Posted on 08/30/2016 11:30:56 AM PDT by C19fan
A deadly plague haunts Venice, and it’s not the cholera to which Thomas Mann’s character Gustav von Aschenbach succumbed in the Nobel laureate’s 1912 novella “Death in Venice.” A rapacious tourist monoculture threatens Venice’s existence, decimating the historic city and turning the Queen of the Adriatic into a Disneyfied shopping mall.
Millions of tourists pour into Venice’s streets and canals each year, profoundly altering the population and the economy, as many native citizens are banished from the island city and those who remain have no choice but to serve in hotels, restaurants and shops selling glass souvenirs and carnival masks.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
According to a Rick Steves episode on Venice, the native population of the city is declining because the young folks are moving elsewhere for better jobs and opportunities.
I actually wanted to go to Venice and checked into it. Dam expensive!
It might tip over, like Guam!
Neither one. When I was there (jan) It was clean and typical of Italian tourist destinations - lots of old very fancy buildings and museums. Not crowded in January.
Exactly. Be careful what you wish for, Venice, or you might just “preserve” yourself right into a waterlogged oblivion.
Venice is kind of like the Mississippi/Atchafalaya rivers. The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers has said that one day the Mississippi will merge with the Atchafalaya and will make New Orleans/Baton Rouge become ghost towns. They also said that they are simply trying to delay the inevitable.
Venice is sinking and will eventually be swallowed up by the sea. Engineers are simply trying to delay the inevitable because they realize the tourist value to the economy.
Quick, who said that about Guam?
Click and drag here for the answer: Hank Johnson, (D, GA)
Specifically pipefitting.
So something like the Venetian canal or the Bellagio fountains are right up my alley.
I was at Vegas about 10 years ago and wanted specifically to check out these hotels. To see the buildings and these attractions.
The canal was a complete let down.
Might make a good picture, but that is all. Doubt if I stayed in there even 5 minutes.
You can do it on the cheap by just walking it. Train in in the morning leave at night.
Vegas would be more authentic if they would float some dead fish and garbage in their lagoon.
Both.
President Grant went to Venice and found it charming. He said it would be “quite livable if drained.” Grant thought like an Army Engineer.
Don’t they still make venetian blinds there?
How do you make a venetian blind?
You poke him in the eye.
Good one!
At night the city is empty, except for the locals. It's an entirely different city, and a nice place to relax in!
LOL! Probably!
anyone else hear the adagietto of Mahler’s 5th the moment you read the first sentence?
Oh, boohoo. Just 20 years ago the place where we live was an idyllic small town where just about everyone was friendly to each other. Now it is an apartment dwellers’ paradise with loads of good for nothing welfare recipients and hundreds of hijab wearing women driving new cars with six kids in tow who can’t understand why a grocery store clerk can’t cash her $6000 government assistance check.
I totally get it. Beau just retired from 30+ years in Construction. Lots of CEMENT, lots of roads and suburbs built, drainage systems, waste water treatment facilities...
We stop and look at EVERYTHING when we’re out and about - because in our area of the state, he’s pretty much built it all!
“If not for tourism there is no reason for Venice to exist.”
The glass factories on the Island of Murano would beg to differ.
They continue to make some of the best hand blown glass in the world. (And no, not the Goomba tourist crap, although there is plenty of that there. The real stuff — Segusso, Rosin, etc.)
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