jerseygirl

Spectacular!
Is The man in the ad speaking Veneziano??? (Sp??) Sounds different from Italian

Perche

No, that's Italian, just with a venetian accent, not in dialect.

Perche

I had lunch in Venice with some well connected Venetians last weekend, and we were talking about the steps that Venice promised UNESCO they would take to be able to retain their world heritage site status. Banning cruise ships was one of them, banning fast food from the San Marco area was another, and banning opening anymore AirBnb and similar tourist rentals was the other.

The most despised interruption in the lives of Venetians is considered to be AirBnb and similar tourist rentals, even more than cruise ships. 40,000 cruise shippers come to the city in a day and block the streets, the people spend only a few dollars, eat some fast food, leave a lot of trash and buy a few souvenirs. It's not a money maker. It's a big nuisance. AirBnb however, is thought to have "destroyed the fabric of the city." I hear that many times.

It was best expressed by a long term Venetian friend I kayak with who lives on Via Garibaldi, one of Venice's most wonderful streets. It's off to the side in Castello, a decent walk away from San Marco. A place I would gladly choose to live if I moved back there. He told me that he used to have neighbors. Now he has none. Every apartment in the building except his has been converted to AirBnb. Every few days in his building of 8 apartments new people come in speaking strange languages. They don't care about him, and he doesn't care about them. It's no longer a neighborhood. If he needed some milk for his coffee he used to be able to go to a neighbor next door and knock. Now, he cannot because there are no more neighbors.

Not only that, he can't go downstairs and buy milk because since all of the apartments have been converted to AirBnb there are no more grocery stores left. Tourists don't buy groceries, they buy souvenirs. As he said, it has ripped apart the fabric of the neighborhood. He hates it that they come in and don't know which apartment is theirs, so they knock on his door at midnight.

AirBnb is not someone "sharing" their apartment. The average "owner" in Venice, despite their profile, owns somewhere between 156 to 48 apartments, depending on which article you read. When a Venetian gets sick and has to go to a nursing home or dies, AirBnb buyer groups swoop in and buy the apartment and convert it to a tourist rental. Venetians no longer have affordable places to live. The owners can rent the place out for $500 a night, where a typical Venetian rent is $1,000 per month, so the AirBnb owners push out the Venetians.

Another example is that in Italian cities the front door at the street level is always locked. You have to use a key to get in. Then you go to your apartment, and there is a lock on your door. Eight people will rent an AirBnb apartment that was originally a place for two people. The AirBnb owner gives only one key to the front door even though 8 tourists are staying there, so the tourist renters don't have keys to the front door, and never lock it, they prop it open. Sometimes Venetians come home and find strangers wandering or sleeping in the building because the front door was not locked.

Another told me that all at once his entire apartment building went AirBnb. The owner who bought the building never gave him his number to contact him should there be a problem with the tourists. On the other hand, his dog gets rambunctious when he gets home and jumps around, waiting to be taken out. The tourists staying for a few days in the building he has lived in for 15 years call AirBnb and complain about his dog making noise.

Another said that because tourists are heavy users of air conditioning (Italians barely use air conditioning almost regardless of how hot it is. They consider it unhealthy.), the electricity constantly stops. There are circuit breakers to turn off the electricity when too much current is used and it becomes a fire hazard, but he frequently finds that the circuit breakers are removed, and wiring is used to bypass them so that the tourists can keep the air conditioning on all day. He said he keeps complaining to the AirBnb owner, to no avail, and his next call will be to the police. He mentioned that the entire building next door is now all AirBnb, and so stores all around are closing down. There are almost no neighbors left on Via Garibaldi, the fabric of the neighborhood has been destroyed by pushing out residents to convert housing to tourist rentals.

I heard others complain that tourists don't know or respect the rules. In Boston, you can only put garbage out on certain days, or you get a fine. It's the same in Venice. However, tourists even put their garbage out on Sunday, when there is no trash collection. Seagulls and rats tear the plastic garbage bags open, and the streets are full of trash, fast food wrappers, and all sorts of garbage.

