Do not visit Venice by cruise ship

quisquilievarie:

Cruises may sink when they collide with something, but there is a place in the world where this works the other way around. Venice is sinking under the destructive effects of these giants.

photo source

Venetians have repeatedly thrown themselves into water to try and stop cruises like the one in the picture above from reaching their city. They have been fined for doing so. But they keep doing it. By the way, that picture is not photoshopped.

Every day, up to 60,000 tourists roam through the streets of this city, which only has 55,000 inhabitants. It is not surprising that UNESCO has expressed concern over the “exceptionally high tourism pressure on the city of Venice”. 

About 30,000 of those tourists come from cruises. 

When each of these cruises arrives to Venice, it looks like a remake of Godzilla, with a huge monster emerging from the sea to make its way through the city. If you have been there, you might have asked yourself “What if one of the maneuvers of that big ship went wrong?”. 

But that’s not the reason why Venetians are taking to water to stop these ships. You would assume they are fed up with tourists – which is true, they definitely are – but there’s more than that.

As you might imagine, these cruises are a huge source of pollution. But pollution is not even the main problem here. 

The problem is that Venice is sinking. With global warming and the rise in sea level, amidst ever more frequent and intensive flooding, it is clear that this city cannot look to the future optimistically.

Venice won’t be there forever. But it can be helped, we can protect it and if we can’t save it, we can at least make this process slower. 

Nature itself seems to try to protect it. This lagoon has always been filled by large watery mud-banks covered with vegetation which acted as a natural barrier from tides. Now this natural barrier is disappearing. A cruise can displace up to 90,000 tonnes of water, this stirs up the lagoon’s sediment, completely changing its seabed and making this city vulnerable to the sea. 

As the environmental scientist Jane da Mosto has said, “Cruise ships are literally killing Venice. They are destroying the lagoon, and are a major source of air pollution, as well as the tip of the iceberg of mass tourism that is drowning the Venetian civilisation.“

If you care about this unique city, if you want to preserve its beauty and let future generations enjoy it as well, please don’t buy a ticket for one of those cruises. 

Please. Don’t let Venice die.