No cruise is good news for tourists in empty Venice

A city that has long battled with the consequences of too much tourism has been finding that too little can be equally painful

Venice’s status as one of Europe’s most popular destinations relies on visitors from the US, Japan and China, most of whom are barred from entering the EU. Picture: Stefano Manfredi

The Italian ticket inspector stood her ground as a grumpy, middle-aged man stared defiantly at her — his face bare in defiance of the cover-up rule she was trying to enforce.

Eventually, as she refused to budge, he slipped on a crumpled mask with the air of a chastened child.

The scene, which I witnessed on a train last week as it headed towards Venice’s Santa Lucia station, confirmed what any visitor this northern summer will see: not just the government but also the population are behaving with discipline towards the coronavirus — especially in the northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto.

Both were hit harder than anywhere else in Europe in COVID-19’s first wave but have been spared the surges that have hit Spain and France.

People stay distanced from other in gondolas and other boats as they watch the film The Prestige at Barch-in, a floating drive-in in Venice, late last month. Picture: AFP

For a country that depends on foreign tourism, the virus has had a devastating effect.

The status of Venice as one of Europe’s most popular destinations is based to a great extent on visitors from the US, Japan and now China, most of whom are barred from entering the EU.

As a result, a city that has long battled with the consequences of too much tourism has been finding that too little can be equally painful.

Yet potential visitors should not think they will have St Mark’s square to themselves. The vaporetti plying their way down the canals are surprisingly full of people who had rushed to La Serenissima on hearing that it was empty.

To mangle a turn of phrase, rumours of the death of Venice have been greatly exaggerated.

However, the usual summer hell has not descended, because the cruise ships — which have poured a large part of the estimated 30 million people each year into what is, in effect, a living museum with a permanent population of just 260,000 — no longer tower over the palazzi and churn up the lagoon, in the process causing damage to the delicate fabric of the city.

This year, the cruise ships have stayed away and look set to continue to do so. Two of the largest operators, MSC Cruises and Costa Cruises, decided last week that their first Mediterranean cruises after a months-long hiatus caused by the pandemic would depart from Trieste, on the northeast coast, and from Genoa, on the northwest coast — larger ports where social distancing is easier.

A gondoliers walks past a row of boats in Venice. Picture: AFP

The announcement was hailed in Venice by No Grandi Navi (No Big Ships), a campaigning group. “This isn’t the final victory. But it’s an important step and we believe it opens a new phase of negotiations in which the game has changed,” Marta Sottoriva, a member of its committee, told the news service Agence France-Presse.

The workers at Venice’s maritime terminal — usually home to 30 cruise operators — see things differently and are threatening to protest about the threat to the livelihoods of everyone from baggage handlers and tug operators to hotel workers, who rely directly or indirectly on the business.

Elsewhere in Italy, the virus is having a less drastic effect. Adriatic resorts such as Rimini and Milano Marittima, which live mostly off Italian tourists, together with car loads of Germans and Austrians, have been remarkably bustling this month, although some hotels remain dark.

The rows of ombrelloni along the beach may, in most cases, be spaced a little more widely than usual but they retain their inexplicable appeal to the locals. The shallow waters remain packed with Italians, standing in characteristic pose, telefonino clamped to an ear.

Fantastical ideas put forward in the depths of the pandemic for clear plastic boxes on the beach within which sunbathers could social distance appear — thankfully — to have been left on the drawing board.

The Times