When I asked people what was the biggest threat that Venice is now facing, cruise ships were up there, but the animosity towards AirBnb and similar tourist rentals was far, far greater., and had the most animosity attached. They complained that it has cut out a huge swath of affordable housing to serve tourists so that now both young and old cannot afford to live in Venice, and affordable housing is Venice's biggest need. Affordable housing went away with the arrival of AirBnb.

Many cities in the USA, from San Francisco to NYC, and in Europe, from Barcelona to Berlin, have recognized how destructive a force it is, and have regulated it. I asked the Venetians I spoke with, "Venice promised to ban opening of any more AirBnb's in order to maintain its UNESCO status." That was met with chuckles. The regulation said that no more AirBnb's can open in Venice, unless it is granted a permit. Before, you could just turn your apartment into AirBnb without telling anybody. Just go on the website and do it. Even collect taxes from the tourists , and never give the money to anybody.

They pointed out to me that yes, now you have to get permission to convert your apartment into a tourist rental, but the city has approved every single application that has applied. On the day the regulation went into effect there were 80 applicants, and they approved all 80. Now, on average, they get about 40 applications to turn an apartment into an AirBnb every day, and all are always approved, sometimes with a little money under the table.

I had a lot of optimism that things were turning around, but after my visit last week, I don't know. But if anything is going to save Venice, even more important than banning cruise ships, it seems that fro the point of view of Venetians, clamping down hard on tourist rentals like AirBnb is the most important thing to do.

This is Via Garibaldi.

Perche

Reading the morning Venice paper today I read this article,

http://www.veneziatoday.it/cronaca/a...i-venezia.html,

that had a link to an article on the same topic published in the New York Times today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/w...-invasion.html

Perche

The article in Italian linked to above has the headline, "Dopo il Guardian tocca al New York Times: "Venezia invasa, c'è il rischio Disneyland" Continuano gli articoli della stampa estera nei confronti della situazione in cui versa il centro storico: "I residenti sono in fuga. La musica della città ora sono le rotelle dei trolley"

This translates to, "After the article in the Guardian (a British newspaper), not it is the New York Times turn: Venice invaded, is at risk of becoming like Disneyland, continues the foreign newspaper confronting the situation facing the historic center. The residents are fleeing, and the sound of music has been replaced by the sound of wheels of roller luggage."

So I looked for the Guardian article. Actually, there were two recent ones.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...st-high-season

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...pollution-mask

Venice still is the place to visit, but not by cruise ship, where you just stay for a few hours, and not in the summer when the invasion is at full throttle, unless you know which parts of the city to visit (not San Marco or Rialto).

During a Disneyland visit you try to get on as many rides and see as many exhibits as possible that day. That's often how people visit Italy, they try to cram in as many cities as possible in a week. As a result they never get to experience being anywhere in Italy. Many cities in Italy are getting crushed by uncontrolled mass tourism, for example Florence, which is experiencing much the same problem, and makes it virtually unvisitable in the summer.

I'm not posting these articles to give anyone the impression that Venice is not the greatest place to visit. If you have to visit just one city in Italy Venice is still that place. I just hope that awareness of what Venice is going through leads people to make smarter choices about when to go, where to stay, and what to do when they get there. Do not go or stay near Piazza San Marco or the Rialto Bridge. Just visit those two places early in the morning, or late in the evening. Stay in Castello, or the north eastern part of Cannaregio.

Venice itself just needs to change its governance, starting with banning cruise ships and severely limiting AirBnb's.

KLouis

The Athens daily Kathimerini (Η Καθημερινή) had a front page picture of Venice and tourists and an article inside, which was, actually, a translation of the NYT one.

Perche

For some reason, Venice seems to attract the most misbehaved tourists. Every day there is something in the news, like a few days ago two guys diving off the Calatrava Bridge, people walking around in bathing suits, two guys having sex on a pier off of their hotel. tourists who sleep in sleeping bags in the street, then bath in the canal. It's a daily thing. In trying to retain its UNESCO World Heritage Site status, Venice had to make a lot of promises, including banning cruise ships. They also came up with new rules for tourist behavior. They are published around the city, in 11 different languages, as shown in the photo below. Some are "Vietato" which means forbidden. They bring fines. I do know that a lady was just fined 3,300 euros for violating one concerning dress code. The others are "Consigli" or recommendations.

