Venice!

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                                               Venice gets first female gondolier



                                       Mother- of- two breaks into 900- year- old club
 





(ANSA) - Venice,
June 26, 2009

- Venice on Friday got its first official female gondolier when a married mother-of-two passed her test, breaking into one of Italy's last male bastions.

Giorgia Boscolo, 23, passed a gondoliering course introduced by the city council in 2007 to become the first certified woman gondolier in the lagoon in nine centuries.

While she waits to finish her apprenticeship, Boscolo will be able to ferry passengers around as a sort of 'second captain'.

''I'm immensely happy and proud but today my day starts like every other, taking the children to school,'' she told ANSA.

Boscolo inherited her passion for navigating Venice's canals from her gondolier father, Dante, when she was seven.

''I've always loved gondolas, and unlike my three sisters I preferred to punt with my father instead of going out with my friends''.

She dismissed concerns from male gondoliers that she isn't strong enough to handle the 11-metre-long, 500-kilogramme boats, saying ''childbirth is much more difficult''.

Boscolo's father said he was happy for his daughter.

''I still think being a gondolier is a man's job because it requires a lot of physical effort,'' he admitted, ''but I'm sure that with experience Giorgia will be able to do it easily''.

Dante's colleague, Roberto, said: ''Giorgia deserved it because she worked really hard, coming along with us in her free time to learn the trade''.

Before the establishment of the 'school' for gondoliers, the profession was passed down from father to son.

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TWO OTHER WOMEN FAILED TO MAKE THE GRADE.



Two other women enrolled on the course failed to match Boscolo.

Neither Alessandra Taddei, a local woman who belongs to the Venetian rowing club, nor German-American Alexandra Hai, who has fought a 12-year battle for the right to become a gondolier, passed the test.

Even before the official course was launched in 2007, Hai had taken the gondoliers' test four times, steering her boat along canals and performing tricky manoeuvres. But each time she failed, saying that examiners were ''overly strict''.

She has accused the 425-strong association of Venetian gondoliers of deliberately keeping her out because of her sex, but the association has refuted this claim fiercely, saying she simply isn't good enough.

Hai, 42, did however win a small victory when a court upheld her right to ferry hotel guests about in a gondola even though she has no licence. She is employed by a Venetian hotel to offer precisely this service.

There are 40 places on the gondolier course, which lasts six months.

It includes 400 hours of instruction in using the distinctive single oar that is used to propel a gondola through the water.

Students must learn how to steer the banana-shaped boats from the back and the front. They also have to take English courses, study sailing law and demonstrate perfect knowledge of Venice's canals and landmarks.



Photo: Boscolo.

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                                                  Venice rolls out city-wide wi-fi 






By Duncan Kennedy
BBC News, Rome
July 4, 2009 

The watery wonderland is merging computers and culture.

The Italian city of Venice has launched what is believed to be the most extensive, wireless internet system anywhere in Europe.

Ten thousand kilometres of cables have been laid, establishing wi-fi hotspots just about everywhere in the city.

The authorities spent around $15m (£9m) building the system.

It is fast - between 20 and 100 megabits per second - and for those who live there it is free. Tourists will need to pay about $7 a day.

Known for its ancient museums, art galleries and canals, Venice's mayor says the system will enable the development of e-commerce and cable television.

Places like San Francisco, Singapore and Stockholm are already among the best connected cities.

Now Venice is showing off its new internet capabilities, merging computers and culture in this most unique of settings.

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                                                 Tourists camp out in St Mark's



                                        But young Spaniards move tent after warning






 (ANSA)
- Venice,
July 13, 2009

- A group of Spanish tourists camped out in St Mark's Square Sunday night but packed up and left when a local told them it wasn't a good idea.

The young tourists pitched tent under the square's famous bell tower, apparently eluding surveillance.

They were fast asleep when a passerby saw the tent at around 3 AM. He woke them up and told them they shouldn't be there.

A police patrol arrived at the scene as they were carrying their gear to a more suitable spot.

Given their apparent good faith, the police took no action.

Venice has recently stepped up efforts to lessen the impact of tourism on the city and clean up its public spaces.

It has purged pigeons from St Mark's Square and stopped tourists snacking in its historic piazzas.

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                                              Italy hosts climate change centre



                              World's biggest research lab announced in Venice summit






 (ANSA)
- Venice,
July 13, 2009

- Venice is to host a major new research centre on climate change staffed by experts from around the world, Italian Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo announced on Monday.

