Coronavirus cloud has silver linings in Venice
A positive side-effect of Venice’s tourism hiatus is the canals are no longer murky green.
Before the COVID-19 lockdown of Italy, Venice was facing problems of a different order.
Popularity was its nemesis, causing over-tourism, which in turn meant tremendous stress on an already fragile environment. Congestion taxes, much debated and delayed, had finally been decided before worldwide panic set in. The new Venice Tourist tax was to be introduced on July 1 and fully implemented from January 1 next year, from €3 ($5.50) during low season to €10 in high season. Let’s assume there will be a rethink when doors are reopened. I think it should be higher but maybe it will be scrapped as part of a comeback strategy.
Travel is not, of course, just about flights, tours and accommodation. Its tentacles reach into many corners, such as the earnings of suppliers of produce, souvenir sellers, casual workers in restaurants that attract tourists, hotel drivers and housekeeping staff.
But sometimes an unexpected hiatus can have a silver lining. Air quality has improved in Venice and its lagoons and canals, as can be seen in this photograph, are no longer a murky green, polluted with diesel and stirred with sediment.
For the first time in many years, the water is clear enough for fish to be seen swarming. Ducks and swans are gliding undisturbed but reports of frolicking dolphins have come unstuck, as pictures shared on social media have proven to be from Cagliari in Sardinia, about 740km from Venice, as the waterbird flies.
Still, it helps to believe in magic in such troubled times as we watch and wait, just like we did with the Bali bombings in 2002 and SARS in 2003. Great deals abounded after those events and off we went.
Who knows when the COVID-19 crisis will abate but what’s certain is that when it does, Venice will be waiting.
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