise company has circumvented a ban on its ships entering the Venice lagoon by shuttling passengers into the famous city centre on small motor boats.

Norwegian Gem, a vessel of just under 300 metres long and owned by Norwegian Cruise, anchored outside the Venice Lido early on Saturday morning. It then launched several motor boats which between them dropped about 1,500 passengers off in St Mark’s Square before picking them up again in the evening.

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Venice day-trippers will have to make reservations and pay fee

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Rules designed to better manage visitors – who often far outnumber residents – will come into force in January

Venice will oblige day-trippers to make reservations and pay a fee to visit the historic lagoon city, in an attempt to better manage visitors who often far outnumber residents in the historic centre.

Venice officials on Friday unveiled new rules for day-trippers, which will be in effect from 16 January 2023.

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Venice Biennale: women outnumber male artists in main halls for first time

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Black women occupy prominent pavilions with some venues showing work from non-binary, disabled and trans artists

There is no shortage of art’s big beasts in Venice, as the world’s most prestigious international art event, the city’s biennale, opens to the public.

Georg Baselitz has made works to hang in the 18th-century stucco frames that once held portraits of the Grimani family in their palazzo. Marc Quinn is showing in the National Archaeological Museum. Anselm Kiefer has covered the walls of a colossal room in the Palazzo Ducale with paintings encrusted with shoes, clothing, metal, and even a ladder.

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