Is Venice Too Crowded? Is Venice a Hotel? · Jun 9, 04:25 PM by James Martin
I made the mistake of taking my mother to Venice on May Day. Folks, do not try this on your vacation. San Marco was a mass of people so solid you could have walked on top of the carpet of humanity milling about and they’d have hardly felt it. There weren’t even room for the unfed pigeons to land on terra firma, enless you’re thinking testa firma. Over in the canals, Gondolas lined up like cars in one of those insipid stock car roundy-round races, everyone follows the leader until the flag comes out or someone crashes. “Hey, meester, wanna 80 Euro carousel ride?”
Some of you don’t like the things I like, but I’ll go on my little rant anyway. I like cities populated with people, the stranger the better. I like those people to have inhabited the city long enough to develop the prejudices that long-term habitation creates. Thus, there will be food different from what the neighboring tribes stick their forks into—and different architecture, language habits, and so on. All of this is grist for the tourists milling about—or at least for me.
The bad thing is that residents have been leaving Venice for years, leaving it to the folks with the big steamer trunks evidently full of shorts and ratty tee shirts with smarmy sayings on them.
So, if there’s a problem…how is it solved?
By creating more hotel space! Obviously! How could I have been so stupid?
Honest to god, that’s what the Veneto regional council is gonna do. They’ve proposed some laws that seem to say, “You got a building? You got a shack on a canal? Well, it’s ok with us if you turn it into a hotel!”
Living Venice blog has the goods on the whole deal with the proposal all put into English for you. If you are of the mind that this proposal is the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard of regarding Venice, there’s even a petition to sign: Venice is not a hotel
Yes, even with a dollar falling being pushed by the idiots in power into worthlessness, there is an “omnivorous tourist market” on the loose out there.
Stop them before they eat the arsenale.
Naples or Positano? Bedtime for Unicorns