Translated from the sign below, the Vietati where you can get fined are:
1. Sitting and eating in the Piazza San Marco area (outside of in restaurants and bars, of course).
2. Standing on bridges that cross canals, because it impedes the circulation of residents (sometimes, there are so many people standing on bridges taking selfies, or sitting down and having a picnic, that you cannot cross the bridges.)
3. Not wearing a shirt (I saw a man try to enter a vaporetti without a shirt last week, and he was not allowed. I saw a woman try to enter wearing just a very small bikini, and she was not allowed. The woman who was fined 3,300 euros wasn't wearing any top at all).
4. No bicycles allowed in Venice (that includes things like roller skates and skateboards too)
5. Don't put "love locks" on bridges, or anywhere else.
6. Don't throw trash in the street (that includes cigarette butts and gum)
7. Don't jump into or swim in the canals.
8. No feeding pigeons (Venice spends millions cleaning up pigeon excrement, which is very acidic and ruins the buildings and monuments)
9. No camping, picnicking, or lying down on the benches or in the street.

The consigli or recommendations are:
1. Discover the less frequented parts of Venice, the outer islands, and the many events that the metropolitan city puts on (there are always tons of events going on in Venice. There is something new to do in Venice every day and night. More than you could possibly take in.)
2. Visit shops with artisans (I had some wonderful earring and rings made by a woman artisan using a tiny flame thing she held in her hand (Glass blowing is illegal in Venice itself). They were beautiful, inexpensive, and each a one of a kind. A lot of the paintings in Venice are in need of occasional touch ups because they are centuries old, and the air is moist and salty. They don't just let anyone touch up a Tintoretto. They have professional master artists who do the restorations. Most can't make a living on that alone, so they open up small shops and do their own paintings. They may no be masterpieces, but they are wonderful and beautiful. They are not all that expensive, and so they make great gifts. This is the way to shop, not buying tourists trinkets. Almost all of the masks you see for sale are made in China. However, every now and then you come across a shop with an artisan making masks. Each one takes a few days to make, so you might spend $200, but they are works of art, instead of the cheap imitations.)
3. Don't dirty or spoil the city (this can mean from graffiti, or anything else that spoils things for others).
4. Don't stay at illegal AirBnb's and other similar places. Stay at places authorized to host travelers.
5. When eating, try to sample and stick to the local food products (that's always great advice in Italy).
6. Use authorized guides (not just anyone in the street who hands you a flyer).
7. Plan your vacation when the city is less crowded.

Actually, Venetians are not very happy with these rules. They feel that they didn't go far enough. Venice has hired about 60 new people to go around and enforce them. They will remain in effect until late October, when high season starts to wind down.

obscure2k

8. No feeding pigeons (Venice spends millions cleaning up pigeon excrement, which is very acidic and ruins the buildings and monuments

Why are vendors permitted to sell bird seed (or bird feed) in Piazza San Marco?

Perche

They don't do it anymore. There used to be machines where you put money in, like a soda machine, and pigeon food came out. Not anymore. Venice being on water, has rats, but I've never seen one despite having lived there for many stretches of time, and through every season.

When I lived in Boston and NYC you saw them all the time. Once my car broke down on the freeway in Boston. I had it towed. Because I used to come home late rats would climb under the hood to sleep in the warmth of my engine, and would eat the wires. I've never seen a rat in Venice, but I know they are there.

Venice also has a lot of cats. I once mentioned to a Venetian friend that perhaps the reason that we don't see any rats in Venice is because the cats keep them at bay. She laughed and said the rats in Venice are twice the size of the cats.

Despite that, Venetians hate pigeons more than they hate rats. You don't see rats, but pigeons carry a lot of disease in Venice. They used to have machines to encourage people to buy pigeon feed and stand in San Marco and have all the pigeons land on you, but that can't be done anymore.

Still, I see tourists holding a French fry that they bought from a fast food place in Piazza San Marco and hold it between their lips to have a pigeon come in and land on their shoulder, and take it away from their mouth. I still see people feeding pigeons. The 60 new guards they just hired to patrol San Marco are supposed to have ended that.