Addressing a climate conference in the Lagoon City, the minister said the complex would be located on the Venetian island of San Giorgio Maggiore. Over 100 scientists from around the planet will work at the centre, which will be the largest climate change research laboratory in the world, she said.

The announcement came on the first day of a summit tasked with laying the foundations for the Fifth Assessment Report on climate change by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Established by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization, the IPCC aims to provide a clear scientific view on the current state of climate change and its potential consequences.

The summit, which runs until Friday, is being attended by 200 scientists and sector experts who will try to agree on an outline for the report, the final version of which is not due until 2013. ''These preparatory sessions are perhaps even more important than the report itself because in the years before it is finalized, governments and the United Nations will have urgent need of its scientific suggestions and updated assessments,'' said Prestigiacomo. She said the next five days were particularly crucial in view of a UN summit in Copenhagen this December, which is tasked with agreeing on a successor to the Kyoto protocol when it expires in 2012. IPCC Chairman Rajendra K. Pachauri, who spoke at the conference inauguration, said he was ''optimistic'' about the summit in Copenhagen. He said his own country, India, was ''taking the question of climate change very seriously''. However, he added: ''India produces a ton of carbon dioxide emissions per person each year compared to 20 tons in the US. Our concern is that if reduction policies are implemented equally everywhere, people in India will struggle to escape poverty''. India, along with China, is in the forefront of emerging economies resistant to a ''flat-rate'' global deal on capping carbon emissions.

They say industrialized countries are far greater polluters, and fear a planet-wide cap on emissions would block their economic development.

The Venice summit comes a few days after leaders from the world's eight richest nations pledged to cut their emissions by 80% by 2050 and to work towards a global reduction of 50% by the same date. The promise was not backed by emerging nations, although all attending the summit agreed to restrict global temperature rises to no more than two degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels, thought to be the point at which climate change becomes irreversible.

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              VENICE LAGOON






                                                           

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ISLAND OF SAN GIORGIO MAGGIORE

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                                                Seafront honour for Sophia Loren



                                     Adriatic resort names road after Italian screen icon






 (ANSA)
- Venice,
July 16, 2009

- Sophia Loren on Thursday said she was ''very emotional'' at a ceremony in the Adriatic resort of Jesolo, which has named a section of its seafront after the Italian screen idol.

The resort chooses a different star to honour each year on a tract of road known as 'Seafront of the Stars'.

''I've already left my handprint in Los Angeles, but it wasn't Italy and there weren't Italians around me,'' she said ''This is very emotional for me and very important. I hope that when people cross this street they will send me a kiss: it's a street as beautiful as a cinema set''.

Speaking to journalists at the seaside town, 74-year-old Loren said the current generation of girls trying to break into showbusiness are more clued up than she was at 16.

''The girls of today know what they're doing,'' she said.

''I don't need to give advice to (today's girls). They are deciding their own lives, they certainly aren't like I was at 16,'' she said.

Loren stars as the mother of movie maestro Federico Fellini in Rob Marshall's upcoming star-studded film version of Broadway musical Nine - a role she says Marshall conceived with her in mind.

She said she is also set to play her own mother in an upcoming TV movie about her life, although the role of the young Sophia has yet to be cast.

Loren was born in Rome on September 20, 1934 but her family moved to Pozzuoli, near Naples, to live with her grandmother during the war.

She shot to fame in 1955 with the film Pane, Amore e ... with Vittorio De Sica, which was shot in Sorrento, and went on to have a hugely successful Hollywood career, starring in a string of classic movies with actors like Cary Grant, Clark Gable and Marlon Brando.

Loren was the first person to win an Oscar in the leading role category for a film that was not in English with Vittorio De Sica's 1960 drama La Ciociara (Two Women). She also received an honorary Oscar for her career in 1991.

Asked on Thursday whether the future might hold a third Oscar for her, she said ''you never know''.

The annual initiative in Jesolo began in 2001 and the first star chosen to lend their name to the seafront was the late actor Alberto Sordi.

Since then the promenade has been dedicated to Gina Lollobrigida; opera signers Andrea Bocelli and Katia Ricciarelli; ballet dancer Carla Fracci and legendary TV presenter Mike Bongiorno; actors Lino Banfi and Mara Venier; and, last year, actors Christian De Sica and Nancy Brilli.

Those who have had the seafront named after them have left imprints of their hands in plaster which are later placed on exhibit at the Kursaal museum on the Jesolo Lido.

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