SOAVE, Italy —Finally a cruise ship nosing down the Giudecca canal in Venice on Thursday for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, despite repeated government pledges to reroute such huge vessels due to safety and environmental concerns.
The 92,409-ton MSC Orchestra passed through the basin at the entrance of St. Mark’s Canal around 6 a.m. under tugboat and port authority escort, ahead of the first post-pandemic cruise ship departure from Venice, scheduled for Saturday.
Its arrival comes two years and a day after the MSC Opera struck a dock and a tourist riverboat in the same canal, an event that underlined safety concerns among anti-cruise ship campaigners.
Protests are amping up against the renewal of cruise traffic, just 2 ½ months after Italy’s culture minister, Dario Franceschini vowed a definitive stop to the passage of big ships through the heart of the city. They include an open letter by the Venice Heritage non-profit organization, signed by celebrities including musician Mick Jagger, actress Tilda Swinton, filmmaker Wes Anderson, and director Francis Ford Coppola.
“Venice is suffering, and we, citizens of the world, can’t remain deaf to her cries,″ read the open letter — addressed to Italian officials including Premier Mario Draghi, members of his Cabinet, the Venice mayor, and the Veneto governor.
“This fragile entity, (a) world heritage site, cannot survive without our help,” the letter added.
The signatories laid out 10 priorities for the city, including a stop to the passage of huge ships through Venice and better management of mass tourism, which saw 25 million tourists visit the city in 2019 before the pandemic shut down international tourism.
The Italian government in March passed a decree aimed at definitively blocking cruise ship traffic through Venice, leaving many with the mistaken impression that the ban was already in effect.
Cruise industry officials say the current government seems the most focused on resolving the issue once and for all.
Cruise industry officials have told the news agency, an industrial port within the Venice lagoon, currently does not have suitable facilities to serve as a passenger terminal. In addition, for it to become even a temporary solution for larger ships, the current docks would have to be extended and a channel would have to be dredged.