Actually the pigeon population is way down now, for two reasons. First, since there are not so many of them, more sea gulls are coming in. One sea gull can probably take on 15 pigeons. They are much bigger and tougher than a pigeon. Unlike a pigeon that walks around on the floor and hopes that you drop a crumb, if you are sitting in an outdoor restaurant in Piazza San Marco and leave your food to go to the bathroom, there's a chance that a seagull will swoop in and take it away. They just swoop in like dive bombers and pick the food off of your plate without stopping. Pigeons stay far away from them, so there are not as many pigeons in San Marco as before.

Between rats, pigeons, and sea gulls, three species typical of any city on the water, pigeons are the most despised. Venice spends millions scraping their acidic excrement off of buildings and monuments because it corrodes them. Venetian pigeons also bring in disease, and are not clean. There is no more feeding of the pigeons in Piazza San Marco, except you still see some people doing it, just as you see people eating on the steps of a church.

The decline in the pigeon population is attributed to two things. Since they banned feeding them in San Marco, the sea gulls are not so outnumbered anymore, and they go after pigeons interfering with them. I've seen seagulls rip pigeons apart in mid air. After a second or two all you see after a flurry is a bunch of pigeon feathers falling to the ground.

Second, when it seems like there are too many pigeons the city goes out at night and sets traps, giant nets, and catches hundreds of them until the population is downsized. I can say that they are definitely not taking those pigeons to a pigeon habitat or farm. To a Venetian, a pigeon is something like a rat is to a Bostonian or a New Yorker.

KLouis

I remember tens of years ago when I was a student, that some city in Germany had initiated a program aimed at sterilizing pigeons: they were feeding them with pigeon food (I don't remember what they were using) that had been "enriched" in a female steroid hormone that would act as an anti-chick pill (idea based on anti-baby pills). I really don't remember how the program worked out at the end, most probably it failed because it is not used, to my knowledge, anywhere in the world. Perhaps worth looking into that. Any ornithologist reading this?

Perche

I don't know about pigeons, but California has been releasing one million sterile mosquitoes per week over 20 weeks since mid-July, 20 million in all, as an experiment to drastically reduce the mosquito population. This is a test experiment which if it works, will be tried in Africa as a malaria control project, and in South America to control the mosquito born Zika virus.

KLouis

Yes, I know: I've been working in this very area since the late 80s (mossies, not pigeons)

Boraxo

I can't use the language I'd prefer, but really nobody give a hoot what UNESCO thinks. Tourists will always come to Venice so long as it remains Venice. Turnstyles would turn it into a disney-type place that has zero appeal. The UN is a joke, in fact you would probably get more tourists from the USA if you gave them the one-finger salute.

Of course there are crowds. So what? Every great city has them.

Perche

I thought this article was interesting because of the picture of Venice. Last month a bunch of Venetians marched, all carrying suitcases and signs saying they were moving out of the city unless tourism is brought under control. The article also mentions Fountain of Trevi, and they actually have set up, in effect, turnstiles. They hired people for the high season count and limit the number of people allowed to get close to it. This was prompted by tourists recently developing a habit of jumping into it, nude, as if the work of art was a swimming pool. It's OK to through coins in there, but not yourself.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/worl...icle-1.3393891

Perche

In the NY Times article linked to upthread, "Venice, Invaded by Tourists, Risks Becoming ‘Disneyland on the Sea," they discussed how unnatural and unpleasant it can be to visit Venice as a day tripper, from a cruise ship, or during the summer when it is overcrowded.

There was an earlier article linked to below that provides the 180 degree opposite perspective, of how Venice is magical, and unlike any other place in the world. A city almost too beautiful to exist, if visited in a normal way, not as a stop over on the way to somewhere else, or from a cruise ship, and not during the high tourist season.

The article describes the real, Venice. As Goethe wrote, "Water supplies the place of streets, squares, and promenades. Venice was forced to become a new creature, and thus can only be compared to itself. The Grand Canal, winding like a serpent is second to no other street in the world, and nothing can be compared to the space in front of St. Mark's Square, I mean that mirror of water which is encompassed by Venice."

As the article upthread indicated, Venice can be pretty bad when packed with tourists during high season, and not too many people will enjoy the experience. But when you see Venice as it truly is when not invaded, what you experience is well described in this companion NY Times article. It is almost impossible to visit Venice in this manner, and not make plans to go back again and again.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/tr...e.html?mcubz=0